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PERC controller BIOS Configuration Utility

PERC 5/i : SAS 3.0 Gb/s RAID controller with Intel IOP333 processor and 256MB cache

The BIOS Configuration Utility, also known as Ctrl-R, is a storage management application embedded on the PERC 5 controllers that configures and maintains RAID disk groups and virtual disks, and manages the RAID system. It is independent of any operating system.

The following sections will help you attain the basic knowledge needed to use the BIOS Configuration Utility. See the online help option by pressing <F1> to obtain additional information about the ongoing operation.

Starting the BIOS Configuration Utility

The BIOS Configuration Utility configures physical disk groups and virtual disks. Because the utility resides in the controller BIOS, its operation is independent of the operating systems on your system.

Perform the following steps to enter the BIOS Configuration Utility when you boot the system.

1. Turn on and boot the system.

A BIOS banner displays information about the controller and configuration.

2. During bootup, press <Ctrl><R> when prompted by the BIOS banner. 

After you press <Ctrl><R>, the Virtual Disk Management menu screen displays by default. This screen displays the controllers, virtual disks, physical disks, free space, hot spares, and other details in an expandable tree directory similar to that of Microsoft^® Windows^® Explorer.

Exiting the Configuration Utility

To exit the BIOS Configuration Utility, press <Esc> at any menu screen until the utility closes.

Menu Navigation Controls

Table 5-1 displays the menu keys you can use to move between the different screens in the BIOS Configuration Utility.

Table 5-1. Menu Navigation Keys

RAID Configuration Functions

After you attach physical disks, use a configuration utility to prepare a virtual disk. Groups of the SAS and Serial ATA (SATA) physical disks are organized into virtual disks that must be able to support the RAID level that you select. If the operating system is not yet installed, use the BIOS Configuration Utility to perform this procedure.

Use the configuration utilities to perform the following tasks:

• Access controllers, virtual disks, and physical disks individually.
• Select a host controller to work on.
• Create hot spare physical disks.
• Configure virtual disks.
• Initialize one or more virtual disks.
• Rebuild failed physical disks.

The following sections describe the menu options and provide detailed instructions used to perform the configuration tasks. They apply to the BIOS Configuration Utility and Dell OpenManage Storage Management. The following is a list of the procedures used to configure physical disks into virtual disks.

1. Designate hot spares (optional).

See Managing Dedicated Hot Spares for more information.

2. Define virtual disks using the group of physical disks.

3. Save the configuration information.
4. Initialize the virtual disks.

See Setting Up Virtual Disks for the detailed configuration procedures.

BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Options

This section describes the options for the BIOS Configuration Utility for each of the major menus:

• Virtual Disk Management (VD Mgmt) menu
• Physical Disk Management (PD Mgmt) menu
• Controller Management (Ctrl Mgmt) menu
• Foreign Configuration View menu

Most menus consist of two frames:

• A left frame with the menu options
• A right frame with details of the items selected in the left frame

The following sections describe the menu and submenu options for each of the major menus.

Virtual Disk Management (VD Mgmt)

The Virtual Disk Management screen, VD Mgmt, is the first screen that displays when you access the BIOS Configuration Utility. In the Tree View, the left frame displays the menus for the virtual disk management, which are:

• Controller #
  • Disk Group #
    • Virtual Disks (displayed in descending numerical order)
    • Physical Disks
    • Space Allocation (virtual disk size and free space you can use to create a virtual disk)
    • Hot Spares (global and dedicated)

In the Tree View, the right frame displays detailed information for the selected controllers, disk groups, virtual disks, physical disks, space allocation, and hot spares, as shown in Table 5-2.

Table 5-2. Information on the Virtual Disk Management Screen

In the List View, the Virtual Disk Management screen appears. In this view, the left frame displays the virtual disk number, RAID level, virtual disk status, virtual disk size, and stripe element size.

Use this screen to display the Virtual Disk Parameters window (used to select parameters, such as stripe element size and cache policy), and perform a consistency check on an individual virtual disk or multiple virtual disks. See Setting Up Virtual Disks for the procedures used to perform these actions.

Virtual Disk Actions

Table 5-3 describes the actions you can perform on virtual disks. See Setting Up Virtual Disks for procedures you can use to perform these actions.

Table 5-3. Virtual Disk Menu Options

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. You can perform several actions on the physical disks, including the following:

• Rebuilding physical disks
• Setting the LED to blink
• Making a disk online or unaffiliated
• Removing dedicated or global hot spares
• Creating global hot spares

Physical Disk Actions

Table 5-4 describes the actions you can perform on physical disks. See Setting Up Virtual Disks for procedures that can be used to perform these actions.

