Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 1 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Dell™ PERC 6/i, PERC 6/E and CERC 6/i User’s Guide Model UCP-60 , UCP-61, and UCC-60 w w w. d e l l . c o m | s u p p o r t . d e l l .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 2 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Notes, Notices, and Cautions NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your system. NOTICE: A NOTICE warns against either potential damage to hardware or of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. NOTE: Refer to the Product Information Guide that came with your system for complete information about U.S.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 3 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Contents A CAUTION: Safety Instructions . SAFETY: General . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System . . . . . . 12 Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 SAFETY: Battery Disposal 1 Overview Scope of the User’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 4 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Initializing Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Fast Inititialization of Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Disk Roaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Disk Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created on PERC 5 Controllers . . . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 5 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Redundant Path With Load Balancing Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Using Replace Member and Revertible Hot Spares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Patrol Read . 3 Patrol Read Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Patrol Read Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Installaing and Configuring Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 6 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 4 Installing the Drivers . Installing Windows Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creating the Driver Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pre-Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . Installing the Driver During a Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Operating System Installation. . . . . . Installing the Driver During a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Installation . . 64 64 . . . . . . 66 . . . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 7 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing NetWare Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing the NetWare Driver in a New NetWare System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing or Updating the NetWare Driver in an Existing NetWare System 5 . . . . . . . Configuring and Managing RAID . 76 77 . . . . . . . 77 . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 8 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Physical Disk Management Setting LED Blinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Creating Global Hot Spares . . . . . . . . . . . . Replacing an Online Physical Disk 105 . . . . . . . . 106 . . . . . . . 107 . . . . . . . . . 107 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Stopping Background Initialization . Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk . . .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 9 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Linux Operating System Errors Controller LED Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Drive Carrier LED Indicators . B Regulatory Notices 128 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C Corporate Contact Details (Taiwan Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 11 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM CAUTION: Safety Instructions Use the following safety guidelines to help ensure your own personal safety and to help protect your system and working environment from potential damage. CAUTION: There is a danger of a new battery exploding if it is incorrectly installed. Replace the battery only with the same or equivalent type recommended by the manufacturer. Refer to "SAFETY: Battery Disposal" on page 13.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 12 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System Before you remove the system covers, perform the following steps in the sequence indicated. CAUTION: Except as expressly otherwise instructed in Dell documentation, only trained service technicians are authorized to remove the system cover and access any of the components inside the system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 13 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM You can also take the following steps to prevent damage from electrostatic discharge: • When unpacking a static-sensitive component from its shipping carton, do not remove the component from the antistatic packing material until you are ready to install the component. Just before unwrapping the antistatic package, be sure to discharge static electricity from your body.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 15 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Overview The Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 family of controllers and the Dell Cost-Effective RAID Controller (CERC) 6/i offer redundant array of independent disks (RAID) control capabilities. The PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Serial Attached SCSI(SAS) RAID controllers support Dell-qualified SAS and SATA devices. The controllers are designed to provide reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant disk subsystem management.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 16 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Each controller supports up to 64 virtual disks. NOTE: The number of virtual disks supported by the PERC 6/i and the CERC 6/i cards is limited by the configuration supported by the system. PCI Architecture PERC 6 controllers support a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI-E) x8 host interface. CERC 6/i Modular controller supports a PCI-E x4 host.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 17 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM RAID Description RAID is a group of independent physical disks that provides high performance by increasing the number of drives used for saving and accessing data. A RAID disk subsystem improves I/O performance and data availability. The physical disk group appears to the host system either as a single storage unit or multiple logical units. Data throughput improves because several disks are accessed simultaneously.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 18 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM RAID Terminology Disk Striping Disk striping allows you to write data across multiple physical disks instead of just one physical disk. Disk striping involves partitioning each physical disk storage space into stripes of the following sizes: 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, 128 KB, 256KB, 512KB, and 1024KB. These stripes are interleaved in a repeated sequential manner. The part of the stripe on a single physical disk is called a stripe element.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 19 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Disk mirroring provides 100 percent redundancy, but is expensive because each physical disk in the system must be duplicated. Figure 2-2 shows an example of disk mirroring. NOTE: Mirrored physical disks improve read performance by read load balance. Figure 2-2.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 20 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 2-3.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 21 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM About PERC 6 and CERC 6i Controllers This section describes the features of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 and Dell Cost-Effective RAID Controller (CERC) 6/i family of controllers, such as the configuration options, disk array performance, redundant array of independent disks (RAID) management utilities, and operating system software drivers.