A full-featured, storage-rich, flexible 2 socket compute sled that is ideal for many workloads including virtualization, collaborative, and software-defined workloads (43 pages)
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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.
Physical disk power management..........................14 Secure firmware update.............................14 Enhanced HBA mode..............................14 Non-RAID disks................................15 Auto Configure RAID 0...............................15 PERC H745P MX enclosure support........................15 PERC H840 enclosure support..........................17 Profile Management..............................19 Virtual disk features................................19 Virtual disk write cache policies..........................20 Virtual disk read cache policies..........................20...
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Installing the PERC H740P adapter..........................30 Removing the PERC H740P mini monolithic.........................31 Installing the PERC H740P mini monolithic........................32 Removing the PERC H745P MX adapter card......................33 Installing the PERC H745P MX adapter card.......................34 Removing the PERC H840 card............................ 35 Installing the PERC H840 card............................36 Part replacement of a PERC card in eHBA mode......................36...
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Restoring factory default settings........................... 48 Manage controller mode............................49 Changing profile using HII Configuration Utility......................49 Advanced controller properties..........................50 Virtual disk management..............................52 Virtual disk numbering............................... 52 Viewing virtual disk properties..........................52 Viewing physical disks associated with a virtual disk.....................53 Configuring virtual disk policies..........................54 Configuring Virtual Disks............................54 Performing break mirror operation..........................
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Foreign configuration found error message........................66 Foreign configuration not found in HII error message....................66 Degraded state of virtual disks............................67 Memory errors.................................. 67 Preserved Cache State..............................67 Security key errors................................67 Secured foreign import errors...........................67 Failure to select or configure non Self-Encrypting Disks non-SED..............68 Failure to delete security key............................
Overview The PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 Series of cards consist of the H740P, H745P MX, and H840 cards. The PERC 10 family of storage controller cards has the following characteristics: • Complies with serial-attached SCSI (SAS) 3.0 providing up to 12 Gb/sec throughput.
The table below lists and describes the different PERC cards that comprise the PERC 10 series and their specifications: Table 1. PERC cards Feature PERC H740P PERC H745P MX PERC H840 RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60...
• Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) Configuration Utility • PERC CLI NOTE: The BIOS configuration utility <Ctrl> <R> is not supported on the PERC 10 cards. Comprehensive embedded management Comprehensive Embedded Management (CEM) is a storage management solution for Dell systems that enables you to effectively monitor the RAID and network controllers installed on the system using iDRAC without an OS installed on the system.
Getting Started The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 Series of cards consist of the H740P, H745P MX, and H840 cards. • PERC H740P: The PERC H740P is the performance RAID solution card consisting of 8 GB Non-Volatile Cache and is available in the Adapter (low profile and full height) and Mini Monolithic form factors for internal storage.
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3 battery cable • PERC H745P MX: The PERC H745P MX is the MX7000 RAID solution card consisting of 8 GB Non-Volatile Cache that manages drives internally and in the MX5017 storage enclosure. Figure 3. Features of PERC H745P MX adapter...
Features Controller features This section lists the following controller features supported on PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 cards in detail: • FastPath • Disk roaming • 1 MB IO • Physical disk power management • Auto Configure RAID0 • Secure firmware update •...
This feature provides a cryptographic method of updating the firmware using RSA encryption-decryption algorithm. Only Dell certified firmware is supported on your PERC controller. Enhanced HBA mode Enhanced HBA mode (eHBA mode) is a new operating mode available with H740P and H745P MX cards. eHBA provides the following features: •...
PERC H745P MX enclosure support The H745P MX is a RAID controller for the PowerEdge MX740c and MX840c compute sleds. It is used as an interface in a multipath topology with the MX5016s storage sled for the MX7000 modular system. The following illustration describes the multipath topology for...
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The I/O modules cannot be configured independently. The H745P MX is connected to the SAS IOM, which in turn connects to one of the SAS expanders in the storage sled. The expander in the storage sled is then connected to all the physical drives in the storage sled, providing one path between the H745P MX and a physical drive in the storage sled.
PERC H840 enclosure support The H840 card is an external card. The H840 card supports: • up to eight enclosures using single path configuration. • up to four enclosure using multipath configuration. To set up a configuration with redundant paths, both ports on a controller must be cabled to the ports of a single enclosure. NOTE: The PERC H840 card supports redundant paths when used with Dell PowerVault MD14XX series disk storage enclosures.
