Dell PowerVault MD3200i Series Owner'S Manual Download Page 45

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Planning: MD3200i Series Storage Array Terms and Concepts

Virtual Disk Operations Limit

The maximum number of active, concurrent virtual disk processes per RAID

controller module installed in the storage array is four. This limit is applied to

the following virtual disk processes:

• Background initialization
• Foreground initialization
• Consistency check
• Rebuild
• Copy back

If a redundant RAID controller module fails with existing virtual disk

processes, the processes on the failed controller are transferred to the peer

controller. A transferred process is placed in a suspended state if there are four

active processes on the peer controller. The suspended processes are resumed

on the peer controller when the number of active processes falls below four.

Disk Group Operations

RAID Level Migration

You can migrate from one RAID level to another depending on your

requirements. For example, fault-tolerant characteristics can be added to a

stripe set (RAID 0) by converting it to a RAID 5 set. MDSM provides

information about RAID attributes to assist you in selecting the appropriate

RAID level. You can perform a RAID level migration while the system is still

running and without rebooting, which maintains data availability.

Segment Size Migration

Segment size refers to the amount of data (in KB) that the storage array

writes on a single physical disk in a virtual disk before writing data on the next

physical disk. Valid values for the segment size are 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB,

128 KB, 256 KB, and 512 KB.
Dynamic segment size migration enables the segment size of a given virtual

disk to be changed. A default segment size is set when the virtual disk is

created, based on such factors as the RAID level and expected usage. You can

change the default value if segment size usage does not match your needs.

book.book Page 45 Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:06 AM

Summary of Contents for PowerVault MD3200i Series

Page 1: ...Dell PowerVault MD3200i and MD3220i Storage Arrays Owner s Manual Regulatory Model E03J Series and E04J Series Regulatory Type E03J001 and E04J001 ...

Page 2: ...enManage are trademarks of Dell Inc Intel is a registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U S and other countries Microsoft Windows Windows Server MS DOS and Internet Explorer are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries Red Hat and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are registered trademarks of Red Hat Inc in the United States an...

Page 3: ...Modular Disk Storage Manager 20 Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Configuration Utility 20 Other Information You May Need 20 2 Planning About Your Storage Array 23 Overview 23 Hardware Features 24 Front Panel Features and Indicators 24 Back Panel Features and Indicators 27 Hard Drive Indicator Patterns 28 Power Supply and Cooling Fan Features 29 Power Indicator Codes and Features 30 ...

Page 4: ...d Features 35 Cache Mirroring 35 Write Back Cache 35 Write Through Cache 36 4 Planning MD3200i Series Storage Array Terms and Concepts 37 Physical Disks Virtual Disks and Disk Groups 37 Physical Disks 37 Physical Disk States 38 Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology 39 Virtual Disks and Disk Groups 39 Virtual Disk States 40 RAID Levels 40 RAID Level Usage 41 Segment Size 42 Virtual Disk...

Page 5: ...n 46 Disk Group Operations Limit 47 RAID Background Operations Priority 47 Virtual Disk Migration and Disk Roaming 48 Disk Migration 48 Disk Roaming 50 Advanced Features 50 Host Server to Virtual Disk Mapping 51 Host Types 51 Snapshot Virtual Disks 51 Snapshot Repository Virtual Disk 52 Virtual Disk Copy 53 Virtual Disk Recovery 54 Using Snapshot and Disk Copy Together 54 Multi Path Software 54 Pr...

Page 6: ...ays 66 Setting Up Your Storage Array 68 Locating Storage Arrays 69 Naming or Renaming Storage Arrays 70 Setting a Password 71 Viewing Storage Array Connections 72 Adding Editing a Comment to an Existing Storage Array 73 Removing Storage Arrays 73 Enabling Premium Features 74 Failover Alert Display 74 Changing the Cache Settings on the Storage Array 74 Changing Expansion Enclosure ID Numbers 75 Cha...