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 22 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 3-1.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 23 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 3-1.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 24 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 3-1. PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Comparisons (continued) Specification PERC 6/E Adapter PERC 6/i Adapter PERC 6/i Integrated CERC 6/i Integrated Revertible Hot Spares Supported Yes Yes Yes N/A Redundant Path Support Yes N/A N/A N/A a b The PERC 6/i adapter supports a battery backup unit (BBU) on selected systems only. For additional information, see the documentation that shipped with the system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 25 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM A SMART failure is also referred to as a predicted failure. There are numerous factors that relate to predicted physical disk failures, such as a bearing failure, a broken read/write head, and changes in spin-up rate. In addition, there are factors related to read/write surface failure, such as seek error rate and excessive bad sectors. For information on physical disk status, see "Disk Roaming" on page 27.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 26 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Full Inititialization of Virtual Disks Performing a full initialization on a virtual disk overwrites all blocks and destroys any data that previously existed on the virtual disk. A full initialization eliminates the need for that virtual disk to undergo a background initialization and can be performed directly after the creation of a virtual disk. During full initialization, the host is not be able to access the virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 27 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM By default, consistency check automatically corrects mirror or parity inconsistencies. However, you can enable the Abort Consistency Check on Error feature on the controller using Dell™ OpenManage™ Storage Management. With the Abort Consistency Check on Error setting enabled, consistency check notifies if any inconsistency is found and aborts instead of automatically correcting the error.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 28 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM When a controller detects a physical disk with a pre-existing configuration, it flags the physical disk as foreign, and it generates an alert indicating that a foreign disk was detected. CAUTION: Do not attempt disk roaming during RLM or CE. This causes loss of the virtual disk. Perform the following steps to use disk migration. 1 Turn off the system that contains the source controller.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 29 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created on SAS 6/iR Controllers The migration of virtual disks created on the SAS 6/iR family of controllers can be migrated to PERC 6 and CERC 6i.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 30 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 4 Boot the system and import the foreign configuration that is detected. You can do this in two ways as described below: • Press to automatically import the foreign configuration • Enter the BIOS Configuration Utility and navigate to the Foreign Configuration View NOTE: For more information on BIOS Configuration Utility, see "Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility" on page 79.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 31 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Battery Warranty Information The BBU offers an inexpensive way to protect the data in cache memory. The lithium-ion battery provides a way to store more power in a smaller form factor than previous batteries. The BBU shelf life has been preset to last six months from the time of shipment without power. To prolong battery life: • Deploy the BBU within six months of ship date. • Do not store or operate the BBU above 60°C.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 32 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Learn Cycle Completion Time Frame The time frame for completion of a learn cycle is a function of the battery charge capacity and the discharge/charge currents used.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 33 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Conditions Under Which Write-Back is Employed Write-Back caching is used under all conditions in which the battery is present and in good condition. Conditions Under Which Write-Through is Employed Write-Through caching is used under all conditions in which the battery is missing or in a low-charge state. Low-charge state is when the battery is not capable of maintaining data for at least 24 hours in the case of a power loss.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 34 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Reconfiguring Virtual Disks There are two different methods to reconfigure RAID virtual disks — RAID Level Migration and Online Capacity Expansion. RAID Level Migrations (RLM) involve the conversion of a virtual disk to a different RAID level and Online Capacity Expansions (OCE) refer to increasing the capacity of a virtual disk by adding drives and/or migrating to a different RAID level.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 35 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 3-2. RAID Level Migration (continued) Source Target RAID RAID Level Level Required Number of Physical Disks (Beginning) Number of Capacity Description Physical Expansion Possible Disks (End) RAID 1 RAID 5 2 3 or more Yes Removes redundancy while doubling capacity. RAID 1 RAID 6 2 4 or more Yes Two drives are required to be added for distributed parity data.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 36 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Fault Tolerance Features Table 3-3 lists the features that provide fault tolerance to prevent data loss in case of a failed physical disk. Table 3-3.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 37 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Failed Physical Disk Detection The controller automatically detects and rebuilds failed physical disks when a new drive is placed in the slot where the failed drive resided or when an applicable hot spare is present. Automatic rebuilds can be performed transparently with hot spares. If you have configured hot spares, the controllers automatically try to use them to rebuild failed physical disks.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 38 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Automatic Replace Member with Predicted Failure A Replace Member operation can occur when there is a SMART predictive failure reporting on a drive in a virtual disk. The automatic Replace Member is initiated when the first SMART error occurs on a physical disk that is part of a virtual disk. The target drive needs to be a hot spare that qualifies as a rebuild drive.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 39 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 3 Patrol Read adjusts the amount of controller resources dedicated to Patrol Read operations based on outstanding disk I/O. For example, if the system is busy processing I/O operation, then Patrol Read uses fewer resources to allow the I/O to take a higher priority.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 41 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installaing and Configuring Hardware CAUTION: Only trained service technicians are authorized to remove the system cover and access any of the components inside the system. Before performing any procedure, refer to the safety and warranty information that shipped with your system for complete information about safety precautions, working inside the computer, and protecting against electrostatic discharge.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 42 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-1.