Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 6E User Manual

Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable

RAID Controller (PERC) 6/i,

PERC 6/E and CERC 6/i

User’s Guide

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.

____________________

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, Windows Server , W indows, and W indows V ista are either trademarks or registered

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. Patent and Trademark Off ice and in other countries; VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, 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; Novell and NetWar e are registered trademarks, and SUSE is a registered trademark of Novell, 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

Contents

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

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

SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System

Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge

SAFETY: Battery Disposal

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

. . . . . . 12

. . . . . . 13

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

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

PCI Architecture

Operating System Support

RAID Description

Summary of RAID Levels

RAID Terminology

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 About PERC 6 and CERC

6/i Controllers

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

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Using the SMART Feature

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Contents 3

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

Background Initialization

Full Initialization of Virtual Disks

Fast Initialization of Virtual Disks

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

. . . . . . . . . . 26

Consistency Checks

Disk Roaming

Disk Migration

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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

Battery Management

Battery Warranty Information

Battery Learn Cycle

Virtual Disk Write Cache Policies

Write-Back and Write-Through

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

. . . . . . . . . . . 30

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

. . . . . . . . . . . . 32

. . . . . . . . . . . 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

4 Contents

Virtual Disk Read Policies

Reconfiguring Virtual Disks

Fault Tolerance Features

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Physical Disk Hot Swapping

Failed Physical Disk Detection

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

. . . . . . . . . . . . 36

. . . . . . . . . . . 37

Redundant Path With Static Load Balancing Support

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Using Replace Member and Revertible Hot Spares

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Patrol Read

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Patrol Read Feature

Patrol Read Modes

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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

Installing the DIMM on a PERC 6/E Adapter

Transferring a TBBU Between Controllers

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

Removing the DIMM and Battery from a PERC 6/E Adapter

Disconnecting the BBU from a PERC 6/i Adapter or a PERC 6/i Integrated Controller

Setting up Redundant Path Support on the PERC 6/E Adapter

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

. . . . . . 47

. . . . . . . 48

. . . . . 49

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

. . . . . . . . . . . 54

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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)

Installing the Storage Controller Card

. . . . . . . 60

Contents 5

. . . 59

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

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

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

Installing a Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, or Windows XP Driver for a New RAID Controller

Updating an Existing Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Vista Driver

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

Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating System Using the Driver Update Diskette

Installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Using the Driver Update Diskette

Installing the RPM Package With DKMS Support

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

. . . . . . . . . . . 64

. . . . . . . . . . . . 65

. . . . . . . . . 66

. . . . . . . . . . 67

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

. . . . . 71

. . . . . . . . . . 71

6 Contents

Installing Solaris Driver

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Installing Solaris 10 on a PowerEdge System Booting From a PERC 6 or CERC 6/i Controller

Adding/Updating the Driver to an Existing System

Installing NetWare Drivers

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Installing the NetWare Driver in a New NetWare System

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Installing or Updating the NetWare Driver in an Existing NetWare System

. . . . . . . . . . . . 76

. . . 74

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

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

Dell SAS RAID Storage Manager

. . . . . . . . . . . . 77

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

BIOS Configuration Utility

Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility

Exiting the Configuration Utility

Menu Navigation Controls

Setting Up Virtual Disks

Virtual Disk Management

Creating Virtual Disks

Initializing Virtual Disks

Checking Data Consistency

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

. . . . . . . 79

. . . . . . . . . . . 80

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

. . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the VD Mgmt Menu

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Importing or Clearing Foreign Configurations Using the Foreign Configuration View Screen

Managing Preserved Cache

Managing Dedicated Hot Spares

Deleting Virtual Disks

Deleting Disk Groups

Resetting the Configuration

BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Options

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

. . . . . . . . . . . . 93

. . . . . . . . . . 94

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

. . . . . . . . . . . . 96

. . . . . . 96

Physical Disk Management

Setting LED Blinking

Creating Global Hot Spares

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Removing Global or Dedicated Hot Spares

. . . . 106

Contents 7

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

Stopping Background Initialization

. . . . . . . . 108

Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Controller Management

Enabling Boot Support

Enabling BIOS Stop on Error

Restoring Factory Default Settings

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

. . . . . . . . . . . 110

. . . . . . . . 111

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

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

Virtual Disks Degraded

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

Pinned Cache State

General Problems

Physical Disk Related Issues

Physical Disk Failures and Rebuilds

SMART Errors

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Replace Member Errors

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

. . . . . . . . . 123

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

8 Contents

Linux Operating System Errors

Controller LED Indicators

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Drive Carrier LED Indicators

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

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

B Corporate Contact Details (Taiwan Only)

Glossary

Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

135

Contents 9

10 Contents

WARNING: 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.

