Physical Disks; Virtual Disks - Dell PowerVault MD3000 Information Update

Physical Disks

If a disk drive rebuild fails because of a source drive failure or because the drive is too small, the user
interface reports a failure of the physical disk even though the LED state on the drive indicates that
the rebuild was aborted.

Virtual Disks

If a Microsoft Windows operating system is the host server operating after virtual disks are created on the
array, you must partition and format the virtual disk using the disk management Microsoft Management
Console (MMC).
Go to Settings→ Control Panel→ Administrative Tools, and select the Disk Management MMC
option to format and partition the disk.
A reboot might be necessary in order for a Windows operating system to correctly recognize a target
virtual disk following a virtual disk copy. In particular, if the properties of a Windows-based volume
indicate a RAW file system (one that has not been formatted), reboot the system so that the correct
virtual disk is recognized.
When re-creating a Snapshot Virtual Disk using a Windows operating system, remove the drive letter
from the Snapshot Virtual Disk before performing the re-creation operation, and then reassign the drive
letter to the Snapshot Virtual Disk after the snapshot has been created. This sequence ensures that the
latest data is preserved on the Snapshot Virtual Disk.
Virtual disks that do not have all their member drives at controller startup are reported as optimal.
The firmware reports this to prevent disks failing from disconnected enclosures.
For Non-Redundant MSCS Cluster configurations, download an updated NVSRAM file to avoid
spurious Virtual Disk Not on Preferred Path conditions. The NVSRAM file is prefixed
with non-redundant-MSCS and can be found on the MD3000 Resource CD in the Utility/NVSRAM
directory. From the MD Storage Manager GUI, select Support→ Download firmware→ Download
RAID Controller Module NVSRAM and select the non-redundant-MSCS NVSRAM file.
Virtual Disk Migration
Virtual disk migration describes the action of moving drives and drive modules within the same storage
array or to different storage arrays. All data on the virtual disks is preserved during the migration process.
NOTE:
Only disk groups and associated virtual disks with all member physical disks present can be migrated from
one storage array to another. Dell recommends that you only migrate disk groups that have all their associated
member virtual disks in an optimal state.
NOTE:
The number of physical disks and virtual disks that a storage array supports limits the scope of the
migration.
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Information Update