Dell PowerEdge, S140, PERCS140 User Manual
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller S140 - PERC
S140
User’s Guide
Notes, cautions, and warnings
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.
Copyright © 2017 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other
trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.
2017 - 09
Rev. A01
Contents
1 Overview........................................................................................................................................................ 7
PERC S140 specications................................................................................................................................................. 7
Supported operating systems...........................................................................................................................................9
Supported PowerEdge systems.......................................................................................................................................9
Supported physical disks................................................................................................................................................. 10
Management applications for the PERC S140..............................................................................................................10
2 Physical Disks............................................................................................................................................... 11
Physical disk features........................................................................................................................................................11
Physical disk roaming..................................................................................................................................................11
Physical disk hot-swapping........................................................................................................................................11
Physical disk power management............................................................................................................................. 11
Physical disk failure detection.................................................................................................................................... 11
Mirror rebuilding..........................................................................................................................................................12
Fault tolerance.............................................................................................................................................................12
Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technology............................................................................................................ 12
Native Command Queuing........................................................................................................................................ 12
NVMe PCIe SSD support.......................................................................................................................................... 12
Physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives....................................................................................................13
Linux RAID................................................................................................................................................................... 13
3 Virtual Disks................................................................................................................................................. 14
Virtual disk features..........................................................................................................................................................14
TRIM for SATA SSDs..................................................................................................................................................14
Disk initialization..........................................................................................................................................................15
Background Array Scan............................................................................................................................................. 15
Checkpointing............................................................................................................................................................. 15
Virtual disk cache policies..........................................................................................................................................16
Virtual disk migration..................................................................................................................................................16
Expanding virtual disk capacity................................................................................................................................. 17
4 Cabling the drives for S140...........................................................................................................................18
Disk connectivity for AHCI devices................................................................................................................................19
5 BIOS Conguration Utility........................................................................................................................... 20
Entering the BIOS conguration utility...........................................................................................................................21
Exiting the BIOS Conguration Utility............................................................................................................................21
Initializing the physical disks............................................................................................................................................ 21
Converting to RAID disks...........................................................................................................................................21
Converting to Non-RAID disks.................................................................................................................................22
Creating the virtual disks.................................................................................................................................................22
Selecting virtual disk sizes while creating a virtual disk ........................................................................................22
Contents
3
Deleting the virtual disks................................................................................................................................................. 22
Swapping two virtual disks............................................................................................................................................. 23
Managing the hot spare disks.........................................................................................................................................23
Assigning the global hot spare disks........................................................................................................................23
Assigning the dedicated hot spare disks................................................................................................................. 24
Unassign hot spare disks...........................................................................................................................................24
Viewing the physical disks details.................................................................................................................................. 24
Viewing the virtual disks details..................................................................................................................................... 25
Rescan disks.....................................................................................................................................................................25
Controller Options............................................................................................................................................................25
Continue to boot..............................................................................................................................................................26
6 UEFI RAID conguration utility.................................................................................................................... 27
Entering the DELL PERC S140 Conguration Utility................................................................................................... 27
Exiting the DELL PERC S140 Conguration Utility......................................................................................................28
Controller management...................................................................................................................................................28
Viewing the controller properties.............................................................................................................................28
Changing the boot order of the virtual disks..........................................................................................................29
Stopping the system from booting if there is a critical BIOS error......................................................................30
Converting a physical disk to a Non-RAID disk......................................................................................................30
Converting physical disk to RAID capable disk.......................................................................................................30
Rescan disks...............................................................................................................................................................30
Virtual disk management..................................................................................................................................................31
Conguring Windows RAID....................................................................................................................................... 31
Conguring Linux RAID..............................................................................................................................................31
Manage virtual disk properties................................................................................................................................. 33
Viewing virtual disks properties and policies...........................................................................................................34