Page 7: ...ecrets 84 Initiator CHAP Secret 85 Target CHAP Secret 85 Valid Characters for CHAP Secrets 85 Changing the iSCSI Target Identification 86 Changing the iSCSI Target Discovery Settings 86 Configuring the iSCSI Host Ports 87 Advanced iSCSI Host Ports Settings 89 Viewing or Ending an iSCSI Session 90 Viewing iSCSI Statistics and Setting Baseline Statistics 91 Edit Remove or Rename Host Topology 92 8 C...

Page 8: ...t Group 100 Host Topology 100 Starting or Stopping the Host Context Agent 101 I O Data Path Protection 102 Managing Host Port Identifiers 103 10 Configuration Disk Groups and Virtual Disks 105 Creating Disk Groups and Virtual Disks 105 Creating Disk Groups 106 Locating a Disk Group 108 Creating Virtual Disks 108 Changing the Virtual Disk Modification Priority 110 Changing the Virtual Disk Cache Se...

Page 9: ...res 125 Hot Spare Operation 125 Hot Spare Drive Protection 126 Enclosure Loss Protection 126 Host to Virtual Disk Mapping 128 Creating Host to Virtual Disk Mappings 129 Modifying and Removing Host to Virtual Disk Mapping 130 Changing Controller Ownership of the Virtual Disk 131 Removing Host to Virtual Disk Mapping 132 Changing the RAID Controller Module Ownership of a Disk Group 132 Changing the ...

Page 10: ... Disk Group 143 Import Disk Group 144 Importing a Disk Group 144 Storage Array Media Scan 145 Changing Media Scan Settings 146 Suspending the Media Scan 147 11 Configuration Premium Feature Snapshot Virtual Disks 149 Scheduling a Snapshot Virtual Disk 150 Common Reasons for Scheduling a Snapshot Virtual Disk 150 Guidelines for Creating Snapshot Schedules 151 Enabling and Disabling Snapshot Schedul...

Page 11: ... Repository Capacity 162 Disabling a Snapshot Virtual Disk 165 Preparing Host Servers to Re create a Snapshot Virtual Disk 166 Re creating Snapshot Virtual Disks 167 Snapshot Rollback 167 Rules and Guidelines for Performing a Snapshot Rollback 168 Protecting Against a Failed Snapshot Rollback 169 Previous Versions of the MD Storage Manager 169 Starting a Snapshot Rollback 169 Resuming a Snapshot R...

Page 12: ...ion Operations 179 Create Copy Wizard 179 Failed Virtual Disk Copy 179 Preferred RAID Controller Module Ownership 180 Failed RAID Controller Module 180 Copy Manager 180 Copying the Virtual Disk 180 Storage Array Performance During Virtual Disk Copy 182 Setting Copy Priority 182 Stopping a Virtual Disk Copy 183 Recopying a Virtual Disk 183 Preparing Host Servers to Recopy a Virtual Disk 184 Re Copy...

Page 13: ...boot Best Practices 195 Important Information About Special Partitions 196 Limitations and Known Issues 197 Troubleshooting 198 15 Management Firmware Downloads 201 Downloading RAID Controller and NVSRAM Packages 201 Downloading Both RAID Controller and NVSRAM Firmware 202 Downloading Only NVSRAM Firmware 204 Downloading Physical Disk Firmware 206 Downloading MD1200 Series Expansion Module EMM Fir...

Page 14: ...moving a Hard Drive From a Hard Drive Carrier 216 Installing a Hard Drive Into a Hard Drive Carrier 219 RAID Controller Module 219 Removing a RAID Controller Module Blank 219 Installing a RAID Controller Module Blank 220 Removing a RAID Controller Module 221 Installing a RAID Controller Module 222 Opening the RAID Controller Module 222 Closing the RAID Controller Module 223 RAID Controller Module ...