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 43 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-2. Installing a PERC 6/i Adapter 1 4 2 3 1 bracket screw 3 PCI-e slot 2 PERC 6/i adapter 4 filler brackets 7 Tighten the bracket screw, if any, or use the system’s retention clips to secure the controller to the system’s chassis. 8 For PERC 6/E adapter, replace the cover of the system. For more information on closing the system, refer to your system’s Hardware Owner’s Manual.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 44 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 9 Connect the cable from the external enclosure to the controller. See Figure 4-3. Figure 4-3. Connecting the Cable From the External Enclosure 1 2 3 1 connector on the controller 3 cable from the external enclosure 2 system 4 memory module 10 For PERC 6/i adapter, connect the cables from the backplane of the system to the controller. The primary SAS connector is white and the secondary SAS connector is black. See Figure 4-4.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 45 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-4. Connecting Cables to the Controller 1 3 2 1 cable 3 PERC 6/i adapter 2 connectory 4 memory module 11 Replace the cover of the system. For more information on closing the system, see your system’s Hardware Owner’s Manual. 12 Reconnect the power cables(s) and network cables, and turn on the system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 46 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 1 Unpack the TBBU and follow all antistatic procedures. NOTICE: When transporting a sensitive component, first place it in an antistatic container or packaging. NOTE: Handle all sensitive components in a static-safe area. If possible, use antistatic floor pads and work bench pads.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 47 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 5 Mount the memory module in the controller memory socket like a standard DIMM. For more information, see "Installing the DIMM on a PERC 6/E Adapter" on page 47. The memory module is mounted flush with the board so that the memory module is parallel to the board when installed. 6 Press the memory module firmly into the memory socket.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 48 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-6.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 49 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Transferring a TBBU Between Controllers The TBBU provides uninterrupted power supply to the memory module for up to 72 hours (for a 256 MB of controller cache memory) backup power and up to 48 hours (for a 512 MB cache) if power supply is unexpectedly interrupted while cached data is still present. If the controller fails as a result of a power failure, you can move the TBBU to a new controller and recover the data.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 50 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Removing the PERC 6/E and PERC 6/i Adapters NOTE: In the event that the SAS cable is accidentally pulled when the system is operational, reconnect the cable and see the online help of your Open Manage storage management application for the required recovery steps. NOTE: Some PERC 6/i adapters installed on a Dell workstation or Dell SC systems do not have a BBU.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 51 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-7. Removing the PERC 6/E Adapter 4 1 2 3 1 battery 3 PERC 6/E adapter 2 memory module 4 bracket screw NOTE: For more information on removing peripherals installed in the system’s PCI-E slots, see the Hardware Owner’s Manual that shipped with the system. 5 For removing a PERC 6/i adapter, determine whether the dirty cache LED on the controller is illuminated.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 52 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-8. Removing the PERC 6/i Adapter 1 2 3 1 bracket screw 2 PERC 6/i 3 Dirty Cache LED location 6 Disconnect the data cables and battery cable from the PERC 6/i. Remove any retention mechanism, such as a bracket screw, that might be holding the PERC 6/i in the system, and gently lift the controller from the system’s PCI-E slot.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 53 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Removing the DIMM and Battery from a PERC 6/E Adapter NOTE: The TBBU on the PERC 6/E adapter consists of a DIMM and battery backup unit. This section describes how to remove the TBBU from a PERC 6/E adapter that is currently installed in a system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 54 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM CAUTION: Running a system without the system cover installed can cause damage due to improper cooling. 3 Remove the TBBU assembly from the adapter by pressing down on the tabs at each edge of the DIMM connector and lifting the TBBU off the adapter. 4 Disconnect the battery cable from the DIMM. 5 Detach the battery from the DIMM by pressing out on the battery clips inserted through the DIMM and rotating the battery off the DIMM. See Figure 4-10.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 55 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Disconnecting the BBU from a PERC 6/i Adapter or a PERC 6/i Integrated Controller NOTE: A PERC 6/i adapter installed in a Dell workstation or a Dell SC system does not have a BBU. NOTE: Batteries with low charges can be detected and recharged. The battery must first be charged and the system must be restarted for the battery to be active again.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 56 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Setting up Redundant Path Support on the PERC 6/E Adapter The PERC 6/E adapter can detect and use redundant paths to drives contained in enclosures. With redundant paths to the same port of a device, if one path fails, another path can be used to communicate between the controller and the device. For more information about redundant paths, see "Redundant Path With Load Balancing Support" on page 37.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 57 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-12 displays Redundant path Storage Configuration with two enclosures. Figure 4-12.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 58 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Figure 4-13 displays Redundant path Storage Configuration with three enclosures Figure 4-13. Redundant Path Support Configuration With Three Enclosures Storage Storage Storage Storage Storage Storage A single PERC 6/E adapter can support up to three disk storage enclosures in a redundant path configuration. NOTE: Ensure that the latest firmware version is installed on your storage controller.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 59 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Perform the following steps to configure the hardware to utilize redundantpaths on the PERC 6/E adapter: 1 Set up an enclosure on the PERC 6/E adapter. 2 Connect two SAS cables from the OUT ports on your PERC 6/E adapter to the IN ports of the external enclosure. See Figure 4-3 to view the connection of the cables from the external enclosure to the PERC 6/E adapter.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 60 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 4 Open the release lever to disconnect the Modular Storage Controller Card edge connector from the system board connector as illustrated in Figure 4-14. 5 Lift the Modular Storage Controller Card straight up from the system board as illustrated in Figure 4-14. NOTICE: Do not apply pressure to the internal SAS port connectors as they could be damaged. NOTICE: Electrostatic discharge can damage sensitive components.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 61 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing the Modular Storage Controller Card To install your new CERC 6/i Modular Storage Controller: 1 Unpack the new CERC 6/i Modular Storage Controller Card and check for damage. NOTE: If the card is damaged, contact Dell. 2 Place the Modular Storage Controller Card onto the System Board.