Deleting a virtual disk.................................................................................................................................................35
Physical disk management..............................................................................................................................................35
Viewing physical disk properties...............................................................................................................................36
Managing the physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives...........................................................................37
Assigning the global hot spare..................................................................................................................................38
Unassign a global hot spare......................................................................................................................................38
Assigning the dedicated hot spare...........................................................................................................................38
Cryptographic erase.................................................................................................................................................. 39
Viewing global hot spares......................................................................................................................................... 39
7 Installing the drivers.....................................................................................................................................40
Pre-installation requirements..........................................................................................................................................40
Setting the SATA controller to RAID mode ............................................................................................................40
Setting the NVMe PCIe SSDs to RAID mode .......................................................................................................40
Creating a virtual disk.................................................................................................................................................41
Checking PERC S140 options and the boot list priority.........................................................................................41
Creating the device driver media for Windows driver installation..............................................................................42
Downloading drivers for PERC S140 from the Dell support website for all operating systems....................... 42
Downloading drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools media for Windows......................42
Contents
4
8 Troubleshooting your system....................................................................................................................... 43
Unable to congure Linux RAID using UEFI Conguration Utility..............................................................................43
Unable to congure Linux RAID on systems with more than 10 NVMe PCIe SSDs................................................43
Performance degradation after disabling SATA physical disk write cache policy.................................................... 44
Performance degradation in UEFI Human Interface Infrastructure...........................................................................44
Unable to modify any feature settings in UEFI or OPROM........................................................................................ 44
Extra reboot during OS installation................................................................................................................................ 44
OS installation failing on NVMe PCIe SSD with third-party driver............................................................................ 44
System startup issues..................................................................................................................................................... 44
System does not boot...............................................................................................................................................45
Controller mode is set incorrectly at System Setup ............................................................................................. 45
Boot mode, boot sequence, and or boot sequence retry are set incorrectly ....................................................45
Bootable virtual disk is in a failed state ...................................................................................................................45
The boot order is incorrect for a bootable virtual disk ......................................................................................... 46
A Non-RAID virtual disk is no longer in rst position in the BIOS conguration utility list after a system
reboot .........................................................................................................................................................................46
The BIOS conguration utility option does not display .............................................................................................. 46
Conguring RAID using the Option ROM Utility is disabled....................................................................................... 46
Warning Messages...........................................................................................................................................................46
WARNING- Found virtual disks that are degraded ...............................................................................................46
WARNING - Found virtual disks that are failed .....................................................................................................47
WARNING - Found virtual disks that are degraded and failed ............................................................................47
Other errors appearing on the BIOS screen.................................................................................................................48
S140 does not display greater than ten virtual disks in the BIOS Conguration Utility or CTRL R ................ 48
Unable to delete virtual disks when there are more than ten virtual disks present in the system...................48
Virtual disk rebuild status in the BIOS Conguration Utility or CTRL R .............................................................48
Physical disk - related errors...........................................................................................................................................48
The physical disk fails................................................................................................................................................ 48
A physical disk is not visible in the BIOS Conguration Utility or is oine..........................................................49
A physical disk is highlighted red at the BIOS Conguration Utility or Ctrl R.....................................................49
Cannot initialize a physical disk ............................................................................................................................... 49
Status LED is not working........................................................................................................................................ 49
Blinking and unblinking feature not working on PowerEdge R740 ..................................................................... 49
Cannot update NVMe PCIe SSD rmware by using Dell Update Package or DUP.......................................... 50
Third-party driver installation for NVMe PCIe SSD failing....................................................................................50
Unable to nd the NVMe PCIe SSD for operating system installation............................................................... 50
Cryptographic erase fails for ISE-capable SATA drives.........................................................................................50
Virtual disks - Related errors.......................................................................................................................................... 50
Cannot create a virtual disk......................................................................................................................................50
A virtual disk is in a degraded state..........................................................................................................................51
Cannot assign a dedicated hot spare to a virtual disk...........................................................................................52
Cannot create a global hot spare ............................................................................................................................53
A dedicated hot spare fails........................................................................................................................................54
Failed or degraded virtual disk .................................................................................................................................54
Cannot create a virtual disk on selected physical disks ....................................................................................... 54
Contents
5
RAID disk created from the NVMe PCIe SSDs not appearing in operating system environment,
showing as partitioned disks ....................................................................................................................................54
Cannot perform an Online Capacity Expansion or Recongure on a virtual disk ............................................. 55
Unable to congure RAID on NVMe PCIe SSD using a third party RAID conguration utility ........................55
9 Getting help.................................................................................................................................................56
Contacting Dell EMC.......................................................................................................................................................56
Locating your system Service Tag.................................................................................................................................56
Related Documentation...................................................................................................................................................56
Documentation feedback................................................................................................................................................56
6 Contents
Overview
The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) S140 is a Software RAID solution for the Dell PowerEdge systems. The S140 controller
supports up to 16 NVMe PCIe SSDs, SATA SSDs, SATA HDDs depending on your system backplane conguration.