Table 5-4. Physical Disk Options

Rebuild

Select Rebuild to rebuild one or more failed physical disks. See Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk for more information and the procedure to perform a physical disk rebuild.

Controller Management (Ctrl Mgmt)

The Controller Management screen, Ctrl Mgmt, displays the BIOS version, firmware version, and Ctrl-R version, and offers actions you can perform on the controller and BIOS. You can use this screen to enable or disable the controller BIOS, alarm, and the BIOS during bootup in event of BIOS errors. In addition, you can select a virtual disk from which to boot, select default settings, and reset the configuration.

Controller Management Disk Actions

Table 5-5 describes the actions you can perform on the Ctrl Mgmt screen. See Setting Up Virtual Disks for procedures you can use to perform these actions.

Table 5-5. Controller Management Options

Foreign Configuration View

Select Foreign Configuration View to display a foreign configuration before you either import the foreign configuration into the virtual disk or clear the foreign configuration. The section Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the Foreign Configuration View Screen contains the procedures you can use to manage the foreign configurations.

Setting Up Virtual Disks

This section contains the procedures used to set up a disk group and create virtual disks. Each of the following procedures are explained individually in this section in detail.

1. Create the virtual disks and select the virtual disk options. 
2. Designate hot spares (optional). 

See Managing Dedicated Hot Spares for more information.

3. Initialize the virtual disks. 

When you define the virtual disks, you can set the virtual disk parameters described in Table 5-6.

• Stripe element size
• Write policy
• Read policy

Table 5-6. Virtual Disk Parameters and Descriptions

Creating Virtual Disks

Perform the following steps to create virtual disks.

1. During host system bootup, press <Ctrl><R> when the BIOS banner displays.

The Virtual Disk Management screen displays.

2. Highlight Controller #. 
3. Press <F2> to display the actions you can perform, which are creating new virtual disks, resetting a configuration, and importing or clearing a foreign configuration.
4. Select Create New VD and press <Enter>.

The Create New VD screen displays. The cursor is on the RAID Levels option.

5. Press <Enter> to display the RAID levels. 
6. Press the down arrow key to select a RAID level and press <Enter>. 
7. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the list of physical disks. 
8. Use the down arrow key to highlight a physical disk and press the spacebar to select the disk.
9. Select additional disks, if desired.
10. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the box Basic Settings and set the virtual disk size and name. 

The virtual disk size displays in megabyte (MB) format.

11. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Advanced Settings.
12. Press the spacebar to make the settings active so that you can change them.

An X displays next to Advanced Settings. The settings are the stripe element size and read policy. You can also choose advanced options such as forcing the cache policy to be Write-back, initializing the virtual disk, and configuring a dedicated hot spare.

The defaults for these parameters display when the window displays. You can accept the defaults or change them. See Virtual Disk Parameters and Descriptions for detailed information about the virtual disk parameters.

13. Perform the following steps to select the virtual disk parameters: 
    1. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the parameters you want to change.
    2. Press the down arrow key to open the parameters and scroll down the list of settings.
    3. To change the stripe element size, press <Tab> to highlight Stripe Element Size.
    4. Press <Enter> to display the list of stripe element sizes (8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, and 128 KB), then press the down arrow key to highlight an option and press <Enter>.
    5. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Read Policy to change it if desired.
    6. Press <Enter> to display the options, Read Ahd, No Read, or Adaptive, then press the down arrow key to highlight an option and press <Enter>.
    7. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Write Policy to change it if desired.
    8. Press <Enter> to display the options, Write-Through or Write-Back, then press the down arrow key to highlight an option and press <Enter>.
    9. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to OK.
    10. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Force WB with no battery and press <Enter>.
    11. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Initialize and press <Enter>.

12. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Configure Hot Spare and press <Enter>.

13. 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.
14. After you select the drive size, click OK to finalize the selection or click Cancel to forfeit the selection.
15. Select OK to accept the settings and press <Enter> to exit this window or select Cancel and press <Enter> to exit if you do not want to change any virtual disk parameters.

Initializing Virtual Disks

Perform the following steps to initialize virtual disks.

1. On the VD Mgmt screen, select Virtual Disk # and press <F2> to display the menu of available actions. 
2. Select Initialization and press the right arrow key to display the Initialization submenu options. 
3. Select Start Init. to begin a regular initialization or select Fast Init. to begin a fast initialization. 

Fast initialization writes zeroes to the first sector of the virtual disk so that initialization occurs in 2–3 seconds. A progress bar displays next to the selected virtual disk as it initializes.

4. When initialization is complete, press <Esc> to return to the main menu screen. 
5. Repeat the procedures in this section to configure another virtual disk. 

