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Virident FlashMAX II User Manual

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Virident FlashMAX II
User Guide for Linux
© 2012-13 Virident Systems

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Summary of Contents for Virident FlashMAX II

  • Page 1 Virident FlashMAX II User Guide for Linux © 2012-13 Virident Systems...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    SUSE: Enable unsupported modules to allow driver loading ............5 Enhance performance by disabling CPU throttling ............... 5 Installing FlashMAX II Software ......................6 Verify the FlashMAX II devices are installed and detected properly ..........6 Installing drivers and utilities packages ..................6 Starting the driver ......................... 7 FlashMax support ..........................
  • Page 3 Performance is lower than expected ..................21 14.4 Driver crash on system boot ....................... 22 14.5 IOs are not being processed because the driver is hung ............22 Onboard diagnostic LEDs ........................ 23 Contacting Virident Support ......................23 Virident FlashMAX II User Guide, Version 3.1.1...
  • Page 4 Your license to use the Program(s) automatically Virident. You may not loan, rent, lease, license, sublicense terminates if You fail to comply with any provision of this or distribute the Program(s) or any copies.
  • Page 5 Government contract, Virident rejects provisions or clauses E. Waiver. A waiver by Virident of any term or condition of required to be passed on to sellers pursuant to such this Agreement in any instance shall not be deemed or contract and such provisions or clauses shall not be construed to be a future waiver of such term or condition.

  • Page 6: Introduction

    1 Introduction The Virident FlashMAX II™ line of solid state storage devices is a revolutionary product family that utilizes the industry standard PCI Express bus interface along with vFAS, an innovative hardware and software architecture to deliver highest sustained application performance over its life time and enterprise-class reliability.

  • Page 7: Bracket Installation

    If necessary, install the appropriate bracket on the FlashMAX II device. Please use only brackets supplied by Virident with the device. Also, do not remove the heatsinks during the bracket replacement process as doing so could incur damage to the device and void the warranty.

  • Page 8: Pci Slot Selection

    3.2 PCI Slot Selection FlashMAX II devices need to be installed in x8 or x16 PCIe Gen 2 slots. If no PCIe x8/x16 slots are available, x4 slots can be used. However, using an x4 slot may result in up to 50% reduction in performance.

  • Page 9: Fan Speed Settings In Bios

    Intel has identified an issue in Xeon E5-2600 series processors that may result in severe drops of PCIe and FlashMAX II bandwidth when running workloads that have low CPU consumption. To avoid this issue, C2 and C1E processor power states must be disabled.

  • Page 10: Os Settings

    5.2 SUSE: Enable unsupported modules to allow driver loading While the Virident FlashMAX II device driver is fully tested under SUSE Linux, it is not certified by Novell. By default, SUSE will not allow such modules to be loaded, so this setting must be changed to allow the Virident device driver to load.

  • Page 11: Installing Flashmax Ii Software

    (rev 01) You should see one device listed for every device installed. If the device is not detected, power down the server and ensure it is seated properly. If it is still not detected, please contact Virident support for further assistance.

  • Page 12: Starting The Driver

    Enabling swap devices... Rescanning mount points... After the driver starts successfully, you should be able to use the devices. You can list available devices and block devices (physical partitions) using vgc-monitor command: Virident FlashMAX II User Guide - Version 3.1.1...

  • Page 13: Flashmax Support

    (installed with the new RPM) and the old file (the saved .rpmsave version from the previously installed version). 6.4 Legacy FlashMax support The 3.1.1 driver also supports 300, 400, 800 GB SLC and 1100, 1400 GB MLC FlashMax devices. Virident FlashMAX II User Guide - Version 3.1.1...

  • Page 14: Updating Controller Firmware

    FlashMAX Drive (rev 01) (0x1a78:0x0040, 0x1a78:0x0040) If a FlashMAX II device has an older firmware version that is not supported by the latest driver version, you need to update the firmware before you can use the device. To update firmware, perform the following steps:...

  • Page 15: Verifying Performance

    8 Verifying Performance Before setting up a file system on the Virident FlashMAX II device, it is useful to measure the raw performance of each device to ensure proper setup. This makes it easier to isolate and resolve any potential problems.