Topics:
• PERC S140 specications
• Supported operating systems
• Supported PowerEdge systems
• Supported physical disks
• Management applications for the PERC S140
PERC S140 specications
The following table provides PERC S140 specications for SATA and NVMe PCIe SSDs:
1
Table 1.
Table 2. SATA Specications for PERC S140
Specications for PERC S140
Specication PERC S140
SATA SSD technology Yes
NVMe support Yes
SAS connectors No
Dell-compliant SAS compatibility No
Direct-connected end devices Dell-compliant HDDs and SSDs
SMART error support through management applications Yes
Backplane supported systems Yes
Support for internal tape drive No
Support for global hot spare Yes
Support for 512 native and 512e drives Yes
Support for 4Kn native drives No
Maximum number of global hot spares Varies with the number of free disks in the system.
Maximum number of physical disk supported (SATA + NVMe) 16
Specication PERC S140
Dell-compliant SATA compatibility Yes
Communication with the end devices SATA links
Overview 7
Specication PERC S140
SATA connectors Discrete on the system board
I/O controller Intel C621 (C620 series chipset) (onboard SATA)
Communication with the system Integrated
Software-based RAID for SATA drives Volume, RAID 1, RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 10
Pass through SSD support Yes
Table 3. NVMe Specications for PERC S140
Specication PERC S140
NVMe connectors PCIe/slimline
NOTE: Only Dell-compliant NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5 inch Small Form Factor (SFF), or NVMe PCIe SSD Adapters are supported.
Dell-compliant NVMe compatibility Yes
Communication with end devices PCIe
Software-based RAID for NVMe PCIe SSDs Volume, RAID 1, RAID 0, RAID 10
Pass through NVMe PCIe SSD support Yes
The following table provides PERC S140 virtual disk specications:
Table 4. Virtual disk
Specication PERC S140
Maximum number of physical disks supported 12
Maximum number of virtual disks supported 16
Minimum virtual disk size 102 MB
Maximum number of physical disks per virtual disk 12
Maximum number of virtual disks per physical disk 16
Maximum number of physical disks in a volume 1
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 0 12
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 1 2
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 5 12
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 10 12
Minimum number of physical disks in a volume 1
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 0 2
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 1 2
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 5 3
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 10 4
specications for PERC S140 with SATA conguration
NOTE: The congurations listed in the table above may vary with the hard-drive backplane of your system.
8 Overview
Table 5. Virtual disk specications for PERC S140 with NVMe conguration
Specication PERC S140
Maximum number of physical disks supported 16
NOTE: In a Linux RAID conguration maximum number of physical disks supported is
10.
Maximum number of virtual disks supported 16
Minimum virtual disk size 102 MB
Maximum number of physical disks per virtual disk 16
Maximum number of virtual disks per physical disk 16
Maximum number of physical disks in a volume 1
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 0 16
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 1 2
Maximum number of physical disks in a RAID 10 16
Minimum number of physical disks in a volume 1
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 0 2
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 1 2
Minimum number of physical disks in a RAID 10 4
Supported operating systems
The S140 controller supports the following operating systems:
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
• RHEL 7.3
• RHEL 7.4
• SLES 12 SP2
NOTE
: For the latest list of supported operating systems and driver installation instructions, see the system
documentation at dell.com/operatingsystemmanuals. For specic operating system service pack requirements, see the
Drivers and Downloads section at dell.com/support/manuals.