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 63 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing the Drivers The Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 and Dell Cost-Effective RAID Controller (CERC) 6/i family of controllers require software drivers to operate with the supported operating systems. This chapter contains the procedures for installing the drivers for the following operating systems.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 64 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing Windows Driver This section documents the procedures used to install the Windows driver. Creating the Driver Media Perform the following steps to create the driver media: 1 Browse to the download section for the system from the Dell Support website at support.dell.com. 2 Locate and download the latest PERC 6 controller driver to the system. 3 Follow the instructions on the Dell Support website for extracting the driver to the media.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 65 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 4 From the list of drivers displayed, select the driver that you require. Select the self-extracting zip file and click Run. Copy the driver to a diskette drive, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Repeat this step for all the drivers that you require.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 66 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing the Driver During a Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Operating System Installation Perform the following steps to install the driver during operating system installation. 1 Boot the system using the Microsoft Windows XP/Microsoft Windows Server 2003 media. 2 When the message Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver appears, press the key immediately.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 67 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 3 The system prompts for the media to be inserted. Insert the installation media and browse to the proper location. 4 Select the appropriate PERC 6 controller from the list, click Next and continue installation. NOTE: Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista operating systems include native support for the PERC 6 and CERC 6i RAID controller. The driver is automatically installed.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 68 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 8 Click Next. 9 The wizard detects and installs the appropriate device drivers for the new RAID controller. 10 Click Finish to complete the installation. 11 Reboot the system when prompted. Updating an Existing Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Vista Driver Perform the following steps to update the Microsoft Windows driver for the PERC 6 controller already installed on your system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 69 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 10 Follow the steps in the wizard and browse to the location of the driver files. 11 Select the INF file from the USB key or other media. 12 Click Next and continue the installation steps in the Wizard. 13 Click Finish to exit the wizard and reboot the system for the changes to take place. NOTE: Dell provides the Dell Update Package (DUP) to update drivers on systems running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 70 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 3 Use the dd command to create a driver update disk. Use the appropriate image for the purpose. dd if= of=/dev/fd0 NOTE: You can create a driver update disk on a Windows system using the program dcopynt. NOTE: The output file of might be different, depending on how your operating system maps the diskette drive. You do not need to mount the diskette drive in order to execute the dd command.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 71 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating Systems using the Driver Update Diskette Perform the following steps to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (versions 4 and 5) and the appropriate driver. 1 Boot normally from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation media. 2 At the command prompt, type: linux expert dd 3 When the install prompts for a driver diskette, insert the diskette and press .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 72 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 6 Click OK. If you want to install from another driver update medium, continue with the following steps. 7 The system displays the message PLEASE CHOOSE DRIVER UPDATE MEDIUM. 8 Select the appropriate driver update medium. The system selects the driver from the disk and installs it. NOTE: Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 Gold media is required when you install any Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 service pack.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 73 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 2 To check whether the driver is successfully installed in the new kernel, type: dkms status You must see a message similar to the following one on the screen to confirm installation: , , : installed 3 If the previous device driver is in use, you must reboot the system for the updated driver to take effect.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 74 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing Solaris 10 on a PowerEdge System Booting From a PERC 6 and CERC 6i Controller To install the driver during Solaris 10 operating system installation: 1 Boot the system from the Solaris installation media and select the preferred console. 2 After Solaris finishes configuring devices, a menu appears. Select Apply Driver Updates. 3 Select [1] if you created a CD from the mega_sas_cd.iso file.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 75 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing NetWare Driver Use the procedures in this section to install the driver for Novell NetWare 6.5. To ensure that you have the current version of the driver, download the updated NetWare driver from the Dell Support website at support.dell.com. Installing the NetWare Driver in a New NetWare System Follow the instructions in the Novell NetWare Installation Guide to install Novell NetWare in the system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 76 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Installing or Updating the NetWare Driver in an Existing NetWare System Perform the following steps to add the Novell NetWare driver to an existing installation: 1 At the root prompt, type hdetect and press . The Configuration Options screen is displayed. 2 From the screen that displays, go to the Storage Adapter screen to install the MegaRAID SAS driver. 3 Delete any existing RAID adapter listings.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 77 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Configuring and Managing RAID Dell Open Manage storage management applications enable you to manage and configure the RAID system, create and manage multiple disk groups, control and monitor multiple RAID systems, and provide online maintenance.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 78 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM RAID Configuration Functions NOTE: Dell OpenManage Storage Management can perform all the same tasks as and more tasks than the BIOS Configuration Utility. After you attach physical disks, use a configuration utility to organize your SAS drives and SATA drives into virtual disks. If the operating system is not yet installed, use the BIOS Configuration Utility to perform this procedure.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 79 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM BIOS Configuration Utility The BIOS Configuration Utility, also known as Ctrl+R, is a Open Manage storage management application embedded on the PERC 6 controllers that configures and maintains RAID disk groups and virtual disks, and manages the RAID system. Ctrl+R is independent of any operating system. NOTE: Use the BIOS Configuration Utility for initial setup and disaster recovery.