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September 2009Rev. A02
Contents
Determining Your Firmware Version . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Important Information Before Upgrading Your
Firmware
Performance Affected after Upgrading to Second
Generation Firmware
To determine if your software is first generation or second generation,
perform the following steps:
1
Connect to the system using the Dell™ PowerVault™ MD Storage
Manager.
2
Select the
3
Click
Note the firmware version:
If it is 06.xx.xx.xx, it is first generation.
If it is 07.xx.xx.xx, it is second generation.
Support
Storage Array Profile
tab.
.
Important Information Before Upgrading Your
Firmware
Prior to performing the firmware upgrade, perform a complete backup of the
data, and use the Gather Support Information tool to save the system
configuration. This recommendation applies whenever you make changes to
your configuration.
Performance Affected after Upgrading to Second
Generation Firmware
After upgrading to second generation firmware, you may experience a
temporary performance impact. This impact is caused by the second
generation firmware, which adds smart-battery functionality to the MD3000.
In order to accurately measure battery parameters, the batteries are taken
through a “learn cycle” and the system’s write cache is disabled for the
duration of the learn cycle. The first learn cycle starts soon after the firmware
upgrade is completed and takes around 15 hours to complete. During this
time, you may experience a temporary performance slowdown for certain
kinds of file operations as the write cache is disabled. Once the learn cycle is
complete, the write cache is automatically enabled.
Future learn cycles are scheduled for every 13 weeks. You can adjust the day
and time of the day of future learn cycles using MD Storage Manager
(click To ol s and select Change Battery Settings).
Information Update5
Virtual Disk Copy Operation on SATA Disks
A virtual disk copy operation may take much longer when a new copy is
created on SATA disks. To improve the performance, first create the virtual
disk. After the virtual disk is initialized, start the virtual disk copy operation.
Load Balancing in Microsoft Windows Server
2008
Load balancing in Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 is provided by the
MPIO driver under the MPIO tab. For information about accessing the
MPIO tab, see the Installation Guide at support.dell.com/manuals. The
following options are supported by MD3000:
•Least Path Weight
•Least Queue Depth
Installing Linux Operating System
During a Linux operating system installation, the installer lists all the
volumes that are discovered from MD3000, including virtual disks that are
mapped to the host and Universal Xport. If the operating system needs to be
installed on an MD3000 virtual disk, you must ensure that you select the
appropriate virtual disk. The array does not respond if you select the Universal
Xport disk(s) for installation.
Battery Learn Cycle
In second generation firmware systems, the cache offload battery undergoes a
learn cycle once in every 13 weeks to ensure that the battery is in a good state.
The learn cycle performs a complete discharge of the battery followed by a
complete recharge. During this cycle, the system cache is disabled on all
virtual disks in the system. There may be a temporary impact on the
performance of the system when the battery undergoes a learn cycle. A learn
cycle takes place under the following situations:
•First time upgrade from first generation firmware to second generation
firmware
•Once in every 13 weeks
6Information Update
The next scheduled learn cycle can be seen under To ol s→ Change Battery
Settings in the MD Storage Manager. The learn cycle can be postponed by up
to seven days at a time through the GUI. You can also use the following SMcli
command to postpone a learn cycle: set storageArray
learnCycleDate daysToNextLearnCycle=[x]
For more information, see the Command Line Interface Guide at
support.dell.com/manuals.
Creating Host to Virtual Disk Mappings
You can create Host-to-Virtual Disk mappings to a host group or to a single
host. If you have created the mapping to a host that is part of a host group,
the mapped host alone will have access to the virtual disk.
Additional Disk Group and Virtual Disk Expansion
Information
To expand disks groups or virtual disks, you can use the MD Storage Manager
or the command line interface. It is only possible to add one disk at a time or
two in the case of RAID10 to expand the disk group.
To expand the virtual disk using the command line interface, type: set
virtualDisk [VDname] addCapacity=sizetobeadded
For more information, see the Command Line Interface Guide at
support.dell.com/manuals.
During disk group and virtual disk expansion operations, you have complete
access to the virtual disks and disk group redundancy is maintained at all
times. The impact on the performance is minimal during the operation.
For more information, see the User's Guide at support.dell.com/manuals.
Information Update7
Storage Manager for SANs
Unable to Assign LUNs to Windows 2008 Server
The Windows Server 2008 Storage Manager for SANs utility can be used to
create and manage virtual disks in the MD3000 from the host server. If the
host server contains SAS 5/i HBAs, the SAS 5/i ports must be disabled in the
Storage Manager for SANs utility to prevent issues with assigning virtual disks
(LUNs) to the host server.
Perform the following steps:
1
Click
LUN Management
2
Click
Manage Server Connection
3
Select the host server
In the
4
NOTE: SAS 5/e HBAs have two ports with HBA Port WWN as follows:
Fiber Channel Ports
SAS 5/e ports enabled.
There are 8 SAS 5/i ports per SAS 5/i HBA in the host server. The HBA Port
WWN has the following format: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:00 to
xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:07.
yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:00 and yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:04
.
.
.
tab, disable all the SAS 5/i ports and leave the
Array Password Reset Using Microsoft
Windows Server 2008
To reset a lost or forgotten password on an MD3000 array, a command must
be issued via the serial port on either controller in the array to clear the
existing password. This task is accomplished through COM port connection
from a server, workstation or laptop to a controller on the MD3000 array.
On most Windows operating systems, the HyperTerminal application is used
to establish the COM port connection to the serial port on the controller.
However, HyperTerminal is not available on Windows Server 2008 systems.
8Information Update
Complete the following steps to reset the password to an MD3000 array if
your system is running the Windows Server 2008 operating system:
1
Obtain a terminal application capable of COM port connections.