Supported PowerEdge systems
The following PowerEdge systems support the S140 controller:
• PowerEdge T440
• PowerEdge T640
• PowerEdge R740
• PowerEdge R740xd
• PowerEdge R440
• PowerEdge R540
• PowerEdge R640
• PowerEdge R940
• PowerEdge C6420
• PowerEdge M640
Overview
9
• PowerEdge M640p
• PowerEdge FC640
Supported physical disks
The PERC S140 controller supports the following physical disk types:
• SATA hard disk drive (HDD)
• SATA solid state drive (SSD)
• NVMe PCIe SSDs including NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5 - inch small form factor and NVMe PCIe SSD adapter.
NOTE: Only Dell - complaint NVMe PCIe SSDs are supported. For information on PowerEdge NVMe 2.5 - inch SFF and
PowerEdge NVMe PCIe SSD adapter, see the Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSD user's guide at dell.com/manuals.
NOTE: Mixing drives of dierent speeds (7,200 rpm, 10,000 rpm, or 15,000 rpm) and bandwidth (3 Gbps or 6 Gbps) while
maintaining the same drive type (SATA) and technology (HDD or SSD) is supported.
NOTE: Mixing NVMe PCIe SSDs and SATA drives is not supported in a single RAID virtual disk.
Management applications for the PERC S140
Management applications enable you to manage and congure the RAID subsystem, create and manage multiple disk groups, control and
monitor multiple RAID systems, and provide online maintenance. Management applications for PERC S140 include:
• BIOS Conguration Utility — This is also known as Ctrl+R, and is a storage management application that congures and maintains
RAID disk groups and virtual disks. See BIOS Conguration Utility.
• Unied Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) RAID Conguration Utility. This storage management application is integrated into the
System BIOS, accessible through the F2 key. See UEFI RAID conguration utility. RAID congurations on NVMe PCIe SSDs are only
supported through the UEFI RAID conguration utility.
NOTE
: Ensure that the RAID mode is enabled for NVMe PCIe SSDs. See Setting the NVMe PCIe SSDs to RAID mode
• OpenManage Storage Management-This application enables you to perform controller and enclosure functions for all supported RAID
controllers and enclosures from a single graphical or command-line interface without using controller BIOS utilities. For more
information, see the OpenManage Storage Management User's Guide at dell.com/openmanagemanuals.
• Lifecycle Controller-This is a management application for PERC. For more information, see the Lifecycle Controller User’s Guide at
dell.com/esmmanuals.
• iDRAC
10
Overview
Physical Disks
NOTE: The physical disks in a virtual disk must be of the same drive type (HDD, SSD or NVMe PCIe SSD). For example, you
cannot mix an HDD and an NVMe PCIe SSD in the same virtual disk.
Physical disk features
Physical disk roaming
Physical disk roaming is moving the 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 virtual disks, which are part of the disk
group. You can perform disk roaming only when the system is turned o.
CAUTION: Do not attempt disk roaming during online capacity expansion (OCE). This causes loss of the virtual disk.
2
Physical disk hot-swapping
NOTE
: To check if the backplane supports hot swapping, see your system documentation.
Hot-swapping is the manual replacement of a disk while the PERC S140 is online and performing its normal functions. The following
requirements must be met before hot-swapping a physical disk:
• The system backplane or enclosure must support hot swapping for the PERC S140.
• The replacement disk must be of the same protocol and disk technology. For example, only a SATA hard drive can replace a SATA hard
drive and only a SATA SSD can replace a SATA SSD.
NOTE
: Disk hot-swapping is not supported in UEFI mode; it is supported only in OS mode.