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Figure 7. PERC H840 card ports — Eight enclosures with single path configuration Redundant path support for PERC H840 The PERC H840 adapter can detect and use redundant paths to disks contained in enclosures. This provides the ability to connect two SAS cables between a controller and an enclosure for path redundancy.
PERC 10 introduces the concept of profiles. A profile is user selectable. It defines controller queue depth and the maximum number of physical and virtual disks. There are two profiles: PD64 and PD240. The H740 supports only the PD64 profile. The H745P MX supports only the PD240 profile.
Virtual disk write cache policies The write cache policy of a virtual disk determines how the controller handles writes to the virtual disk. Table 4. Write cache policies Feature Description Write-Back The controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host when the controller cache has received all the data in a transaction.
Table 5. Read policies Feature Description Read Ahead Allows the controller to read sequentially ahead of requested data and to store the additional data in cache memory, anticipating that the data is required soon. This speeds up reads for sequential data, but there is slight improvement when accessing random data.
During full initialization, the host cannot 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. For more information on using the HII Configuration Utility to perform a full initialization, see Configuring virtual disk parameters.
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Source RAID Level Target RAID Level Number of Physical Number of Physical Capacity Expansion Description Disks (Beginning) Disks (End) Possible for distributed parity data. RAID 0 RAID 6 1 or more 4 or more At least three disks need to be added for dual distributed parity data.
Background operations Background initialization Background Initialization (BGI) is an automated process that writes the parity or mirror data on newly created virtual disks. BGI does not run on RAID 0 virtual disks. 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.
ISE drives do not provide protection against theft. 4 KB sector disk drives PERC H740P, H745P MX, and H840 cards support 4 KB sector disk drives, which enable you to efficiently use the storage space. Before installing Windows on 4 KB sector drives, refer Windows operating system installation errors.
Automatic replace member with predicted failure A Replace Member operation can occur when there is a SMART predictive failure reporting on a physical disk in a virtual disk. The automatic Replace Member is initiated when the first SMART error occurs on a physical disk that is part of a virtual disk. The target disk needs to be a hot spare that qualifies as a rebuild disk.
Once enabled, any slots with hot spares configured automatically become persistent hot spare slots. If a hot spare disk fails or is removed, a replacement disk that is inserted into the same slot automatically becomes a hot spare with the same properties as the one it is replacing. If the replacement disk does not match the disk protocol and technology, it does not become a hot spare.
Recovering cache data If a system power loss or improper system shutdown has occurred: Restore the system power. Boot the system. Where preserved cache exists on the controller, an error message is shown. For more information on how to recover cache, see Preserved Cache State.
Installing the PERC H740P adapter • Removing the PERC H740P mini monolithic • Installing the PERC H740P mini monolithic • Removing the PERC H745P MX adapter card • Installing the PERC H745P MX adapter card • Removing the PERC H840 card •...
Figure 8. Removing and installing the PERC H740P Adapter heat sink battery battery cable SAS cable connectors (2) SAS cables (2) PERC card connector card connector on the system board Installing the PERC H740P adapter CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team.
Removing the PERC H740P mini monolithic CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by your warranty.
Figure 9. Removing and installing the PERC H740P mini monolithic card cable PERC H740P mini monolithic card card connector on the system board card holder Installing the PERC H740P mini monolithic CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team.
Close the system. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn the system on, including any attached peripherals. Removing the PERC H745P MX adapter card CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team.
Figure 10. Removing and installing the PERC H745P MX adapter bracket notch (3) release lever card bracket tabs on the system system chassis card connector on the system board PERC card connector Installing the PERC H745P MX adapter card CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician.
Route the SAS data cable through the clip on the card and through the channel on the inner side of the chassis. Attach the connector labeled "BP SAS" to connector SAS A on the backplane, and attach the connector labeled "CTRL SAS" to SAS- cable connector on the controller card.
Installing the PERC H840 card CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by your warranty.
Driver installation The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 series of cards require software drivers to operate with the supported operating systems. This chapter contains the procedures for installing the drivers for the PERC 10 cards. NOTE: The driver for PERC 10 for VMware ESXi is packaged within the VMware ESXi ISO image downloaded from Dell. For more information, see the VMware documentation at Dell.com/virtualizationsolutions.
Downloading drivers from the Dell systems service and diagnostic tools media To download drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools media: Insert the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostics Tools media in your system. The Welcome to Dell Service and Diagnostic Utilities screen is displayed. Select your system model and operating system.