WARNING: 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. See "SAFETY: Battery Disposal" on page 14.

NOTE: For complete information about U.S. Terms and Conditions of Sale, Limited

Warranties, and Returns, Export Regulations, Software License Agreement, Safety, Environmental and Ergonomic Instructions, Regulatory Notices, and Recycling Information, see the documentation that was shipped with your system.

SAFETY: General

• Observe and follow service markings. Do not service any product except as explained in your user documentation. Opening or removing covers that are marked with the triangular symbol with a lightning bolt may expose you to electrical shock. Components inside these compartments must be serviced only by a trained service technician.

• If any of the following conditions occur, unplug the product from the electrical outlet, and replace the part or contact your trained service provider:

– The power cable, extension cable, or plug is damaged.

– An object has fallen in the product.

– The product has been exposed to water.

– The product has been dropped or damaged.

– The product does not operate correctly when you follow the operating

instructions.

• Use the product only with approved equipment.

WARNING: Safety Instructions 11

• Operate the product only from the type of external power source indicated on the electrical ratings label. If you are not sure of the type of power source required, consult your service provider or local power company.

• Handle batteries carefully. Do not disassemble, crush, puncture, short external contacts, dispose of in fire or water, or expose batteries to temperatures higher than 60° Celsius (140° Fahrenheit). Do not attempt to open or service batteries; replace batteries only with batteries designated for the product.

SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System

Before you remove the system covers, perform the following steps in the sequence indicated.

WARNING: 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.

WARNING: To help avoid possible damage to the system board, wait 5 seconds

after turning off the system before removing a component from the system board or disconnecting a peripheral device.

Turn off the system and any connected devices.

Disconnect your system and devices from their power sources. To reduce the potential of personal injury or shock, disconnect any telecommunication lines from the system.

Ground yourself by touching an unpainted metal surface on the chassis before touching anything inside the system.

While you work, periodically touch an unpainted metal surface on the chassis to dissipate any static electricity that might harm internal components.

12 WARNING: Safety Instructions

In addition, note these safety guidelines when appropriate:

• When you disconnect a cable, pull on its connector or on its strain-relief loop, not on the cable itself. Some cables have a connector with locking tabs. If you are disconnecting this type of cable, press in on the locking tabs before disconnecting the cable. As you pull connectors apart, keep them evenly aligned to avoid bending any connector pins. Also, when you connect a cable, make sure both connectors are correctly oriented and aligned.

• Handle components and cards with care. Do not touch the components or contacts on a card. Hold a card by its edges or by its metal mounting bracket. Hold a component such as a microprocessor chip by its edges, not by its pins.

Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) events can harm electronic components inside your system. Under certain conditions, ESD may build up on your body or an object, such as a peripheral, and then discharge insto another object, such as your system. To prevent ESD damage, you must discharge static electricity from your body before you interact with any of your system’s internal electronic components, such as a memory module. You can protect against ESD by touching a metal grounded object (such as an unpainted metal surface on your system’s I/O panel) before you interact with anything electronic. When connecting a peripheral (including handheld digital assistants) to your system, you should always ground both yourself and the peripheral before connecting it to the system. Additionally, as you work inside the system, periodically touch an I/O connector to remove any static charge your body may have accumulated.

WARNING: Safety Instructions 13

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.

• When transporting a sensitive component, first place it in an antistatic container or packaging.

• Handle all electrostatic sensitive components in a static-safe area. If possible, use antistatic floor pads and work bench pads.

SAFETY: Battery Disposal

Your system may use a nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), lithium coin-cell, and/or a lithium-ion battery. The NiMH, lithium coincell, and lithium-ion batteries are long-life batteries, and it is possible that you will never need to replace them. However, should you need to replace them, see the instructions included in the

section "Configuring and Managing RAID" on page 77.