NOTE: When hot-swapping a physical disk, ensure that the new disk is of equal or greater capacity to the physical disk that is
being replaced.
Physical disk power management
Power management is a power-saving feature of the PERC S140. This feature supports power management of SATA hard drives (HDD) by
using Extended Power Conditions (EPC). The EPC feature set provides the host with additional methods to control the power condition of
a device.
Physical disk failure detection
Physical disk failure is detected and the controller automatically rebuilds a new physical disk assigned as a hot spare.
: Refer to drive mixing restrictions for rebuilding.
NOTE
Physical Disks 11
Mirror rebuilding
A RAID mirror conguration can be rebuilt after a new physical disk is inserted and the physical disk is designated as a hot spare.
NOTE: The system does not have to be rebooted.
Fault tolerance
The following fault tolerance features are available with the PERC S140:
• Physical disk failure detection (automatic).
• Virtual disk rebuild using hot spares (automatic, if the hot spare is congured for this feature).
• Parity generation and checking (RAID 5 only).
• Hot-swap manual replacement of a physical disk without rebooting the system (only for systems with a backplane that allows hotswapping).
If one side of a RAID 1 (mirror) fails, data can be rebuilt by using the physical disk on the other side of the mirror.
If a physical disk in RAID 5 fails, parity data exists on the remaining physical disks, which can be used to restore the data to a new
replacement physical disk congured as a hot spare.
If a physical disk fails in RAID 10, the virtual disk remains functional and data is read from the surviving mirrored physical disk(s). A single
disk failure in each mirrored set can be sustained, depending on how the mirrored set fails.
Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technology
The Self-Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) feature monitors certain physical aspects of all motors, heads, and physical disk
electronics to help detect predictable physical disk failures. Data on SMART compliant physical disks 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.
A SMART failure is also referred to as a predicted failure. There are numerous factors that are 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.
NOTE
: For detailed information on SCSI interface specications, see t10.org, and for detailed information on SATA interface
specications, see t13.org.
Native Command Queuing
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is a command protocol used by SATA physical disks supported on the S140 controller. NCQ allows the
host to provide multiple input/output requests to a disk simultaneously. The disk decides the order to process the commands to achieve
maximum performance.
NVMe PCIe SSD support
S140 supports the NVMe PCIe SSD-including the NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5-inch Small Form Factor (SFF) and NVMe PCIe SSD Adapter.
12
Physical Disks
The S140 allows the NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5 inch SFF and the NVMe PCIe SSD adapter in a RAID conguration. The NVMe PCIe SSDs
supports volume, RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10.
NOTE: Hot removal or hot insertion of the NVMe PCIe SSDs in UEFI or pre-boot mode is not supported. In the operating system
environment, hot-swapping two or more NVMe PCIe SSDs simultaneously is not supported.
NOTE: Mixing of SATA drives and NVMe PCIe SSDs in a virtual disk is not supported.
NOTE: Ensure that you use only the S140 UEFI conguration utility to congure the NVMe PCIe SSDs during
preboot.
NOTE: In UEFI HII mode, you can use the NVMe PCIe SSD option on the Device Settings page to view NVMe physical disk
properties and perform blink/unlink operations.
NOTE: RAID conguration and boot from NVMe virtual disk is supported only in UEFI boot
mode.
NOTE: RAID conguration using Option ROM (OPROM) is not supported on systems with the NVMe PCIe
SSD.
Physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives
The physical disk write cache policy feature enables the disk to cache the data rst, and then the cached data is written to the storage
device in the background. For more information about managing the physical disk write cache policy, see
cache policy for SATA drives.
: You can use UEFI or Option ROM (OPROM) to congure the physical disk write cache
NOTE
policy.
NOTE: You cannot congure a physical disk write cache policy on a non-RAID
disk.
NOTE: Linux RAID does not support conguring physical disk write cache policy, or virtual disk write cache
policy.