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 80 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM NOTE: You can access multiple controllers through the BIOS Configuration Utility by pressing . NOTE: You can access PERC 5 and PERC 6 adapters from the same BIOS if the PERC 5 firmware version is 5.1.1-0040 or later. You need to verify if you are currently set to edit the PERC 5 or PERC 6 adapter. Exiting the Configuration Utility To exit the BIOS Configuration Utility, press at any menu screen.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 81 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-1. Menu Navigation Keys (continued) Notation Meaning and Use Example Use the up arrow key to move to the upper menu Virtual Disk 1 items within a menu or to a higher level menu. You can also use the up arrow key to close a menu list in a popup window, such as the stripe element size menu. Virtual Disk 4 Word wrap is supported.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 82 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-1. Menu Navigation Keys (continued) Notation Meaning and Use Press to move the cursor to the next control Press to on a Dialog or page. move the cursor to the next parameter you want to change. Press to move the cursor to the previous control on a dialog or page.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 83 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-1. Menu Navigation Keys (continued) Notation Meaning and Use Example Switch between two controllers. Press to display a list of controllers. Spacebar Press the spacebar to select an item, such as a virtual disk in the List View, select all the virtual disks (Mark All), or deselect all the virtual disks (Unmark All).
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 84 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-2. Virtual Disk Parameters and Descriptions Parameter Description RAID Level RAID Level specifies the whether the virtual disk is RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60. The RAID level you select depends on the number of disks, disk capacity, and the requirements for fault tolerance and performance. See "Summary of RAID Levels" on page 17 for more information.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 85 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-2. Virtual Disk Parameters and Descriptions (continued) Parameter Description Read Policy Read-ahead enables the Read-Ahead feature for the virtual disk. You can set this parameter to Read-ahead, No-read-ahead, or Adaptive. The default is No-read-ahead. Read-ahead specifies that the controller uses Read-Ahead for the current virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 86 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 3 Press to display the actions you can perform. 4 Select Create New VD and press . The Create New VD screen displays. The cursor is on the RAID Levels option. 5 Press to display the possible RAID levels, based on the physical disks available. 6 Press the down arrow key to select a RAID level and press . 7 Press to move the cursor to the list of physical disks.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 87 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 15 Perform the following steps to select the virtual disk parameters: a Press to move the cursor to the parameters you want to change. b Press the down arrow key to open the parameters and scroll down the list of settings. c To change the stripe element size, press to highlight Stripe Element Size.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 88 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM l If you have chosen to create hot spares in the earlier steps a pop-up window appears where drives with appropriate sizes are displayed. Press the spacebar to select the drive size. Select the check box to enable the enclosure affinity setting for the hot spare. m After you select the drive size, click OK to finalize the selection or click Cancel to forfeit the selection.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 89 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM If you attempt to run a Consistency Check on a virtual disk that has not been initialized, the following error message displays: The virtual disk has not been initialized. Running a consistency check may result in inconsistent messages in the log. Are you sure you want to continue? You can select Yes or No. If you select Yes, the CC operation continues. If you select No, the operation ends.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 90 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Perform the following steps to import or clear foreign configurations. 1 During bootup, press when prompted by the BIOS banner. The VD Mgmt screen appears by default. 2 On the VD Mgmt screen, highlight the Controller #. The controller number is the only item that appears until you import the foreign configuration. 3 Press to display the available actions.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 91 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM You can use the Foreign Configuration View screen to manage foreign configurations in the following cases: • All the physical disks in a configuration are removed and re-inserted. • Some of the physical disks in a configuration are removed and re-inserted. • All the physical disks in a virtual disk are removed, but at different times, and then re-inserted. • The physical disks in a non-redundant virtual disk are removed.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 92 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM NOTE: When you import a foreign configuration, the dedicated hot spares in the configuration are imported as dedicated hot spares on two conditions - the associated virtual disk is already present or the associated virtual disk is also imported along with the configuration. NOTE: Start a consistency check immediately after the rebuild is complete to ensure data integrity for the virtual disks.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 93 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Managing Preserved Cache If a virtual disk becomes offline or is deleted because of missing physical disks, the controller preserves the dirty cache from the virtual disk. This preserved dirty cache, known as pinned cache, is preserved until you import the virtual disk or discard the cache. NOTE: Certain operations, such as creating a new virtual disk, cannot be performed if pinned cache exists.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 94 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Managing Dedicated Hot Spares A dedicated hot spare automatically replaces a failed physical disk only in the selected disk group which the hot spare is part of. A dedicated hot spare is used before a global hot spare is used. You can create dedicated hot spares or delete them on the VD Mgmt screen. Perform the following steps to create or delete dedicated hot spares.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 95 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Deleting Virtual Disks To delete virtual disks, perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility. NOTE: You cannot delete a virtual disk during an initialization. NOTE: Warning messages are displayed stating the effect of deleting a virtual disk. Click OK twice to complete the virtual disk deletion. 1 Press to access the VD Mgmt screen. 2 Press to move the cursor to a virtual disk under the Virtual Disks heading.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 96 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Resetting the Configuration You can delete all virtual disks on the RAID controller by performing this operation. To reset the configuration, perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility: 1 Press to access the VD Mgmt screen. 2 Press or use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the Controller heading. 3 Press . The action menu appears. 4 Select Reset Configuration.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 97 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Virtual Disk Management (VD Mgmt) The Virtual Disk Management screen, VD Mgmt, is the first screen that displays when you access a RAID controller from the main menu screen on the BIOS Configuration Utility.