The PERC 5 controllers support up to 64 virtual disks per controller. The currently configured virtual disks display on the screen.

Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the VD Mgmt Menu

When a foreign configuration exists, the BIOS banner displays the message Foreign configuration(s) found on adapter. In addition, a foreign configuration, when present, appears on the right side of the VD Mgmt screen.

You can use the VD Mgmt menu to import the existing configuration to the RAID controller or clear the existing configuration to create a new one. The information for the foreign configuration does not display until it is imported.

Perform the following steps to import or clear foreign configurations.

1. During bootup, press <Ctrl><R> 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 <F2> to display the available actions. 
4. Press the right arrow key to display the available actions, Import and Clear. 

5. Select Import to import the foreign configuration or Clear to delete the foreign configuration and then press <Enter>. 

If you import the configuration, the VD Mgmt displays detailed configuration information. This includes information about the disk groups, virtual disks, physical disks, space allocation, and hot spares.

Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the Foreign Configuration View Screen

If one or more physical disks are removed from a configuration, for example, by a cable pull or physical disk removal, the configuration on those disks is considered a foreign configuration by the RAID controller. You can use the Foreign Configuration View screen to view detailed configuration information about the disk groups, virtual disks, physical disks, space allocation, and hot spares. After you view the foreign configuration, you can either import it to the RAID controller or clear it.

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.

Perform the following procedures on the Foreign Configuration View screen to manage foreign configurations in each specific case:

1. If all or some of the physical disks in a configuration are removed and re-inserted, the controller considers the drives to have foreign configurations. Perform the following steps: 
   1. Select Foreign Configuration View to display the foreign configuration information on the Foreign Configuration View screen.
   2. Press <F2> to display the options Import or Clear.

3. Select Import to import the foreign configuration to the controller or select Clear to delete the foreign configuration(s) from the re-inserted disk(s).

Automatic rebuild occurs in redundant virtual disks if the VD transitions into DEGRADED before going OFFLINE.

2. If all the physical disks in a virtual disk are removed, but at different times, and re-inserted, the controller considers the drives to have foreign configurations. Perform the following steps: 
   1. Select Foreign Configuration View to display the complete virtual disk, across different foreign configurations and allow foreign configurations to be imported.
   2. Press <F2> to display the options Import or Clear.

3. Select Import to merge the foreign configurations with the existing configuration on the controller or Clear to delete the foreign configuration(s) from the re-inserted disk(s).

If you select Import, all drives that were pulled before the virtual disk became offline will be imported, and then automatically rebuilt. Automatic rebuild occurs in redundant virtual disks if the VD transitions into DEGRADED before going OFFLINE.

3. If the physical disks in a non-redundant virtual disk are removed, the controller considers the drives to have foreign configurations. Perform the following steps: 
   1. Select Foreign Configuration View to display the complete foreign configuration information.
   2. Press <F2> to display the options Import or Clear.
   3. Select Import to import the foreign configuration to the virtual disk or Clear to delete the foreign configuration(s) from the re-inserted disk(s).

No rebuilds will occur after the import operation because there is no redundant data to rebuild the drives with.

Setting LED Blinking

The LED blinking option indicates when physical disks are being used to create a virtual disk. You can choose to start or stop the LED blinking. Perform the following steps to start or stop this option.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the PD Mgmt screen. 

A list of physical disks appears. The status of the each disk displays under the heading State.

2. Press the down arrow key to highlight a physical disk.
3. Press <F2> to display the menu of available actions.
4. Press the down arrow key to highlight LED Blinking.
5. Press the right arrow key to display the available actions, Start and Stop.
6. Select Start to begin LED blinking or Stop to end LED blinking. 

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 one of the global hot spares 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.

1. On the VD Mgmt screen, select Disk Group # and press <F2> to display the menu of available actions. 

The available menu options appear.

2. Select Manage Ded. HS and press <Enter>. 

A screen displays a list of the current dedicated hot spares and the physical disks that are available to create dedicated hot spares. An X displays next to the current dedicated hot spares.

3. To create a dedicated hot spare, press the down arrow key to highlight an available physical disk and press the spacebar to select the disk. Do this for as many dedicated hot spares as you want to create.

An X displays next to the selected physical disk(s).

4. To delete a dedicated hot spare, use the down arrow key to highlight a current hot spare and press the spacebar to deselect the disk. Do this for as many dedicated hot spares as you want to delete.
5. Press <Enter> to approve the changes.

The VD Mgmt screen displays the updated list of hot spares under the Hot spares heading.