NOTE: Do not dispose of the battery along with household waste. Contact your

local waste disposal agency for the address of the nearest battery deposit site.

NOTE: Your system may also include circuit cards or other components that

contain batteries. These batteries too must be disposed of in a battery deposit site. For information about such batteries, see the documentation for the specific card or component.

Taiwan Battery Recycling Mark

14 WARNING: Safety Instructions

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 only support Dell-qualified SAS and SATA hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD). The controllers are designed to provide reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant disk subsystem management.

PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Descriptions

The following list describes each type of controller:

• The PERC 6/E Adapter with two external x4 SAS ports and a transportable battery backup unit (TBBU)

• The PERC 6/i Adapter with two internal x4 SAS ports, with or without a battery backup unit, depending on the system

• The PERC 6/i Integrated controller with two internal x4 SAS ports and a battery backup unit

• The CERC 6/i Integrated controller with one internal x4 SAS port and no battery backup unit

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 controllers support a PCI-E x4 host interface.

NOTE: PCI-E is a high-performance input/output (I/O) bus architecture designed to

increase data transfers without slowing down the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

Overview 15

Operating System Support

The PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers support the following operating systems:

• Citrix® XenServer® Dell Edition

• Microsoft

• Microsoft Windows

• Microsoft Windows Vista

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (including Hyper-V™ virtualization)

•Novell

•Red Hat Linux Version 5

• Solaris™ 10 (64-bit)

•SUSE and Version 11 (64-bit)

•VMware

NOTE: Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems are supported with a

PERC 6 controller only when the controller is installed in a Dell Precision™ workstation.

NOTE: For the latest list of supported operating systems and driver installation

instructions, see the system documentation on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com. For specific operating system service pack requirements, see the Drivers and Downloads section on the Dell Support site at support.dell.com.

Windows Server® 2003

NetWare® 6.5

Enterprise Linux® Version 4 and Red Hat Enterprise

Linux Enterprise Server Version 9 (64-bit), Version 10 (64-bit),

ESX 3.5 and 3.5i

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. RAID systems also improve data storage availability and fault tolerance. Data loss caused by a physical disk failure can be recovered by rebuilding missing data from the remaining physical disks containing data or parity.

CAUTION: In the event of a physical disk failure, a RAID 0 virtual disk fails,

resulting in data loss.

16 Overview

Summary of RAID Levels

• RAID 0 uses disk striping to provide high data throughput, especially for large files in an environment that requires no data redundancy.

• RAID 1 uses disk mirroring so that data written to one physical disk is simultaneously written to another physical disk. RAID 1 is good for small databases or other applications that require small capacity, but also require complete data redundancy.

• RAID 5 uses disk striping and parity data across all physical disks (distributed parity) to provide high data throughput and data redundancy, especially for small random access.

• RAID 6 is an extension of RAID 5 and uses an additional parity block. RAID 6 uses block-level striping with two parity blocks distributed across all member disks. RAID 6 provides protection against double disk failures, and failures while a single disk is rebuilding. If you are using only one array, deploying RAID 6 is more effective than deploying a hot spare disk.

• RAID 10, a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1, uses disk striping across mirrored disks. It provides high data throughput and complete data redundancy. RAID 10 can support up to eight spans, and up to 32 physical disks per span.

• RAID 50, a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 5, uses distributed data parity and disk striping and works best with data that requires high system availability, high request rates, high data transfers, and medium to large capacity.

• RAID 60 is a combination of RAID 6 and RAID 0, a RAID 0 array is striped across RAID 6 elements. RAID 60 requires at least 8 disks.

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 in stripes of the following sizes: 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1024 KB. These stripes are interleaved in a repeated sequential manner. The part of the stripe on a single physical disk is called a stripe element.

Overview 17

For example, in a four-disk system using only disk striping (used in RAID 0),

Stripe element 1 Stripe element 5 Stripe element 9

Stripe element 2 Stripe element 6 Stripe element 10

Stripe element 3 Stripe element 7 Stripe element 11

Stripe element 4 Stripe element 8 Stripe element 12

segment 1 is written to disk 1, segment 2 is written to disk 2, and so on. Disk striping enhances performance because multiple physical disks are accessed simultaneously, but disk striping does not provide data redundancy.

