Users Guide

The status of the controller is affected by the preserved cache. The controller status is displayed as degraded if the controller
has preserved cache. Discard the preserved cache is possible only if all of the following conditions are met:
● The controller does not have any foreign configuration.
● The controller does not have any offline or missing virtual disks.
● Cables to any virtual disk are not disconnected.
Managing PCIe SSDs
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) solid-state device (SSD) is a high-performance storage device designed for
solutions requiring low latency, high Input Output Operations per Second (IOPS), and enterprise class storage reliability and
serviceability. The PCIe SSD is designed based on Single Level Cell (SLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash technology
with a high-speed PCIe 2.0, PCIe 3.0, or PCIe 4.0 compliant interface. In 14th generation of PowerEdge servers, we have three
different ways to connect SSDs. You can use an extender to connect the SSDs via backplane, directly connect the SSDs from
backplane to mother board using slimline cable without extender, and use HHHL (Add-In) card which sits on the motherboard.
NOTE:
● 14th generation of PowerEdge servers are supporting Industry standard NVMe-MI specification based NVMe SSDs
● PERC 11 supports PCIe SSD/NVMe devices behind PERC inventory monitoring and configuration.
Using iDRAC interfaces, you can view and configure NVMe PCIe SSDs.
The key features of PCIe SSD are:
● Hot plug capability
● High-performance device
In few of the 14th generation of PowerEdge servers, up to 32 NVMe SSDs are supported.
You can perform the following operations for PCIe SSDs:
● Inventory and remotely monitor the health of PCIe SSDs in the server
● Prepare to remove the PCIe SSD
● Securely erase the data
● Blink or unblink the device LED (Identify the device)
You can perform the following operations for HHHL SSDs:
● Inventory and real-time monitoring of the HHHL SSD in the server
● Failed card reporting and logging in iDRAC and OMSS
● Securely erasing the data and removing the card
● TTY logs reporting
You can perform the following operations for SSDs:
● Drive status reporting such as Online, Failed, and Offline
NOTE:
Hot plug capability, prepare to remove, and blink or unblink the device LED is not applicable for HHHL PCIe SSD
devices.
NOTE: When NVMe devices are controlled behind S140, prepare to remove and cryptographic erase operations are not
supported, blink and unblink are supported.
Inventorying and monitoring PCIe SSDs
The following inventory and monitoring information is available for PCIe SSDs:
● Hardware information:
○ PCIe SSD Extender card
○ PCIe SSD Backplane
If the system has a dedicated PCIe backplane, two FQDDs are displayed. One FQDD is for regular drives and the other is
for SSDs. If the backplane is shared (universal), only one FQDD is displayed. In case the SSDs are directly attached, the
controller FQDD reports as CPU.1, indicating that the SSD is directly attached to the CPU.
● Software inventory includes only the firmware version for the PCIe SSD.
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Managing storage devices