Creating Global Hot Spares

A global hot spare can be used to replace a failed physical disk in any redundant array as long as the capacity of the global hot spare is equal to or larger than the coerced capacity of the failed physical disk. Perform the following steps to create global hot spares.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> 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 <F2> to display the menu of available actions.
4. Press the down arrow key to highlight Make Global HS and press <Enter>.

The physical disk is changed to a global hot spare. The status of the physical disk as a global hot spare displays under the heading State.

5. Select additional physical disks if desired and follow the previous steps to change them to global hot spares.

Removing Global or Dedicated Hot Spares

You can remove one global or dedicated hot spare at a time on the PD Mgmt screen. Perform the following steps to remove a global hot spare or dedicated hot spare.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the PD Mgmt screen.

A list of physical disks displays. The status of each disk displays under the heading State.

2. Press the down arrow key to highlight a physical disk that is a hot spare.
3. Press <F2> to display the menu of available actions.
4. Press the down arrow key to select Remove HS from the list of actions and press <Enter>.

The physical disk is changed to the Ready state. The status of the physical disk displays under the heading State.

5. Select additional hot spares if desired and follow the previous steps to remove them.

Enabling the Alarm to Alert in Case of Physical Disk Failures

The PERC 5/E Adapter uses an audible alarm to alert you to key critical and warning events involving the virtual disks or physical disks. You can use the BIOS Configuration Utility to enable or disable the on-board alarm tone. See Table 6-8 for the list of critical and warning events, severity levels of the events, and audible codes.

Perform the following steps to enable the alarm in the BIOS Configuration Utility.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen.
2. Press <Tab> in the Settings box to move the cursor to Enable Alarm.
3. Press the spacebar to select Enable Alarm.

An X displays next to Enable Alarm.

4. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Apply button, then press <Enter> to apply the selection.

The alarm is enabled. To disable the alarm, use the spacebar to deselect the Enable Alarm control, and then select Apply.

Checking Data Consistency

Select the Consistency Check option in the configuration utility to verify the redundancy data in virtual disks that use RAID levels 1, 5, 10, and 50. (RAID 0 does not provide data redundancy.)

Perform the following steps to run a Consistency Check.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the VD Mgmt menu screen. 
2. Press the down arrow key to highlight Virtual Disk #.
3. Press <F2> to display the menu of available actions. 
4. Press the down arrow key to select Consistency Check. 
5. Press the right arrow key to display the menu of available actions, Start and Stop.
6. Select Start and press <Enter> to run a Consistency Check.

The Consistency Check runs and checks the redundancy data in the virtual disks.

7. After you start the Consistency Check, press <Esc> to display the previous menu.

Stopping Background Initialization

Background initialization is the automated check for media errors in which parity is created and written in the process. BGI does not run on RAID 0 virtual disks. Under certain conditions, Ctrl-R will ask you if you want to stop BGI in progress. An alert message displays if BGI is in progress and you start any of the following actions:

• A full initialization on the virtual disk
• A quick initialization on the virtual disk
• A consistency check on the virtual disk

The following alert message displays: The virtual disk is undergoing a background initialization process. Would you like to stop the operation and proceed with the <full initialization/quick initialization/consistency check> instead?

Click Yes to stop the BGI and start the requested operation or No to allow the BGI to continue.

Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk

Use the following procedures to rebuild one failed physical disk manually.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the PD Mgmt screen.

A list of physical disks appears. The status of each disk appears under the heading State.

2. Press the down arrow key to highlight a physical disk that has a failed state.
3. Press <F2> 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 <Esc> to display the previous menu.

Deleting Virtual Disks

To delete virtual disks, perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the VD Mgmt screen.
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to a virtual disk under the Virtual Disks heading.
3. Press <F2>.

The action menu appears.

4. Select Delete VD and press <Enter>.
5. On the VD Mgmt screen, select Space Allocation to display the amount of free space available after you delete the virtual disk.

Deleting Disk Groups

You can delete disk groups using the BIOS Configuration Utility. When you delete a disk group, the utility also removes the virtual disks in that disk group.

To delete disk groups, perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the VD Mgmt screen.
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to a disk group under the Virtual Disks heading.
3. Press <F2>.

The action menu displays.

4. Select Delete Disk Group and press <Enter>.

This deletes the disk group. When you delete a disk group, the remaining disk groups with higher numbers are automatically renumbered. For example, if you delete disk group #2, disk group #3 is then automatically renumbered as disk group #2.

Upgrading Firmware

You can download the latest firmware from the Dell Support website and flash it to the firmware on the controller.

Enabling Boot Support

In a multiple controller environment, multiple controllers can have their BIOS enabled. However, if you want to boot from a specific controller, then enable the BIOS on that controller and disable it on the other controllers. The system can then boot from the BIOS-enabled controller. Perform the following steps to enable the controller BIOS.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen. 
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Enable Controller BIOS in the Settings box. 
3. Press the spacebar to select Enable Controller BIOS.