Figure 2-1 shows an example of disk striping.

Figure 2-1. Example of Disk Striping (RAID 0)

Disk Mirroring

With mirroring (used in RAID 1), data written to one disk is simultaneously written to another disk. If one disk fails, the contents of the other disk can be used to run the system and rebuild the failed physical disk. The primary advantage of disk mirroring is that it provides complete data redundancy. Because the contents of the disk are completely written to a second disk, it does not matter if one of the disks fails. Both disks contain the same data at all times. Either of the physical disks can act as the operational physical disk.

Disk mirroring provides complete redundancy, but is expensive because each physical disk in the system must be duplicated.

18 Overview

NOTE: Mirrored physical disks improve read performance by read load balance.

Figure 2-2 shows an example of disk mirroring.

Stripe element 1 Stripe element 2 Stripe element 3

Stripe element 1 Duplicated Stripe element 2 Duplicated Stripe element 3 Duplicated

Stripe element 4 Stripe element 4 Duplicated

Figure 2-2. Example of Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)

Spanned RAID Levels

Spanning is a term used to describe the way in which RAID levels 10, 50, and 60 are constructed from multiple sets of basic, or simple RAID levels. For example, a RAID 10 has 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. If you are using RAID 50 or RAID 60, you can combine multiple sets of RAID 5 and RAID 6 together with striping.

Parity Data

Parity data is redundant data that is generated to provide fault tolerance within certain RAID levels. In the event of a drive failure the parity data can be used by the controller to regenerate user data. Parity data is present for RAID 5, 6, 50, and 60.

The parity data is distributed across all the physical disks in the system. If a single physical disk fails, it can be rebuilt from the parity and the data on the remaining physical disks. RAID level 5 combines distributed parity with disk striping, as shown in Figure 2-3. Parity provides redundancy for one physical disk failure without duplicating the contents of entire physical disks.

RAID 6 combines dual distributed parity with disk striping. This level of parity allows for two disk failures without duplicating the contents of entire physical disks.

Overview 19

Figure 2-3. Example of Distributed Parity (RAID 5)

Stripe element 1 Stripe element 7

Stripe element 2 Stripe element 8

Stripe element 3 Stripe element 9

Stripe element 4 Stripe element 10

Stripe element 5

Parity (6–10)

Parity (11–15)

Parity (1–5) Stripe element 6 Stripe element 12

Stripe element 15

Stripe element 11Stripe element 14

Stripe element 13 Stripe element 19 Stripe element 25

Stripe element 20

Stripe element 23

Stripe element 18

Stripe element 21

Stripe element 16 Stripe element 22

Stripe element 17

Parity (21–25)

Parity (26–30)

Parity (16–20)

Stripe element 24 Stripe element 30

Stripe element 27 Stripe element 29

Stripe element 26

Stripe element 28

Stripe element 1 Stripe element 5

Stripe element 2 Stripe element 6

Stripe element 3 Parity (5–8)

Stripe element 4 Parity (5–8)

Parity (1–4) Stripe element 7

Stripe element 10

Parity (1–4) Stripe element 8 Stripe element 12

Stripe element 9

Stripe element 11

Parity (9–12)

Parity (9–12) Stripe element 13 Stripe element 14 Stripe element 16Parity (13–16)

Stripe element 15

Parity (13–16)

NOTE: Parity is distributed across multiple physical disks in the disk group.

Figure 2-4. Example of Dual Distributed Parity (RAID 6)

NOTE: Parity is distributed across all drives in the array.

20 Overview

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

This section describes the features of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 and the Dell Cost-Effective RAID Controller (CERC) 6/i such as the configuration options, disk array performance, RAID management utilities, and operating system software drivers.

PERC 6 and CERC 6 Controller Features

The PERC 6 and CERC 6 family of controllers support only Dell-qualified Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) hard disk drives(HDDs), SATA HDDs, and solid-state disks (SSD). Mixing SAS and SATA drives within a virtual disk is not supported. Also, mixing HDDs and SSDs within a virtual disk is not supported.