The Found New Hardware Wizard screen displays the detected hardware device. Click Next. On the Locate device driver screen, select Search for a suitable driver for my device and click Next. Browse and select the drivers from the Locate Driver Files screen. Click Next.
Installing or updating the RPM driver package with KMOD support NOTE: This procedure is applicable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x. Perform the following steps to install the RPM package with KMOD support: Uncompress the gzipped tarball driver release package. Install the driver package using the command: rpm –ihv kmodmegaraid_ sas-<version>.rpm.
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NOTE: Ensure that you disconnect the driver media so that the drivers are loaded successfully. Press C or exit to continue with the installation. Driver installation...
Firmware This section provides information about downloading and installing the firmware using Dell Update Package (DUP). Installing the firmware using DUP Navigate to Dell.com/support. Locate your controller. Download the DUP. For Window/iDRAC update, download Windows executable file. b For Linux update, download .bin file. NOTE: For VMware, firmware should be updated through iDRAC or the PERC CLI utlitily.
HII configuration utility The Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility is a storage management application integrated into the System BIOS <F2>. It is used to configure and manage RAID disk groups, virtual disks, and physical disks. This utility is independent of the operating system. Topics: •...
The Dashboard view screen is displayed. HII Configuration utility Dashboard View options The first screen that is displayed when you access the HII Configuration Utility is the Dashboard View screen. The following table provides detailed information about the options available on the Dashboard View screen. Table 7.
Configuration management Auto Configure RAID 0 Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Auto Configure RAID 0. Select Confirm and click Yes to continue. A RAID 0 Virtual disk is created on all physical disks that are in Ready state. NOTE: This feature is not supported in eHBA mode.
Virtual disk parameters Description NOTE: Allowed characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore (_), and hyphen (-) only. Virtual Disk Size Displays the maximum capacity available for the virtual disk. Virtual Disk Size Unit Displays the virtual disk storage space in megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes.
The following list of RAID modes are displayed: • Generic RAID 0 • Generic RAID 1 • Generic RAID 5 • Generic RAID 6 • File Server • Web/Generic Server • Database Based on the RAID mode selected, one or more the physical disk selection criteria is displayed. From the Physical Disk Selection Criteria drop-down box, select a criterion based your requirement.
Saving controller events Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management. Click Save Controller Events. A screen is displayed indicating that the operation is completed successfully. Click Ok.
Manage controller mode NOTE: All existing configurations on the controller must be deleted before proceeding with a controller mode change. Once the mode transition operation is confirmed, the process can take up to 5 seconds to complete; do not power off or reset the system until the mode transition operation is complete.
Advanced controller properties Clearing the cache memory Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties. Click Cache and Memory > Discard Preserved Cache. The preserved cache is cleared successfully.
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• Auto Replace Member on Predictive Failure — allows you to enable or disable the option to start a Replace Member operation if a predictive failure error is detected on a physical disk. Select the applicable option and click Apply Changes. The changes made are saved successfully.
The boot mode operation is completed successfully. Aborting the consistency check Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties. In the Controller Properties section, set the Abort Consistency Check on Error option to Enabled. Click Apply Changes.
Option Description • Fast Initialization • Slow Initialization • Secure Virtual Disk NOTE: The Secure Virtual Disk option is only supported on SED physical disks. The security key must be configured to enable the feature. • Break Mirror • Expand Virtual Disk •...
Configuring virtual disk policies Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management. All the virtual disks associated with the RAID controller are displayed. Click Advanced..You can view the following virtual disk policies: Table 10.
NOTE: The Physical Disk Power Management feature is not applicable to FastPath-capable virtual disks. Performing break mirror operation The RAID 1 virtual disk to be split must be in an optimal state, and it cannot be running any other background tasks. To use the Break Mirror feature from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps: Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility.
Unique identifier of the physical disk. Connection Number of paths and how wide the paths are to the physical disk. Indicated if a physical disk is in a multipath configuration for H745P MX and H840. Backplane ID Backplane ID in which the physical disk is located in for H740P, H740 mini, and H745P MX.
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Option Description Type Type of the physical disk. Model Model of the physical disk. Part Number Part number of the physical disk. Serial Number Serial of the physical disk. Manufacturing Date Date on which the physical disk has been manufactured. Associated Virtual Disks Virtual disks associated with the physical disk.
Cryptographic erase NOTE: The Cryptographic erase feature is supported only on ISE and SED drives. Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Physical Disk Management. The list of physical disks is displayed. Select a physical disk.
Click Yes. The global hot spare disk is created successfully. Assigning dedicated hot spare To assign a dedicated hot spare from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps: Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility.