  • Page 16: Selecting Max Performance Or Max Capacity Mode

    9 Selecting Max Performance or Max Capacity Mode By default FlashMAX II devices are formatted in Max Capacity mode (for SLC FlashMAX V1 the default is Max Performance mode). If your application is write intensive, setting Max Performance mode instead of the default Max Capacity mode can be beneficial.

  • Page 17: Creating File Systems

    Changing the performance mode using vgc-config will erase existing data. 10 Creating File Systems Any standard Linux file system may be placed on the Virident FlashMAX II device simply by using its standard mkfs utility. If you need only one partition per device, Virident recommends creating file system directly on a /dev/vgca0, /dev/vgcb0,…...

  • Page 18: Auto-Mounting Virident Device On Linux Systems

    If automount of the Virident FlashMAX II device is desired at system startup, the following steps are required: Step 1: In /etc/fstab add entries with ‘noauto’ keyword with 0,0 options for the FlashMAX II device, to ensure that auto-mount is not attempted before FlashMAX II drivers are loaded during boot-up process.

  • Page 19: Management Utilities

    12 Management Utilities 12.1 vgc-monitor The vgc-monitor utility allows monitoring of FlashMAX II device status and health. When called without parameters, it lists all Virident FlashMAX II devices in the system with their configuration and health summary. Command syntax: vgc-monitor [ -d <drive-name> | -h ] no args : display info for all Virident drives : drive name /dev/vgc[a-h].

  • Page 20: Vgc-Secure-Erase

    For example, the standards for magnetic disk media are different than what is required for flash memory. Virident has a Secure Erase Utility that will perform this function for customers who need to securely erase data from a device.

  • Page 21: Vgc-Config

    Please unmount the device before secure erase (umount/ dev/vgca/mnt). 12.3 vgc-config The vgc-config utility allows switching between Max Capacity and Max Performance modes and also allows splitting a device into two physical partitions of equal size. Virident FlashMAX II User Guide - Version 3.1.1...
  • Page 22 Making changes with vgc-config will erase existing data on the affected device or partition. By default FlashMAX II devices are formatted in Max Capacity mode (for SLC FlashMAX V1 devices, the default is Max Performance mode). If your application is write intensive, setting Max Performance mode instead of the default Max Capacity mode can be beneficial.

  • Page 23: Vgc-Diags

    1”or “-b 0” to enable or disable the beacon respectively. When enabled, two on-board LEDs will flash in unison and the required FlashMAX II device can thus be identified. If “-b 1” or “-b 0” is not used the command will return its current settings.

  • Page 24: Mysql Settings

    14 Troubleshooting If the FlashMAX II device or driver does not appear to be working properly, use the information in this section to try to identify the problem. If the issue cannot be resolved or fixed using this information it may be necessary to contact Virident Support.
  • Page 25 # rpm -aq | grep vgc vgc-utils-3.1.1-51287.C6.x86_64 kmod-vgc-redhat6.1+-3.1.1-51287.C6.x86_64 If the running kernel version is not compatible with FlashMAX II software that is installed, then the device driver will not load. Step 3. Ensure the vgcd service is started. # service vgcd status INFO: kernel modules are loaded If the kernel modules are not loaded, then manually start the service with “service vgcd start”.

  • Page 26: Thermal Shutdown

    14.2 Thermal Shutdown The FlashMAX II device starts logging errors when the device reaches a temperature of 83 C and the temperature status will change from “Safe” to “Not Safe”. The FlashMAX II device will discontinue...

  • Page 27: Driver Crash On System Boot

    If this condition occurs a message similar to the following will be logged: kernel: INFO: task vgc_mtwa0:13866 blocked for more than 120 seconds. If this condition is encountered, run vgc-diags to collect debugging information for Virident support personnel and then re-boot the system.

  • Page 28: Onboard Diagnostic Leds

    15 Onboard diagnostic LEDs There are two onboard LEDS on the Virident FlashMAX II device. They are visible through the back bracket and indicate the state of the system. These LEDs can also be used to identify individual devices in a multi-device installation using the vgc-beacon utility. The following table explains what each...

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