Table 3-1 compares the hardware configurations for the PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers.

Table 3-1. PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Comparisons

Specification PERC 6/E

Adapter

RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10,

50, 60

Enclosures per Port

Ports 2 x4 external

Processor LSI adapter

Up to 3 enclosures

wide port

SAS RAID-onChip, 8-port with 1078

PERC 6/i Adapter PERC 6/i

Integrated

0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60

N/A N/A N/A

2 x4 internal wide port

LSI adapter SAS RAID-on-Chip, 8-port with 1078

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers 21

0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60

2 x4 internal wide port

LSI adapter SAS RAID-on-Chip, 8-port with 1078

CERC 6/i Integrated

0,1,5,6, and 10

1 x4 internal wide port

LSI adapter SAS RAIDon-Chip, 4-port with 1078

Table 3-1. PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Comparisons (continued)

Specification PERC 6/E

Adapter

Battery Backup Unit

Cache Memory

Ye s, Transportable

256-MB DDRII cache memory size.

Optional 512-MB DIMM

Cache Functi on

Write-Back, Write-Through, Adaptive Read Ahead, No-Read Ahead, Read Ahead

Maximum

Up to 8 arrays Up to 8 arrays Up to 8 arrays Up to 2 Number of Spans per Disk Group

Maximum Number of Virtual Disks per Disk Group

Up to 16

virtual disks

per disk group

for non-

spanned RAID

levels: 0, 1, 5,

and 6.

One virtual

disk per disk

group for

spanned RAID

levels: 10, 50,

and 60.

PERC 6/i Adapter PERC 6/i

Integrated

Ye s

256-MB DDRII cache memory size

Wri te -Back , Write-Through, Adaptive Read Ahead, No-Read Ahead, Read Ahead

Up to 16 virtual disks per disk group for nonspanned RAID levels: 0, 1, 5, and 6.

One virtual disk per disk group for spanned RAID levels: 10, 50, and 60.

Ye s N o

256-MB DDRII cache memory size

Write-Back, Write-Through, Adaptive Read Ahead, No-Read Ahead, Read Ahead

Up to 16 virtual disks per disk group for nonspanned RAID levels: 0, 1, 5, and 6.

One virtual disk per disk group for spanned RAID levels: 10, 50, and 60.

CERC 6/i Integrated

128-MB DDRII cache memory size

Write-Back, Writ eThrough, Adaptive Read Ahead, No-Read Ahead, Read Ahead

arrays

Up to 16 virtual disks per disk group for nonspanned RAID levels: 0, 1, 5, and 6.

One virtual disk per disk group for spanned RAID level 10.

22 About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

Table 3-1. PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Comparisons (continued)

Specification PERC 6/E

Adapter

Multiple Virtual Disks per

Up to 64 virtual disks per controller

Controller

Support for

Yes Yes Yes x4 PCIe x8 PCIe Host Interface

Online

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s Capacity Expansion

Dedicated

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s and Global Hot Spares

Hot Swap

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s Devices Supported

Enclosure Hot-Add

Mixed

Yes N/A N/A N/A

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s Capacity Physical Disks Supported

Hardware

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s Exclusive-OR (XOR) Assistance

PERC 6/i Adapter PERC 6/i

Integrated

Up to 64 virtual disks per controller

CERC 6/i Integrated

Up to 64 virtual disks per controller

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers 23

Table 3-1. PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controller Comparisons (continued)

Specification PERC 6/E

Adapter

Revertible Hot Spares Supported

Redundant Path Support

a. These RAID configurations are only supported on select Dell modular systems. 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.

c. Using the enclosure Hot-Add feature, you can hot plug enclosures to the PERC 6/E adapter

without rebooting the system.

NOTE: The maximum array size is limited by the maximum number of drives per

disk group (32), the maximum number of spans per disk group (8), and the size of the physical drives.

NOTE: The number of physical disks on a controller is limited by the number of slots

in the backplane on which the card is attached.

