Dell 6 series User manual

www.dell.com | support.dell.com

Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable

RAID Controller (PERC) 6/i,

PERC 6/E and CERC 6/i

User’s Guide

Dell_PERC6.2_UG.book Page 1 Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:08 PM

Notes, Cautions, and Warnings

NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of

your system.

CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates potential damage to hardware or loss of data if

instructions are not followed.

WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage,

personal injury, or death.

____________________

Information in this document is subject to change without notice.

Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc.

is strictly forbidden.

Trademarks used in this text: Dell, the DELL logo, PowerEdge, PowerVault, Dell Precision, and

OpenManage are trademarks of Dell Inc.; MegaRAID is a registered trademark of LSI Corporation;

Microsoft,MS-DOS,WindowsServer,Windows,andWindowsVista areeithertrademarksorregistered

trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries; Citrix XenServer is

a trademark of Citrix Systems Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the

U.S.PatentandTrademarkOfficeandinothercountries;VMwareisaregisteredtrademarkofVMware,

Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions; Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.;

Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States or other

countries;NovellandNetWareareregisteredtrademarks,andSUSEisa registeredtrademarkofNovell,

Inc. in the United States and other countries; Red Hat and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are registered

trademarks of Red Hat, Inc.

Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming

the marks and names or their products. Dell Inc. disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and

trade names other than its own.

Models UCC-60, UCP-60, UCPM-60, and UCP-61

June 2009 Rev. A01

Dell_PERC6.2_UG.book Page 2 Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:08 PM

Contents 3

Contents

1 WARNING: Safety Instructions . . . . . . . . 11

SAFETY: General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System . . . . . . 12

Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge . . . . . . 13

SAFETY: Battery Disposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Descriptions . . . . . . 15

PCI Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Operating System Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

RAID Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Summary of RAID Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

RAID Terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 About PERC 6 and CERC

6/i Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

PERC 6 and CERC 6 Controller Features . . . . . . . . . 21

Using the SMART Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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4Contents

Initializing Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Background Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Full Initialization of Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . . 26

Fast Initialization of Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . . 26

Consistency Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Disk Roaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Disk Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created

on PERC 5 Controllers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created

on SAS 6/iR Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Migrating Virtual Disks from SAS 6/iR

to PERC 6 and CERC 6/i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Battery Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Battery Warranty Information . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Battery Learn Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Virtual Disk Write Cache Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Write-Back and Write-Through. . . . . . . . . . . 32

Conditions Under Which Write-Back

is Employed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Conditions Under Which Write-Through

is Employed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Conditions Under Which Forced Write-Back

With No Battery is Employed . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Virtual Disk Read Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Reconfiguring Virtual Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Fault Tolerance Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Physical Disk Hot Swapping . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Failed Physical Disk Detection . . . . . . . . . . . 37

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Contents 5

Redundant Path With Static Load

Balancing Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Using Replace Member and Revertible

Hot Spares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Patrol Read. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Patrol Read Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Patrol Read Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4 Installing and Configuring Hardware . . . 41

Installing the PERC 6/E and PERC 6/i Adapters . . . . . 41

Installing the Transportable Battery Backup

Unit (TBBU) on PERC 6/E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Installing the DIMM on a PERC 6/E Adapter . . . . . . 47

Transferring a TBBU Between Controllers . . . . . . . 48

Removing the PERC 6/E and PERC 6/i Adapters . . . . . 49

Removing the DIMM and Battery from a

PERC 6/E Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Disconnecting the BBU from a PERC 6/i Adapter

or a PERC 6/i Integrated Controller . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Setting up Redundant Path Support on the

PERC 6/E Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Reverting From Redundant Path Support to Single

Path Support on the PERC 6/E Adapter . . . . . . . . . 58

Removing and Installing the PERC 6/i and CERC 6/i

Integrated Storage Controller Cards in Dell

Modular Blade Systems (Service-Only Procedure) . . . 59

Installing the Storage Controller Card . . . . . . . 60

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6Contents

5 Driver Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Installing Windows Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Creating the Driver Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Pre-Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Installing the Driver During a Windows

Server 2003 or Windows XP

Operating System Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Installing the Driver During a Windows Server

2008 or Windows Vista Installation . . . . . . . . . 66

Installing a Windows Server 2003, Windows

Server 2008, Windows Vista, or Windows XP

Driver for a New RAID Controller. . . . . . . . . . 67

Updating an Existing Windows Server 2003,

Windows Server 2008, Windows XP,

or Windows Vista Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Installing Linux Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating

System Using the Driver Update Diskette . . . . . 71

Installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Using the Driver Update Diskette . . . . . . . . . . 71

Installing the RPM Package With

DKMS Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Installing Solaris Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Installing Solaris 10 on a PowerEdge System

Booting From a PERC 6 or CERC 6/i Controller . . . 74

Adding/Updating the Driver to an

Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Installing NetWare Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Installing the NetWare Driver in a New

NetWare System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Installing or Updating the NetWare Driver in

an Existing NetWare System . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

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Contents 7

6 Configuring and Managing RAID. . . . . . . 77

Dell OpenManage Storage Management . . . . . . . . 77

Dell SAS RAID Storage Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

RAID Configuration Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

BIOS Configuration Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility. . . . . . . 79

Exiting the Configuration Utility. . . . . . . . . . . 80

Menu Navigation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Setting Up Virtual Disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Virtual Disk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Creating Virtual Disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Initializing Virtual Disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Checking Data Consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations

Using the VD Mgmt Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Importing or Clearing Foreign

Configurations Using the Foreign

Configuration View Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Managing Preserved Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Managing Dedicated Hot Spares. . . . . . . . . . 94

Deleting Virtual Disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Deleting Disk Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Resetting the Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Options. . . . . . 96

Physical Disk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Setting LED Blinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Creating Global Hot Spares. . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Removing Global or Dedicated Hot Spares . . . . 106

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8Contents

Replacing an Online Physical Disk . . . . . . . . 107

Stopping Background Initialization . . . . . . . . 108

Performing a Manual Rebuild of an

Individual Physical Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Controller Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Enabling Boot Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Enabling BIOS Stop on Error . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Restoring Factory Default Settings . . . . . . . . 111

7 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Post Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Virtual Disks Degraded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Memory Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Pinned Cache State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

General Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Physical Disk Related Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Physical Disk Failures and Rebuilds . . . . . . . . . 123

SMART Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Replace Member Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Linux Operating System Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Controller LED Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Drive Carrier LED Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

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Contents 9

A Regulatory Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

B Corporate Contact Details (Taiwan Only) 135

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

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10 Contents

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