The dedicated hot spare disk is created successfully. Hardware components Viewing battery properties Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Hardware Components > Battery Management. The battery and capacity information are displayed. You can view the following properties of the battery: Field Description...
Security key and RAID management Security key implementation The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 series of cards support Self-Encrypting Disks (SED) for protection of data against loss or theft of SEDs. Protection is achieved by the use of encryption technology on the drives. There is one security key per controller. You can manage the security key under Local Key Management (LKM).
Creating security key NOTE: There is no passphrase backup option when you create a security key; you need to remember your passphrase. Enter the Dell PERC 10 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to Dell PERC 10 configuration utility. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Enable Security. Select the Security Key Management mode as Local Key Management.
Select the Confirm option. Click Yes. The security key is disabled successfully. Creating secured virtual disk To create a secured virtual disk, the controller must have a security key established first. See Creating security key. NOTE: Combining SAS and SATA hard drives within a virtual disk is not supported. Also, combining hard drives and Solid-State Drives (SSDs) within a virtual disk is not supported.
Troubleshooting To get help with your Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 series of cards, you can contact your Dell Technical Service representative or see Dell.com/support. Topics: • Adapter at baseport not responding error message • BIOS disabled error message •...
physical disk. The commands include actions you can perform with a physical disk, such as reading, writing, and formatting. Corrective Action: Enable the ROM option. Configured disks removed or not accessible error message Error Message: Some configured disks have been removed from your system or are no longer accessible.
or please power off your system and check your cables to ensure all disks are present and reboot. Probable Cause: The message is displayed after another HII warning indicating there are problems with previously configured disks and you have chosen to accept any changes and continue. The SAS cables for your system might be improperly connected.
CAUTION: The physical disk goes to Ready state when you clear the foreign configuration. If you insert a physical disk that was previously a member of a virtual disk in the system, and that disk’s previous location has been taken by a replacement disk through a rebuild, you must manually remove the foreign configuration flag of the newly inserted disk.
• The secured virtual disk is in an offline state after supplying the correct passphrase—You must check to determine why the virtual disk failed and correct the problem. Failure to select or configure non Self-Encrypting Disks non- A virtual disk can be either secured or unsecured depending on how it was configured when created. In order to create a secured virtual disk, the controller must have a security key present and must contain SEDs only.
Physical disk issues Physical disk in failed state Issue: One of the physical disks in the disk array is in the failed state. Corrective Action: Update the PERC cards to the latest firmware available on Dell.com/support and replace the drive. Unable to rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk Issue: Cannot rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk.
If the virtual disk is redundant and transitioned to Degraded state before going Offline, a rebuild operation starts automatically after the configuration is imported. If the virtual disk has gone directly to the Offline state due to a cable pull or power loss situation, the virtual disk is imported in its Optimal state without a rebuild occurring.
Physical disk takes a long time to rebuild Issue: A physical disk is taking longer than expected to rebuild. Description: A physical disk takes longer to rebuild when under high stress. There is only one rebuild I/O operation for every five host I/O operations.
Replace member errors NOTE: For more information about the Replace Member features, see Configuring hot spare. Source disk fails during replace member operation Issue: The source disk fails during the Replace Member operation. Corrective Action: If the source data is available from other disks in the virtual disk, the rebuild begins automatically on the target disk, using the data from the other disks.
Unable to register SCSI device error message Error: smartd[smartd[2338] Device: /dev/sda, Bad IEC (SMART) mode page, err=-5, skip device smartd[2338] Unable to register SCSI device /dev/sda at line 1 of file /etc/smartd.conf. Corrective Action: This is a known issue. An unsupported command is entered through the user application. User applications attempt to direct Command Descriptor Blocks to RAID volumes.
Drive status indicator pattern Condition Flashes amber four times per second Drive failed. Flashes green slowly Drive rebuilding. Steady green Drive online. Flashes green for three seconds, amber for three seconds, and Rebuild stopped. then turns off after six seconds HII error messages Unhealthy Status of the Drivers Error:...
Appendix RAID description RAID is a group of independent physical disks that provides high performance by increasing the number of disks used for saving and accessing data. CAUTION: In the event of a physical disk failure, a RAID 0 virtual disk fails, resulting in data loss. A RAID disk subsystem offers the following benefits: •...
RAID Level Minimum disk Maximum disk NOTE: Maximum number of virtual disks is currently limited to 192, because of the supported enclosure configuration. 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: 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1 MB.
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.
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