Ye s Ye s Ye s Ye s

Yes N/A N/A N/A

PERC 6/i Adapter PERC 6/i

Integrated

CERC 6/i Integrated

Using the SMART Feature

The Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) feature monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and physical disk electronics to detect predictable physical disk failures. The SMART feature helps monitor physical disk performance and reliability.

SMART-compliant physical disks have attributes for which data can be monitored to identify changes in values and determine whether the values are within threshold limits. Many mechanical and electrical failures display some degradation in performance before failure.

24 About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

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.

NOTE: For detailed information on Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)

interface specifications, see www.t10.org and for detailed information on for Serial Attached ATA (SATA) interface specifications, see www.t13.org.

Initializing Virtual Disks

You can initialize the virtual disks as described in the following sections.

Background Initialization

Background Initialization (BGI) is an automated process that writes the parity or mirror data on newly created virtual disks. BGI assumes that the data is correct on all new drives. BGI does not run on RAID 0 virtual disks.

NOTE: You cannot permanently disable BGI. If you cancel BGI, it automatically

restarts within five minutes. For information on stopping BGI, see "Stopping Background Initialization" on page 108.

You can control the BGI rate in the Dell™ OpenManage™ storage management application. Any change in the BGI rate does not take effect until the next BGI run.

NOTE: Unlike full or fast initialization of virtual disks, Background Initialization does

not clear data from the physical disks.

Consistency Check (CC) and BGI perform similar functions in that they both correct parity errors. However, CC reports data inconsistencies through an event notification, but BGI does not (BGI assumes the data is correct, as it is run only on a newly created disk). You can start CC manually, but not BGI.

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers 25

Full Initialization 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. Full Initialization of a virtual disk 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 able to access the virtual disk. You can start a Full Initialization on a virtual disk by using the Slow Initialize option in the Dell OpenManage storage management application. To use the BIOS Configuration Utility to perform a Full Initialization, see "Initializing Virtual Disks" on page 88.

NOTE: If the system reboots during a Full Initialization, the operation aborts and a

BGI begins on the virtual disk.

Fast Initialization of Virtual Disks

A fast initialization on a virtual disk overwrites the first and last 8 MB of the virtual disk, clearing any boot records or partition information. This operation takes only 2–3 seconds to complete and is recommended when recreating virtual disks. To perform a fast initialization using the BIOS Configuration Utility, see "Initializing Virtual Disks" on page 88.

Consistency Checks

CC is a background operation that verifies and corrects the mirror or parity data for fault tolerant virtual disks. It is recommended that you periodically run a consistency check on virtual disks.

You can manually start a consistency check using the BIOS Configuration Utility or a OpenManage storage management application. To start a CC using the BIOS Configuration Utility, see "Checking Data Consistency" on page 88. CCs can be scheduled to run on virtual disks using a OpenManage storage management application.

By default, CC 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 application. 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.

26 About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

Disk Roaming

The PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers support moving physical disks from one cable connection or backplane slot to another on the same controller. The controller automatically recognizes the relocated physical disks and logically places them in the proper virtual disks that are part of the disk group. You can perform disk roaming only when the system is turned off.

CAUTION: Do not attempt disk roaming during RAID level migration (RLM) or

online capacity expansion (OCE). This causes loss of the virtual disk.

Perform the following steps to use disk roaming:

Turn off the power to the system, physical disks, enclosures, and system components. Disconnect power cords from the system.

Move the physical disks to desired positions on the backplane or the enclosure.

Perform a safety check. Make sure the physical disks are inserted properly.

Turn on the system.

The controller detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the physical disks.

Disk Migration

The PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers support migration of virtual disks from one controller to another without taking the target controller offline. However, the source controller must be offline prior to performing the disk migration. The controller can import RAID virtual disks in optimal, degraded, or partially degraded states. You cannot import a virtual disk that is in an offline state.

NOTE: Disks cannot be migrated back to previous Dell PERC RAID controllers.

When a controller detects a physical disk with an 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 RAID level migration (RLM) or

online capacity expansion (OCE). This causes loss of the virtual disk.

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers 27

Perform the following steps to use disk migration:

Turn off the system that contains the source controller.

Move the appropriate physical disks from the source controller to the target controller.

The system with the target controller can be running while inserting the physical disks.

The controller flags the inserted disks as foreign disks.