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 98 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-3.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 99 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-3.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 100 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Virtual Disk Actions Table 6-4 describes the actions you can perform on virtual disks. For procedures you can use to perform these actions, See "Physical Disk Management" on page 104. Table 6-4. Virtual Disk Actions Action Description Create a new virtual Creates a new virtual disk from one or more physical disks. disk You can configure hot spares when you create a virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 101 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Physical Disk Management (PD Mgmt) The Physical Disk Management screen, PD Mgmt, displays physical disk information and action menus. The screen displays physical disk IDs, vendor names, disk size, type, state, and disk group (DG). You can sort the list of physical disks based on these headings.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 102 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 6-5. Physical Disk Actions (continued) Action Description Make Global HS Designates the selected physical disk as a global hot spare. A global hot spare is part of a pool for all virtual disks controlled by the controller. Designates the selected physical disk as a global hot spare. You can select the hot spare to have enclosure affinity.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 103 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Controller Management Actions Table 6-6 describes the actions you can perform on the Ctrl Mgmt screen. Table 6-6. Controller Management Options Option Description Enable Controller BIOS Select this option to enable the controller BIOS. If the boot device is on the RAID controller, the BIOS must be enabled. Disable the BIOS to use other boot devices. In a multiple controller environment, you can enable BIOS on multiple controllers.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 104 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM The section "Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the Foreign Configuration View Screen" on page 90 contains the procedures you can use to manage the foreign configurations. NOTE: The BIOS Configuration Utility reports error codes for failed imports of foreign configurations. Physical Disk Management Setting LED Blinking The LED blinking option indicates when physical disks are being used to create a virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 105 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Perform the following steps to create global hot spares. 1 Press to access the PD Mgmt screen. A list of physical disks displays. The status of the each disk displays under the heading State. 2 Press the down arrow key to highlight a physical disk to change to a global hot spare. 3 Press to display the menu of available actions. 4 Press the down arrow key to highlight Make Global HS and press .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 106 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 4 Press the down arrow key to select Remove Hot Spare from the list of actions and press . The physical disk is changed to the Ready state. The status of the physical disk is displayed under the heading State. NOTE: Try to use physical disks of the same capacity in a specific virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 107 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Restrictions and Limitations The following restrictions and limitations apply to the Replace Member operation: • The Replace Member functions are restricted to one per array for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5, and two per array for RAID 6. • The Replace Member function and rebuild cannot run simultaneously on a RAID 6 virtual disk. The rebuild operation has a higher priority, and the Replace Member operation is aborted if a rebuild begins.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 108 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM 3 Press to display a menu of available actions. The Rebuild option is highlighted at the top of the menu. 4 Press the right arrow key to display the rebuild options and select Start. 5 After you start the rebuild, press to display the previous menu. NOTE: You can also use the VD Mgmt screen to perform a manual rebuild. Use the arrow key to highlight physical disk in the tree view, and press .
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 109 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM After you enable the BIOS for a controller, perform the following steps to enable the boot support for that controller. 1 Press to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen. 2 Press to move the cursor to the Select Bootable VD in the Settings box. 3 Press the down arrow key to display a list of virtual disks. 4 Use the down arrow key to highlight a virtual disk. 5 Press to select the virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 110 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Restoring Factory Default Settings You can use the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen to restore the default settings for the options in the Settings box. The settings are Enable Controller BIOS, Enable Alarm, and Enable BIOS Stop on Error. Perform the following steps to restore default settings. 1 Press to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen. 2 Press to move the cursor to the Settings box.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 111 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Troubleshooting To get help with your Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 and Dell Cost-Effective RAID Controller (CERC) 6/i controller, you can contact your Dell Technical Service representative or access the Dell Support website at support.dell.com.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 112 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-1. BIOS Errors and Warnings (continued) Message Meaning Adapter at Baseport xxxx is not responding If the controller does not respond for any reason but is detected by the BIOS, it displays this warning and continues. where xxxx is the baseport of the controller Turn off the system and try to reseat the controller. If this message is still displayed, contact Dell Technical Support.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 113 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-1. BIOS Errors and Warnings (continued) Message Meaning Memory/Battery problems This message occurs under the following were detected. The conditions: adapter has recovered, • The adapter detects that the cache in the but cached data was lost. controller cache has not yet been written to Press any key to the disk subsystem. continue.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 114 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-1. BIOS Errors and Warnings (continued) Message Meaning The foreign configuration message is always present during POST but no foreign configurations are present in the foreign view page in CTRL+R and all virtual disks are in an optimal state. Clear the foreign configuration using CTRL+R or Dell OpenManage™ Server Administrator Storage Management. Previous configuration(s) cleared or missing.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 115 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-1. BIOS Errors and Warnings (continued) Message Meaning Multibit ECC errors were detected on the RAID controller. If you continue, data corruption can occur. Contact technical support to resolve this issue. Press 'X' to continue or else power off the system, replace the controller and reboot. This error is specific to PERC 6/i controller. Multibit ECC errors were detected on the RAID controller.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 116 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-1. BIOS Errors and Warnings (continued) Message Meaning Physical disk removed: Physical Disk {x.x.x} Controller {x}, Connector {x} These two messages appear in the event log when you remove a drive. The first message indicates that the disk was removed and the second message indicates that the device has failed. This feature is working as designed. Device failed: Physical Disk {x.x.x} Controller {x}, Connector {x}".