An X displays next to Enable Controller BIOS.

4. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Apply button, and then press <Enter> to apply the selection.

The controller BIOS is enabled. To disable the controller BIOS, use the spacebar to deselect the Enable Controller BIOS control, and then select Apply and press <Enter>.

After you enable the BIOS for a controller, perform the following steps to enable the boot support for that controller.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen.
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Select Bootable VD in the Settings box.

Shadow lines display if there are two or more virtual disks.

3. Press the down arrow key to display a list of virtual disks. 
4. Use the down arrow key to move the cursor to a virtual disk. 
5. Press <Enter> to select a virtual disk.
6. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Apply button, and then press <Enter> to apply the selection.

Boot support is enabled for the selected controller.

Enabling BIOS Stop on Error

The option BIOS Stop on Error is used to stop the system from booting if there are BIOS errors. Perform the following steps to enable BIOS Stop on Error.

1. Press <Ctrl><N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen. 
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Enable BIOS Stop on Error in the Settings box. 
3. Press the spacebar to select Enable BIOS Stop on Error.

An X displays next to Enable BIOS Stop on Error.

4. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Apply button, and then press <Enter> to apply the selection. 

The controller BIOS is enabled. To disable Enable BIOS Stop on Error, use the spacebar to deselect Enable BIOS Stop on Error, then select Apply and press <Enter>.

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 <Ctrl><N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen.
2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Settings box. 
3. Use the spacebar to deselect the settings for the options in the Settings box. 
4. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the Advanced box. 
5. Press the spacebar to select Advanced.

An X displays next to Advanced.

6. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Select Defaults.
7. Press the spacebar to select Select Defaults.

The defaults are automatically selected for the controller settings and display in the Settings box. An X displays by each setting which is enabled by default.

Old News

www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - Hardware Support - CentOS 5.2 Dell PE2950 III and Perc 6-i SAS Raid controller

So in a previous post, I railed about my surprise at finding out that the Dell PERC 5/i controller has no audible alarm and why that's a concern for me. Well, here we are, nearly two weeks later, and after much going round and round with Dell on the issue, I have more information, and it's not necessarily good.

My specific initial issue is that, besides not having an audible alarm, Dell's Server Management software (Open Manage) doesn't have a way to send notifications about problems with the RAID controller, either the controller itself or the failure of an element attached to the controller. After my initial support call with Dell about the issue, they indicated that the IT Assistant software should run on the Windows 64-bit box, and that will send notifications when an issue is detected. I've since found out that no, the latest version of IT Assistant that's posted on the Dell web site will NOT, in fact, run on the 64-bit Windows platform. Of course, everything about IT Assistant tells you that it really, truly, should be run on another box, but for this specific instance, that's not going to be possible.

In digging further into this, however, I've uncovered a couple of other issues that concern me. Given that IT Assistant seems to be the preferred way to actively monitor the RAID, I thought I'd try to install it on the SBS box I have at the office. No dice. IT Assistant will install onto a server platform, but not SBS. It's a hard block. So for all my SBS servers with PERC 5/i cards, I have nothing from Dell that I can run on the server box that will monitor the health of the RAID controller and notify me when there's a problem. With my other RAID controllers, I can fall back on the audio alert at the very least for notification of a problem, but don't have that option here.

Last Thursday, at my SBS user group meeting, I mentioned my frustrations with the situation in a side conversation, and one of the folks I was talking with was as taken aback as I was when I first figured this out. He just put a number of servers with PERC 5/i cards in them out in production and was also unaware that the controller had no audible alarm mechanism. I've mentioned this to a couple of other folks as well, with pretty much the same reaction.

This week, I started putting together specs for a couple of new servers for a couple of projects and, knowing the challenges of the PERC 5/i, decided to look at other controller options for these boxes. Unfortunately, I've found that, currently, the only RAID controller that Dell provides that supports RAID 5 is, surprise surprise, the PERC 5/i. There are other controllers, but those only support RAID 0 or 1. And I don't yet have confirmation if those controllers have audible alarms on them or not. So, even if I was able to "settle for" a RAID 1 solution (and to be fair, on one box it's not unrealistic), I still think I'd be in the same situation.

I've been working with a couple of folks at Dell on trying to find a reasonable resolution to this problem. Of course, there's always the recommendation that I can run IT Assistant on a separate workstation to monitor the array card in the server and send notifications back to me  if/when there's a problem. But that's not necessarily a realistic solution at some sites. Now I have to install a piece of software on a workstation that has to be running all the time and may or may not interfere with what the user of the workstation is trying to do. I simply can't afford to stick a dedicated box at each of my client sites to do this monitoring, nor can I ask them to dedicate a workstation to do this themselves. It looks like I'm going to have to go third party for a solution, and while that's probably less costly than doing a dedicated workstation to monitor the array, it's still an added expense that I really don't think I should have to incur in order to be proactive with my clients.