Managing the physical disk write
Linux RAID
The Linux RAID feature is supported on all PowerEdge 14th generation systems. You can use Linux RAID to protect data across multiple
devices. The S140 conguration utility supports conguring RAID 1 virtual disk in UEFI mode. The Linux operating system can be installed
on that virtual disk, and once the system boots to the Linux environment, the Linux native RAID driver manages the virtual disk. For
information about conguring Linux RAID, see Conguring Linux RAID.
NOTE
: Ensure that your system has the latest BIOS rmware. You can download the latest BIOS rmware from dell.com/
support.
NOTE: Ensure that you use only the S140 UEFI conguration utility to congure Linux RAID feature during pre-
boot.
NOTE: Ensure that the boot virtual disks are congured in RAID 1, using two physical disks of identical drive type (HDD or SSD)
and sector size. However, you can also congure nonboot virtual disks in any of the supported RAID levels in the Linux operating
system.
Physical Disks 13
Virtual Disks
A logical grouping of physical disks attached to a PERC S140 allows you to create multiple virtual disks of the same RAID levels, without
exceeding a maximum of 16 virtual disks.
The PERC S140 controller allows:
• Creating virtual disks of dierent RAID levels on a S140 controller.
NOTE: Ensure that you do not mix RAID levels on the same physical disks.
• Building dierent virtual disks with dierent characteristics for dierent applications.
• Creating virtual disks from a mix of NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5-inch SFFs and NVMe PCIe SSD adapters.
The PERC S140 controller does not allow:
• Creating a virtual disk from a mix of dierent types of physical disks. For example, a RAID 10 virtual disk cannot be created from two
SATA HDD physical disks and a SATA SSD physical disk. All of the physical disks must be of the same drive type (HDD/SSD/NVMe
PCIe SSDs).
• Selecting a physical disk as a dedicated hot spare if the physical disk is a dierent type from the physical disk of the virtual disks.
A virtual disk refers to data storage which a controller creates using one or more physical disks.
3
NOTE
: A virtual disk can be created from several physical disks; the operating system considers it a single disk.
The capacity of a virtual disk can be expanded online for any RAID level without rebooting the operating system.
Virtual disk features
TRIM for SATA SSDs
The TRIM command allows an operating system to delete a block of data that is no longer considered in use from the SATA SSDs. TRIM
resolves the Write Amplication issue for supported operating systems. When an operating system deletes a le, the le is marked for
deletion in the le system, but the contents on the disk are not actually erased. As a result, the SSDs do not know that the Logical Block
Addressing (LBA) le previously occupied can be erased. With the introduction of TRIM, when a le is deleted, the operating system sends
a TRIM command along with the LBAs that do not contain valid data.
NOTE
: The TRIM feature is supported only on pass-through SSDs.
NOTE: The TRIM feature is not supported on NVMe PCIe SSDs.
To perform TRIM on the pass-through SSDs
1 Create a volume on a pass-through SSD drive.
2 In the Windows operating system, navigate to the Defragmentation and Optimize Drive tool.
3 Select the volume created on the pass-through SSD and click the Optimize button.
The volume is trimmed.
14 Virtual Disks
Disk initialization
For physical disks, initialization writes metadata to the physical disk so that the controller can use the physical disk.
Background Array Scan
Veries and recties correctable media errors on mirror, volume, or parity data for virtual disks. Background Array Scan (BAS) starts
automatically after a virtual disk is created while in the operating system.
Checkpointing
Allows dierent types of checkpointing to resume at the last point following a restart. After the system restarts, background checkpointing
resumes at its most recent checkpoint.
Three types of checkpointing are available:
• Consistency check (CC)
• Background initialization (BGI)
• Rebuild
Consistency check
Consistency check (CC) is a background operation that veries and corrects the mirror or parity data for fault-tolerant physical disks. It is
recommended that you periodically run a consistency check on the physical disks.
By default, CC corrects mirror or parity inconsistencies. After the data is corrected, the data on the primary physical disk in a mirror set is
assumed to be the correct data and is written to the secondary physical disk mirror set.