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 117 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-2 describes the BBU-related error messages and warnings that display for the BIOS. Table 7-2. Backup Battery Unit Errors and Warnings Message Meaning Memory/Battery problems were detected. The adapter has recovered, but cached data was lost. Press any key to continue. This message occurs under the following conditions: • The adapter detects that the cache in the controller cache has not yet been written to the disk subsystem.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 118 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Memory Errors Memory errors can corrupt cached data, so the controllers are designed to detect and attempt to recover from these memory errors. Single-bit memory errors can be handled by the controller and do not disrupt normal operation. A notification is sent if the number of single-bit errors exceeds a threshold value. Multi-bit errors are more serious, as they result in corrupted data and data loss.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 119 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM General Problems Table 7-3 describes general problems you might encounter, along with suggested solutions. Table 7-3. General Problems Problem Suggested Solution The device displays in Device Manager but has a yellow bang (exclamation point). Reinstall the driver. See the driver installation procedures in the section "Installing the Drivers" on page 63. The device does not appear Turn off the system and reseat the controller.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 120 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Physical Disk Related Issues Table 7-4 describes physical disk-related problems you might encounter and the suggested solutions. Table 7-4. Problem Physical Disk Issues Suggested Solution One of the physical Perform the following actions to resolve this problem: disks in the disk array • Check the backplane for damage. is in the failed state. • Check the SAS cables. • Reseat the physical disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 121 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Physical Disk Failures and Rebuilds Table 7-5 describes issues related to physical disk failures and rebuilds. Table 7-5. Physical Disk Failure and Rebuild Issues Issue Suggested Solution Rebuilding the physical disks after multiple disks become simultaneously inaccessible. Multiple physical disk errors in a single array typically indicate a failure in cabling or connection and could involve the loss of data.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 122 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-5. Physical Disk Failure and Rebuild Issues (continued) Issue Suggested Solution Rebuilding a physical If you have configured hot spares, the PERC 6 controller disk after one of them automatically tries to use one to rebuild a physical disk that is is in a failed state. in a failed state. Manual rebuild is necessary if no hot spares with enough capacity to rebuild the failed physical disks are available.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 123 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM SMART Errors Table 7-6 describes issues related to the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART). SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and physical disk electronics and detects predictable physical disk failures. NOTE: For information about where to find reports of SMART errors that could indicate hardware failure, see the Dell OpenManage Storage Management documentation. Table 7-6.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 124 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-6. SMART Errors (continued) Problem Suggested Solution A SMART error occurs Specify how the Consistency Check operation should during a Consistency perform when a SMART error is encountered. Check (CC) There are two settings, Yes and No. No is the default setting and allows CC to continue when the first error is encountered. The Yes setting halts CC when the first error is encountered.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 125 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Linux Operating System Errors Table 7-8 describes issues related to the Linux operating system. Table 7-8. Linux Operating System Errors Error Message Suggested Solution kernel: sdb: asking for cache data failed This error message displays when the Linux Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) mid-layer asks for physical disk cache settings.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 126 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-8. Linux Operating System Errors (continued) Error Message Suggested Solution Driver does not auto-build into new kernel after customer updates. This error is a generic problem for DKMS and applies to all DKMS-enabled driver packages. This issue occurs when you perform the following steps: 1 Install a DKMS-enabled driver package. 2 Run up2date or a similar tool to upgrade the kernel into the latest version.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 127 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-8. Linux Operating System Errors (continued) Error Message Suggested Solution smartd[smartd[2338] Device: /dev/sda, Bad IEC (SMART) mode page, err=-5, skip device This is a known issue. An unsupported command is entered through the user application. User applications attempt to direct Command Descriptor Blocks to RAID volumes. The error message does not effect the feature functionality.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 128 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Drive Carrier LED Indicators The LED on the physical disk carrier indicates the state of each physical disk. Each drive carrier in your enclosure has two LEDs: an activity LED (green) and a bicolor (green/amber) status LED as shown in Figure 7-1. The activity LED flashes whenever the drive is accessed. Figure 7-1. Drive Carrier LED Indicators 1 1 2 activity LED 2 status LED Table 7-10 lists the flash patterns for the status LED.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 129 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Table 7-10.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 131 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Regulatory Notices For additional regulatory information, please go to the Regulatory Compliance Homepage on www.dell.com at the following location: www.dell.com/regulatory_compliance.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 133 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Corporate Contact Details (Taiwan Only) Pursuant to Article 11 of the Commodity Inspection Act, Dell provides the following corporate contact details for the certified entity in Taiwan for the products addressed by this document: Dell B.V. Taiwan Branch 20/F, No. 218, Sec. 2, Tung Hwa S.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 135 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Glossary A Adapter An adapter enables the computer system to access peripheral devices by converting the protocol of one bus or interface to another. An adapter may also provide specialized function. For example, a RAID controller is a type of adapter that provides RAID functions. Adapters may reside on the system board or be an add-in card. Other examples of adapters include network and SCSI adapters.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 136 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Battery Backup Unit (BBU) The battery backup unit protects the integrity of the cached data on the controller by providing backup power if there is a complete AC power failure or a brief power outage. BIOS Acronym for basic input/output system. Your computer's BIOS contains programs stored on a flash memory chip.