Page 15: ...lane 231 Removing the Backplane 231 Installing the Backplane 234 17 Management Firmware Inventory 235 Viewing the Firmware Inventory 235 18 Management System Interfaces 237 Microsoft Services 237 Virtual Disk Service 237 Volume Shadow Copy Service 237 19 Troubleshooting Your Storage Array Software 239 Start Up Routine 239 Device Health Conditions 239 Storage Array Support Data 242 Automatically Co...

Page 16: ...rom an Unresponsive Storage Array Condition 251 Locating a Physical Disk 253 Locating an Expansion Enclosure 255 Capturing the State Information 256 SMrepassist Utility 257 Unidentified Devices 258 Recovering From an Unidentified Storage Array 258 Starting or Restarting the Host Context Agent Software 260 20 Troubleshooting Your Array 263 Safety First For you and Your Array 263 Troubleshooting Sto...

Page 17: ...odules 265 Troubleshooting RAID Controller Modules 267 Troubleshooting Hard Drives 268 Troubleshooting Array and Expansion Enclosure Connections 269 Troubleshooting a Wet Storage Array 269 Troubleshooting a Damaged Array 270 Troubleshooting RAID Controller Modules 271 Conditions 271 Invalid Storage Array 271 ECC Errors 271 PCI Errors 272 Critical Conditions 272 Noncritical Conditions 272 21 Gettin...

Page 18: ...18 Contents ...

Page 19: ...n about the storage array and its features Configuration Tasks that must be completed to ensure that your storage array performs optimally Management Tasks that may be performed to ensure that the storage array components are up to date and performing properly including removal and installation of storage array components Troubleshooting Tasks that you must complete to resolve problems that may oc...

Page 20: ...ray and the host server is provided by a standard Ethernet connection Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager MDSM is a graphical user interface GUI application used to configure and manage one or more MD3200i Series Storage Arrays The MDSM software is located on the MD3200i Series resource media Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Configuration Utility D...

Page 21: ... available at support dell com manuals Release notes or readme files are included to provide last minute updates to the enclosure or documentation or advanced technical reference material intended for experienced users or technicians This document as well as Dell PowerVault MD 1200 Series Installation Guide is available at support dell com manuals for users who incorporate MD1200 expansion enclosu...

Page 22: ...22 Introduction ...

Page 23: ... single and dual RAID controller configuration The Dell PowerVault MD3200i storage array provides 1 0 Gbps 1000 BaseT connectivity to the host server and enables access to 32 physical hosts The MD3200i Series storage array includes RAID controller module s PSU Fan modules Disk drives also called physical disk drives in this document A front bezel optional A system enclosure into which the other co...

Page 24: ...age Array Hardware Features Front Panel Features and Indicators Figure 2 1 Front Panel Features and Indicators Dell PowerVault MD3200i Figure 2 2 Front Panel Features and Indicators Dell PowerVault MD3220i 1 2 3 5 4 6 1 2 3 4 6 5 ...

Page 25: ...ights blue during normal operation Blinks blue when a host server is identifying the enclosure or when the system identification button is pressed Lights amber as enclosure boots or is reset Blinks amber when the enclosure is either in a fault state or the hosts are not using the preferred path to a virtual disk 2 Power LED The power LED lights green when at least one power supply is supplying pow...

Page 26: ... 5 SAS hot swappable hard drives MD3220i Up to twenty four 2 5 SAS hot swappable hard drives 6 Enclosure mode switch The function of this switch is not applicable to your storage array However if MD1200 Series expansion enclosures are daisy chained to the storage array the enclosure mode switches of the MD1200 Series expansion enclosures must be set to the Unified Mode position NOTE This switch mu...

Page 27: ...nel Features and Indicators Figure 2 4 Back Panel Features and Indicators Dell PowerVault MD3200i Series 1 600 W power supply cooling fan module 2 RAID Controller Module 0 3 RAID Controller Module 1 4 600 W power supply cooling fan module 1 2 3 4 ...

Page 28: ...28 Planning About Your Storage Array Hard Drive Indicator Patterns Figure 2 5 Hard Drive Indicators 1 hard drive activity indicator green 2 hard drive status indicator green and amber 1 2 ...