2
Configure the application to use the communication settings as described
on page 23 of the
Guide
.
3
Proceed with the password reset procedure described on page 24 of the
User’s Guide
Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager User’s
.
Modular Disk Storage Manager
The following updates apply to the Modular Disk Storage Manager
(MD Storage Manager):
•
When the MD Storage Manager is installed on
®
Linux
MD Storage Manager is running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers,
Japanese and Simplified Chinese are not supported.
systems or
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Servers, or when the
Red Hat® Enterprise
Physical Disk Migration
Cold power-up migration of
configuration to another MD3000 duplex configuration is supported only
when all
migrations, including partial
module migration, are supported.
physical disk
s are moved from one system to another. No other
physical disk
physical disk
s from one MD3000 duplex
migration and RAID controller
RAID Level
Change Disk Group RAID Level
Follow these instructions to change the RAID level of a disk group as needed:
1
In MD Storage Manager, click the
Group RAID Level
2
Select the disk group that you want to modify.
3
Select the new RAID level from the drop-down menu.
4
Click
Change
.
to start the process.
Modify
tab and click
Information Update9
Change Disk
NOTE: Dell recommends backing up the disk group before modifying the
RAID level.
NOTE: The number of disks in the disk group should meet its RAID level criteria.
RAID1 and RAID10 require an even number of disks. On the MD3000, RAID 5
requires a minimum of 3 disks and RAID 6 requires a minimum of 5 disks. You may
need to add free capacity to the disk group before changing the RAID level.
RAID Level Migration Requirements
Successful RAID Level Migration (RLM) requires that the appropriate
number of
from a RAID 1 or RAID 10 to an odd-number of physical disks (five or more)
in RAID 5, first add an even number of disks to the RAID 1 or RAID 10,
convert to RAID 5, then add another physical disk to make the count odd.
physical disk
s are present in your disk group. To perform RLM
Under-Reported Disk Capacity
The unit Gigabyte (GB) is often used to refer to calculation of both 109bytes
30
and 2
using 2
and therefore displays a smaller capacity than reported by the hard drive
vendor. There is no actual loss of available data capacity, and the MD3000
only reserves 512 MB (10
bytes. The MD Storage Manager calculates hard disk capacity in GB
30
bytes as compared to 109 that is used by hard disk manufacturers,
6
) of space per hard disk for meta-data usage.
Configuration File Write Error
Using the MD Storage Manager with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or
Microsoft Windows Vista can result in a Configuration File Write Error. The MD Storage Manager will be unable to save any changes to the
configuration files. This error is seen when the application is run as a user
without Local Administrator privileges. MD Storage Manager requires Local
Administrator privileges for full functionality.
Workaround: This error can be bypassed by running the MD Storage
Manager with local administrator privileges. This can be set by right-clicking
the shortcut and clicking Run as Administrator. This setting can be made
permanent by modifying the shortcut properties and enabling Always run as administrator.
10Information Update
Limitations of NTFS-Formatted Disks
The following error may occur when formatting virtual disks larger than 2TB
using the NTFS protocol:
The format operation did not complete because the
cluster count is higher than expected.
This error is caused by the limitations of NTFS-formatted disks based on
cluster size.
Table 1-1. Limitations of NTFS-Formatted Disks Based on Cluster Size
Cluster sizeMaximum NTFS Volume Size (bytes RAW)
5122,199,023,255,040 (2TB)
1,0244,398,046,510,080 (4TB)
2,0488,796,093,020,160 (8TB)
4,09617,592,186,040,320 (16TB)
8,19235,184,372,080,640 (32TB)
16,38470,368,744,161,280 (64TB)
32,768140,737,488,322,560 (128TB)
65,536281,474,976,645,120 (256TB)
As seen in Table 1-1, you will need to modify cluster size to format certain virtual
disks. To expand existing virtual disks beyond the limits, back up the data on any
existing virtual disks and reformat the virtual disk with the new cluster size.
Please refer to Microsoft KB302873 and KB814594 for additional information.
Password Reset Procedure
The password reset procedure differs slightly between the first generation
and second generation controllers. Please see the latest version of the
Dell PowerVault MD3000 RAID Controller Password Reset on
support.dell.com for details on the password reset procedures.
Information Update11
Updates to the MD3000 Documentation
Hardware Owner’s Manual
The following update applies to the Dell™ PowerVault™ MD3000 RAID
Enclosure Hardware Owner’s Manual:
Table 1-1 and Table 1-2—Flashing amber in the enclosure status LED
indicates that the solution is in a non-optimal state. See the MD Storage
Manager error recovery console or contact technical support to resolve this
state.
Command Line Interface Guide
The following are the corrections/additions in the list of parameters described
in Table 1-2:
•d: Used to display the array details from the array configuration file.
•V: Used along with the -d parameter to display the version of SMcli that is
connected to the array.
Installation Guide
The following update applies to the Dell™ PowerVault™ Modular Disk 3000
Installation Guide:
•The multi-pathing MPP driver is installed directly from the CD on Linux.
Step 12 of the host installation procedure should read - "Return to the CD
main menu and select the
•The note stating that the MD3000 supports only round robin loadbalancing policies is no longer applicable.
La reproduction de ce document, de quelque manière que ce soit, sans l'autorisation écrite de Dell Inc.
est strictement interdite.
Marques utilisées dans ce document : Dell, le logo DELL et PowerVault sont des marques de
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Septembre 2009Rév. A02
Table des matières
Détermination de votre version de micrologiciel. . . . 29
Information importante avant de mettre à jour votre
micrologiciel
Performances affectées après la mise à niveau au
micrologiciel de seconde génération
Opération de copie de disque virtuel sur disques
SATA
Équilibrage de charge dans Microsoft Windows
Server 2008