Use the OpenManage storage management application to import the detected foreign configuration.

NOTE: Ensure that all physical disks that are part of the virtual disk are migrated.

NOTE: You can also use the controller BIOS configuration utility to migrate disks.

Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created on PERC 5 Controllers

Virtual disks that were created on the PERC 5 family of controllers can be migrated to the PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers without risking data or configuration loss. Migrating virtual disks from PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers to PERC 5 is not supported.

Virtual disks created on the CERC 6/i controller or the PERC 5 family of controllers can be migrated to PERC 6.

NOTE: For more information about compatibility, contact your Dell technical

support representative.

Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created on SAS 6/iR Controllers

Virtual disks created on the SAS 6/iR family of controllers can be migrated to PERC 6 and CERC 6/i. However, only virtual disks with boot volumes of the following Linux operating systems successfully boot after migration:

•Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 4

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

•SUSE

28 About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

Linux Enterprise Server 10 (64-bit)

NOTE: The migration of virtual disks with Microsoft® Windows® operating systems

is not supported.

CAUTION: Before migrating virtual disks, back up your data and ensure the

firmware of both controllers is the latest revision. Also ensure you use the SAS 6 firmware version 00.25.47.00.06.22.03.00 or newer.

Migrating Virtual Disks from SAS 6/iR to PERC 6 and CERC 6/i

NOTE: The supported operating systems listed in "Compatibility With Virtual Disks

Created on SAS 6/iR Controllers" on page 28 contain the driver for the PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controller family. No additional drivers are needed during the migration process.

If virtual disks with one of the supported Linux operating systems listed in "Compatibility With Virtual Disks Created on SAS 6/iR Controllers" on page 28 are being migrated, open a command prompt and type the following commands:

modprobe megaraid_sas mkinitrd -f --preload megaraid_sas /boot/initrd-

`uname -r`.img `uname -r`

Turn off the system.

Move the appropriate physical disks from the SAS 6/iR controller to the PERC 6 and CERC 6/i. If you are replacing your SAS 6/iR controller with a PERC 6 controller, see the system or on the Dell Support website at

CAUTION: After you have imported the foreign configuration on the PERC 6 or

CERC 6/i storage controllers, migrating the storage disks back to the SAS 6/iR controller may result in the loss of data.

Boot the system and import the foreign configuration that is detected.

Hardware Owner’s Manual

support.dell.com

You can do this in two ways:

• Press <F> to automatically import the foreign configuration

• Enter the

BIOS Configuration Utility

and navigate to the

Configuration View

shipped with your

Foreign

NOTE: For more information on accessing the BIOS Configuration Utility,

see "Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility" on page 79

NOTE: For more information on Foreign Configuration View, see "Foreign

Configuration View" on page 104

If the migrated virtual disk is the boot volume, ensure that the virtual disk

is selected as the bootable volume for the target PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controller. See "Controller Management Actions" on page 104.

About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers 29

Exit the

Ensure all the latest drivers for PERC 6 or CERC 6/i controller (available on the Dell support website at For more information, see "Driver Installation" on page 63.

NOTE: For more information about compatibility, contact your Dell technical

support representative.

BIOS Configuration Utility

and reboot the system.

support.dell.com

) are installed.

Battery Management

NOTE: Battery management is only applicable to PERC 6 family of controllers.

The Transportable Battery Backup Unit (TBBU) is a cache memory module with an integrated battery pack that enables you to transport the cache module with the battery in a new controller. The TBBU protects the integrity of the cached data on the PERC 6/E adapter by providing backup power during a power outage.

The Battery Backup Unit (BBU) is a battery pack that protects the integrity of the cached data on the PERC 6/i adapter and PERC 6/i Integrated controllers by providing backup power during a power outage.

The battery, when new, provides up to 24 hours of backup power for the cache memory.

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.

Your PERC 6 battery, when new, provides up to 24 hours of controller cache memory backup power. Under the 1–year limited warranty, we warrant that the battery will provide at least 24 hours of backup coverage during the 1-year limited warranty period. To prolong battery life, do not store or operate the BBU in temperatures exceeding 60°C.

30 About PERC 6 and CERC 6/i Controllers

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