The CC operation reports data inconsistencies through an event notication. A CC cannot be user-initiated in the BIOS Conguration Utility
(Ctrl+R). However, CC can be initiated using OpenManage Server Administrator Storage Management. For more information, see OMSA
user’s guide at dell.com/openmanagemanuals.
Background initialization
Background initialization (BGI) of a redundant virtual disk creates the parity data that allows the virtual disk to maintain its redundant data
and survive a physical disk failure. Similar to consistency check (CC), BGI helps the controller to identify and correct problems that might
occur with the redundant data at a later time.
CAUTION
BGI allows a redundant virtual disk to be used immediately.
NOTE
S140 drivers must be loaded before the BGI runs.
: Data is lost if a physical disk fails before the completion of a BGI operation.
: Although a BGI is software-initiated from within the BIOS Conguration Utility (accessible through Ctrl + R), the PERC
Automatic virtual disk rebuild
Rebuilds a redundant virtual disk automatically when a failure is detected if a hot spare is assigned for this capability.
Virtual Disks
15
Virtual disk cache policies
NOTE: Conguring virtual disk cache policies on NVMe PCIe SSD is not
supported.
The PERC S140 uses part of system memory for cache. It supports the following cache options:
• Read Ahead/Write Back
• No Read Ahead/Write Back
• Read Ahead/Write Through
• No Read Ahead/Write Through
Table 6. Read, Write, and Cache Policy for the PERC S140
Category Supported by S140 controller
Cache settings Yes
Read Ahead/Write Back Yes
No Read Ahead/Write Back Yes
Read Ahead/Write Through Yes
No Read Ahead/Write Through Yes
NOTE: The current default for Write-Cache mode enablement is Write Through, No Read Ahead (WT, NRA). To enable Write
Back (WB), a UPS is recommended.
NOTE: For more information about the physical disk write cache policy behavior, see Troubleshooting your system
Virtual disk migration
The PERC S140 supports automatic virtual disk migration from one PERC S140 to another.
CAUTION
Recongure.
NOTE: Back up the virtual disk data before migrating virtual disks.
NOTE: Ensure that all physical disks that are part of the virtual disk are migrated. Virtual disks in optimal and degraded states are
automatically migrated. A virtual disk in an oine state should not be migrated.
NOTE: A bootable virtual disk cannot be migrated between dissimilar system models.
NOTE: When you migrate virtual disks, ensure that you verify that the number of virtual disks does not exceed 10.
Migrating a virtual disk
1 Turn o the system that contains the source controller.
2 Turn o the target system if the system does not support hot swap of physical disks.
3 Move the appropriate physical disks from the source controller to the target controller in the target system.
Physical disks do not have to be inserted into the same slots in the target system.
: The virtual disk is lost if you perform a virtual disk migration during an Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)/
16
Virtual Disks
4 If the target system was turned o, turn on the system.
CAUTION: The BIOS Conguration Utility pauses, and prompts for action, for the degraded virtual disk(s), if the "pause if
degraded" option is enabled in the BIOS Conguration Utility.
CAUTION: After the migration occurs, ensure that all of the physical disks have been migrated and are present in the appropriate
virtual disks.
Expanding virtual disk capacity
The capacity of a virtual disk can be expanded online by using the Online Capacity Expansion/Recongure (OCE/Recongure). OCE/
Recongure is a process that allows you to add storage capacity to an existing virtual disk. In most cases additional storage capacity can be
added without taking the system oine.
NOTE: If an additional physical disk is required and the system does not support hot-swapping, the system must be turned
o.
OCE/Recongure enables you to increase the total storage capacity of a virtual disk by integrating unused storage with the virtual disk.
Data can be accessed while the physical disks are added (if a system has hot-swap capability) and while data on the virtual disk is being
redistributed.
For volume, RAID 1, and RAID 10, OCE/Recongure expands the virtual disk by using the available space of the physical disks, which have
been members of the virtual disk. For RAID 0 and RAID 5, additional capacity can be attained by adding physical disks to the virtual disk.
Virtual Disks
17
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