I honestly believe the folks I've spoken with at Dell understand my plight. While they have not committed to anything, there have been discussions about changes to engineering on future controllers to ensure an audible alarm among other possibilities. Based on a series of messages that floated around this afternoon, I know the issue has been escalated internally, but still have no clear direction on where to go.

At the end of the day, two weeks after I first placed the call regarding the failed array and lack of notification of the failure, I still have a box that I will have to manually monitor for RAID health. I'm hoping for a better solution, and I expect that I'll just have to be patient.

I sure hope that data cable doesn't pop off the drive connector again, tho...
 

 

Posted: Mar 30 2007, 04:37 PM by eriq | with 20 comment(s)

Filed under: Frustrations

Comments

Eli said:

Thank you!

I'm intending to buy such controler to my Dell 690P workstation. and i will check this problem.

Regards

zilkael@013.net

 

# June 3, 2007 10:55 AM

Electrosonics said:

Right on with your comments on Perc 5/i! As of 7/6/07 I too have come to a dead end. No answers from dell on monitoring the health of the RAID array. In my prototype system (4 drive array) from Dell, I was able to see events in the event log when the RAID array had a drive failure. With health monitor, I was able to create a rule to email me when that event occured. But in the production system (3 drive array with hot spare, wiped, new array, reload), I have yet to be able to reproduce my initial success. When I have a drive failure, the hot swap spare automatically kicks in but no event log message is reported hence no notification of a drive failure. This is pure BS. Notification upon a drive failure is so easy to impliment at the driver level. Someone dropped the ball here. I find it frustrating that Dell product development cannot do better.

 

# July 6, 2007 11:09 AM

looplocal said:

Along with the lack of audible alarm, if you purchased a Dell Perc5/i RAID controller card (not necessary a cheap investment) with a Precision workstation, be aware that it will come WITHOUT a card battery backup unit (BBU).

This was surprising as you would think it would have been a fairly trivial cost addition relative to the price of the $599 card.  I spent hours trying to order it as a spare part from Dell, but with no luck.

 

# July 21, 2007 7:51 AM

Stephen B. said:

I've written a cron job that I've set to execute every minute.  With each run, it blasts every open tty with a message from Dell's OMSA software if it finds a drive that has failed or is about to fail, and it sends mail to the root account (or its alias) if a drive's rebuilding.  It's meant to be insanely annoying to demonstrate just how important it is that it get fixed.  I run a small lab, so it's important to me that anyone using the system would be able to know that something's up.  The rebuilding part may be omitted, but I like to check up on the status of any rebuilding drive.  I'm sure there are tons of tweaks to it that a more experienced programmer could make (like sending messages to SMS servers, sending non-local e-mails), but I've tried to keep it simple for now.  It's posted it below, in hopes that it can help people out:

~~~

#! /bin/sh

###################################################

# Checks RAID array to ensure that drives have not

# gone critical and are not predicted to fail.  If

# something is amiss, hammer out a notice to

# ensure that the faulty drive is replaced before

# a second failure.  While it's repairing, mail a

# notice to root informing root of rebuilding

# progress.

#

# Depends on Dell's OMSA being installed; tested

# on PERC 5/i HW RAID card on Dell PowerEdge 2900

# running Debian etch.

#

# Meant to be run in root's crontab.

###################################################

# Assigns script variables

# Edit these values to correspond to your hardware

# and software configuration

CONTROLLER=0

MAIL_ROOT="root"

###################################################

#DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS LINE!

###################################################

# Locates omreport on this system

OMREPORT=`which omreport`

GREP=`which grep`

WALL=`which wall`

MAIL=`which mail`

# Checks status of RAID array

# First, checks for critical failure and sends messages to all ttys if failure has occurred

RAID_CRITICAL=`$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP Critical`

if [ -n "$RAID_CRITICAL" ]; then

   echo `$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP -B 3 -A 2 Critical` | $WALL

   exit 1

fi

# Next, checks for predicted failure and sends messages to all ttys if failure is predicted

RAID_FAILURE=`$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP "Failure Predicted         : Yes"`

if [ -n "$RAID_FAILURE" ]; then

   echo `$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP -B 4 "Failure Predicted         : Yes"` | $WALL

   exit 2

fi

# Finally, checks for rebuilding of array and sends messages to root if rebuilding

RAID_REBUILDING=`$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP Rebuilding`

if [ -n "$RAID_REBUILDING" ]; then

   echo `$OMREPORT storage pdisk controller=$CONTROLLER | $GREP -B 3 -A 2 Rebuilding` | $MAIL -s "RAID array rebuilding" "$MAIL_ROOT"

   exit 3

fi

 

# July 24, 2007 5:53 PM

Doug Wassmer said:

I just purchased a PERC 5/i daughter card for my Poweredge 1900 running Windows 2003 Server. I ran across your coments when I was searching for instructions on how to install the daughter card. I think that it fits into slot 4 on the motherboard, but I have no idea where to place the battery that came with it.  The battery does not attach to the daughtercard. I couldn't find good instructions at the dell iste or on the documentation that came with the 1900.

 

# August 8, 2007 10:27 AM

James said:

You can use the LSI software, as the Perc 5/i is really an Dell OEM version of the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8408E, with a few minor differences.

MegaRAID Storage Manager can email alerts to a set email address if something goes wrong.

www.lsi.com/.../index.html

And, Looplocal, you can pick a BBU off eBay for sometimes as little as $15, so all is not lost! :) - I bought a whole kit, battery, cable and holder for $30.

 

# August 10, 2007 10:31 PM

infinity005 said:

I stumbled on this while looking for answers to performance problems with the perc 5/i. Before going live, I've run iozone on it and write performance with 7 drives in raid 5 is atrocious! I haven't yet figured out why, and the card will have to get returned if I don't because an array with 4 disks is 3 time faster doing writes than a 7 disk array.

 

# October 6, 2007 5:47 PM

B.Grujevsky said:

Yes, the LSI software works fine. Peculiar that DELL didn't take that "part" of the LSI-controller into their software.

 

# October 16, 2007 5:26 PM

Wes said:

James has got the best info.. Go to LSI webpage and download the MegaRAID Storage Manager, it is the exact same software, but has email notifications enabled.

For some reason Dell stripped out the SNMP section of the LSI software, which is the part that does the notifications.  Great job Dell!

 

# October 29, 2007 1:06 PM

LoopLocal said:

Thanks for that info.  I managed to find the kit as suggested.  Once I had the part number Dell was able to provide via the Spare Parts department.

I installed the BBU, but how does one know it is recognized? My Perc 5 BIOS enabled  configuration does not give any info other than the warning after checking write back even without bbu option.  Any idea on how to know if a Perc 5 bbu is installed and identified by the bios correctly?  Will the Perc 5 BIOS config always give the Write Back/BBU warning even if a BBU is installed?

Thanks for any info.

loop

 

# December 31, 2007 11:48 PM

LoopLocal said:

Please forgive my BBU question.  I installed the MegaRaid as suggested by James and that provides an abundance of info (unlike the BIOS config) including the BBU identification.

BBU Present?   YES !

 

# January 1, 2008 12:10 AM

LoopLocal said:

At the LSI site, there seems to be a more aggressive driver and firmware availability compared to Dell. 

Any thoughts on if it is advisable to go with LSI's driver and firmware releases instead of Dell's outdated ones?  There seems to be quite a few bug fixes and many Vista enhancements/fixes.

 

# January 1, 2008 12:11 AM

Adam Cybulski said:

I see that you posted this about a year ago, I was wondering if any progress has been made on this issue. I am running into the exact same problem, we deployed numerous Dell servers to our clients only to find that they have no alert system. while some of the clients have workstations, others do not.

 

# January 28, 2008 8:27 AM

OnQ said:

I&#39;ve had a few comments show up on the series of PERC 5/i posts I had early in 2007. There have been

# January 28, 2008 9:07 AM

Andy said:

Loop - can you post the part number for the BBU? - is it the G3399?

 

# February 20, 2008 3:00 PM

Jerodh said:

Great blog article.  Very helpful.  I'm in the process of putting together a PowerEdge 1900 with Perc 5/i running CentOS 5.1 64-bit for vmware server 1.0.5.  Hope to run a Windows and Novell virtual machines on it.

I'm going to try out an altered script that Stephen B. wrote.  If I can't get that to work then I'll use the LSI MegaRAID Storage manager.  My concern with running the LSI product is that I'm using Dell's megaraid_sas driver version 3.16 and LSI's latest driver is 3.13.

 

# May 7, 2008 8:57 PM

jerod h said:

I couldn't get the script above to work (my bash didn't like the pipe command in the variables), so I created this one using perl. 

#!/usr/bin/perl

# A simple perl program to send alerts if problem found with physical disks

# by using OMSA 5.2 for Dell PowerEdge

# I do not provide any guarantee that this script will work. Use at own risk.

#Written: May 2008

#By: Jerod H

$controller="0";

$emailaddress="jerod\@yourdomain.com";

$omreport="/usr/bin/omreport";

$mail="/bin/mail";

$servername="yourservername";

# run omreport command and put into olist

open(LS, "$omreport storage pdisk controller=$controller |");

while() {

chomp;

push @olist, $_;

}

close(LS);

# Go through each line in olist to look for "Critical", "Rebuilding", or

# "Failure Predicted : YES"

$email=0;

$subject="";

foreach $line(@olist){

if ($line =~ /Critical$/i) {

$email=1;

$subject="$servername Hard Drive Critical";

}

if ($line =~ /Failure$/i) {

$email=1;

$subject="$servername Hard Drive Rebuilding";

}

if ($line =~ /^Failure\sPredicted(\s)+:\sYes$/i) {

$email=1;

$subject="$servername Hard Drive Predicted to Fail";

}

}

#If something was found email will = 1 so send email

if ($email==1) {

system("$omreport storage pdisk controller=$controller | $mail -s '$subject' $emailaddress");

}

 

# May 9, 2008 8:20 AM

Tyler said:

I think Dell should place the alarm on the controller.  Those admins who do not want the alarm can disable it like you could before yanking it from the card.

 

# May 9, 2008 8:32 AM

Mårten said:

Hi!

Im going for a 2900, is the Perc 6/i any better?

 

# December 17, 2008 9:21 AM

eriq said:

PERC 6 series has the same problems. No audible alarm. I've continued to try to raise the issue with Dell but with little response, other than the technicians

 

[Nov 5, 2008] Import Foreign Configuration Dell OpenManage™ Server Administrator Storage Management User's Guide

A foreign configuration is data residing on physical disks that have been moved from one enclosure to another or to a different controller. Virtual disks residing on physical disks that have been moved are considered to be a foreign configuration. Some controllers enable you to import a foreign configuration so that virtual disks are not lost after moving the physical disks.

To be imported, the foreign configuration must contain a virtual disk that is in either Ready or Degraded state. In other words, all of the virtual disk data must be present, but if the virtual disk is using a redundant RAID level, the additional redundant data does not need to be present.

For example, if the foreign configuration contains only one side of a mirror in a RAID 1 virtual disk, then the virtual disk is in Degraded state and can be imported. On the other hand, if the foreign configuration contains only one physical disk that was originally configured as a RAID 5 using three physical disks, then the RAID 5 virtual disk is failed and cannot be imported.

In addition to virtual disks, a foreign configuration may consist of a physical disk that was assigned as a hot spare on one controller and then moved to another controller. The Import Foreign Configuration task imports the new physical disk as a hot spare. If the physical disk was a dedicated hot spare on the previous controller, but the virtual disk to which the hot spare was assigned is no longer present in the foreign configuration, then the physical disk is imported as a global hot spare.

The Import Foreign Configuration task is only displayed when the controller has detected a foreign configuration. You can also identify whether or not a physical disk contains a foreign configuration (virtual disk or hot spare) by checking the physical disk state. If the physical disk state is Foreign, then the physical disk contains all or some portion of a virtual disk or has a hot spare assignment.

If you have an incomplete foreign configuration which cannot be imported, you can use the "Clear Foreign Configuration" task to erase the foreign data on the physical disks.

NOTE: The import foreign configuration task imports all virtual disks residing on physical disks that have been added to the controller. If more than one foreign virtual disk is present, you cannot choose which one to import. All will be imported.

[Nov 4, 2008] Virtual Disks Degraded

When disk is complaining about "foreign configuration" you might misplaced some drives when reinserting them of if mirror is degraded and you created new partitions. The trick is to get rid of foreign configuration  

2. I deleted "foreign configuration" on the PERC6/i mein menu (in the top menu of controller BIOS). That was the key thing for the solution of the problem. See also Clear Foreign Configuration

4. I switched to Physical Disk Management (PD Mgmt) and put the drive offline;

A redundant virtual disk is in a degraded state when one physical disk has failed or is inaccessible. For example, a RAID 1 virtual disk consisting of two physical disks can sustain one physical disk in a failed or inaccessible state and become a degraded virtual disk.

To recover from a degraded virtual disk, rebuild the physical disk in the inaccessible state. Upon successful completion of the rebuild process, the virtual disk state changes from degraded to optimal. For the rebuild procedure, see Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk in RAID Configuration and Management.

Recommended links

Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) Dell

DELL Tutorial: Create RAID Using PERC 6/i Integrated ...

Perl 5/i RAID Card- Tips and Benchmarks - Overclock.net ...

Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 5/i and 5/E User's Guide

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