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 137 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Caching The process of utilizing a high speed memory buffer, referred to as a “cache,” in order to speed up the overall read or write performance. This cache can be accessed at a higher speed than a disk subsystem. To improve read performance, the cache usually contains the most recently accessed data, as well as data from adjacent disk sectors.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 138 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Disk Array A collection of disks from one or more disk subsystems combined using a configuration utility. The utility controls the disks and presents them to the array operating environment as one or more logical drives. Disk Group A logical grouping of disks attached to a RAID controller on which one or more virtual disks can be created, such that all virtual disks in the disk group use all of the physical disks in the disk group.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 139 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM DUD Acronym for driver update diskette. A DUD is an image of a diskette stored as a regular file. To use it, you have to create the content to a real diskette from this file. The steps used to create the diskette depend on how the image is supplied. E ECC Errors Acronym for error correcting code. ECC errors occur in the memory and can corrupt cached data so that it must be discarded.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 140 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Fault Tolerance Fault tolerance is the capability of the disk subsystem to undergo a single drive failure per disk group without compromising data integrity and processing capability. The PERC 6 controllers provide this support through redundant virtual disks in RAID levels 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60. Fault tolerance is often associated with system availability because it allows the system to be available during drive failures.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 141 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM H Host System Any system on which the RAID controller is installed. Mainframes, workstations, and personal systems can all be considered host systems. Hot Spare An idle, powered on, stand-by physical disk ready for immediate use in case of disk failure. It does not contain any user data.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 142 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Inter-IC Inter-IC, also known as I2C, is a multi-master bus, meaning that more than one chip can be connected to the same bus. Each chip can act as a master and initiate a data transfer. L Load-balancing Load balancing is a method of spreading work between two or more computers, network links, CPUs, physical disk drives, or other resources. Load balancing is used to maximize resource use, throughput, or response time.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 143 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Mirroring The process of providing complete redundancy using two physical disks, by maintaining an exact copy of one physical disk’s data on the second physical disk. If one physical disk fails, the contents of the other physical disk can be used to maintain the integrity of the system and to rebuild the failed physical disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 144 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Ns Acronym for nanosecond(s), one billionth of a second. NVRAM Acronym for non-volatile random access memory. A storage system that does not lose the data stored on it when power is removed. NVRAM is used to store configuration data on the RAID controller. O Offline A physical disk is offline when it is part of a virtual disk but its data is not accessible to the virtual disk. Online An online device is a device that is accessible.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 145 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM sets. In RAID, this method is applied to entire physical disks or stripe elements across all physical disks in a virtual disk. Parity consists of dedicated parity, in which the parity of the data on two or more physical disks is stored on an additional physical disk, and distributed parity, in which the parity data are distributed among all the physical disks in the system.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 146 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Physical Disk States A physical disk can be in one of the following states: • Un-configured Good: A disk accessible to the RAID controller but not configured as a part of a virtual disk or as a hot spare. • Hot Spare: A physical disk that is configured as a hot spare. • Online: A physical disk can be accessed by the RAID controller and is a part of the virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 147 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM R RAID Acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks (originally Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). It is an array of multiple independent physical disks managed together to yield higher reliability and/or performance exceeding that of a single physical disk. The virtual disk appears to the operating system as a single storage unit. I/O is expedited because several disks can be accessed simultaneously.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 148 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Read-Ahead A memory caching capability in some controllers that allows them to read sequentially ahead of requested data and store the additional data in cache memory, anticipating that the additional data is required soon. Read-Ahead supplies sequential data faster, but is not as effective when accessing random data.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 149 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Typically, a physical disk fails or is expected to fail, and the data is rebuilt on a hot spare. The failed physical disk is replaced with a new disk. Then the data is copied from the hot spare to the new physical disk, and the hot spare reverts from a rebuild drive to its original hot spare status. The Replace Member operation runs as a background activity, and the virtual disk is still available online to the host.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 150 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM SATA Acronym for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. A physical storage interface standard, is a serial link that provides point-to-point connections between devices. The thinner serial cables allow for better airflow within the system and permit smaller chassis designs. SCSIport The SCSIport driver is a feature of the Microsoft® Windows® storage architecture, delivering SCSI commands to the storage targets.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 151 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Spanning The method by which nested RAID levels (such as RAID 10, 50, and 60) are constructed from multiple sets of basic, or single RAID levels. For example, a RAID 10 is made up of multiple sets of RAID 1 arrays where each RAID 1 set is considered a span. Data is then striped (RAID 0) across the RAID 1 spans to create a RAID 10 virtual disk.
Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 152 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM Stripe Element Size The total disk space consumed by a stripe not including a parity disk. For example, consider a stripe that contains 64 KB of disk space and has 16 KB of data residing on each disk in the stripe. In this case, the stripe element size is 16 KB and the stripe size is 64 KB. Striping Disk striping writes data across all physical disks in a virtual disk.
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Dell_PERC6.1_UG.book Page 154 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM E N electrostatic discharge.
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