Page 29: ...cally shut down to prevent damage Drive Status Indicator Pattern Condition Off The physical disk is not yet discovered by the host server is spun down for removal not supported for the RAID controller module or is not in the physical disk slot NOTE The drive status indicator remains off until all hard drives are initialized after system power is turned on Drives are not ready for insertion or remo...

Page 30: ...g fan fault The LED lights amber when the DC output voltage is not within the limit or a fault with the fan is detected If this LED is off it indicates that no fault condition is present 3 AC power The LED lights green when the AC input voltage is within the limit If this LED is off it indicates either there is no power or the AC input voltage is not within the limit 4 Power connector Connect the ...

Page 31: ...toring and controlling enclosure environment elements temperature fans power supplies and enclosure LEDs Controlling access to the physical disks Communicating enclosure attributes and states to the host server and management station Each RAID controller module has multiple iSCSI IN ports for host access The ports provide redundant host connections and support a high availability storage environme...

Page 32: ...troller iSCSI 1Gbps Ethernet connection 3 iSCSI IN port 1 Provides host to controller iSCSI 1Gbps Ethernet connection 4 iSCSI IN port 2 Provides host to controller iSCSI 1Gbps Ethernet connection 5 iSCSI IN port 3 Provides host to controller iSCSI 1Gbps Ethernet connection 6 Management port ethernet connector Provides a 100 1000 Mbps Ethernet connection for out of band management of the enclosure ...

Page 33: ...is down 12 Controller fault LED Lights amber when controller fault detected Off when controller operating normally 13 System identification LED Blinks blue when system identification switch push button on enclosure front panel is pressed 14 Cache active or cache offload LED Lights green when On board controller memory contains data If AC power fails this LED changes to indicate Cache Offload statu...

Page 34: ...Write Back is re enabled Storage Array Thermal Shutdown The system automatically shuts down when system temperature exceeds the safe threshold The battery backup unit protects against data loss by providing power to offload to non volatile memory in the event of power loss It is not necessary to shut down any MD1200 Series expansion enclosures attached to the storage array when thermal shutdown oc...

Page 35: ...a is safely mirrored to the partner controller before successful completion status is returned to the host If a controller fails the surviving controller safely retains all mirrored data Cache mirroring is enabled by default Write Back Cache In Write back Cache write operations result in a completion signal being sent to the host operating system as soon as the cache receives the data to be writte...

Page 36: ...rite Through Cache In write through cache data is written to the physical disk before completion status is returned to the host operating system Write through cache is considered more robust than write back cache since a power failure is less likely to cause loss of data The RAID controller automatically switches to write through if cache mirroring is disabled or if the battery is missing or has a...

Page 37: ...te disk groups from unconfigured capacity on your storage array A virtual disk is a partition in a disk group that is made up of contiguous data segments of the physical disks in the disk group A virtual disk consists of data segments from all physical disks in the disk group Virtual disks and disk groups are set up according to how you plan to organize your data For example you may have one virtu...

Page 38: ...teady Green Optimal Hot Spare standby The physical disk in the indicated slot is configured as a hot spare Steady Green Optimal Hot Spare in use The physical disk in the indicated slot is in use as a hot spare within a disk group Steady Green Failed Assigned Unassigned Hot Spare in use or Hot Spare standby The physical disk in the indicated slot has failed because of an unrecoverable error an inco...

Page 39: ...ached drives and notifies you when a predicted failure is reported by a physical disk Virtual Disks and Disk Groups When configuring a storage array you must 1 Organize the physical disks into disk groups 2 Create virtual disks within these disk groups 3 Provide host server access 4 Create mappings to associate the virtual disks with the host servers NOTE Host server access must be created before ...

Page 40: ... performance Storing redundant data on multiple physical disks using mirroring or parity supports reconstruction of lost data if an error occurs even if that error is the failure of a physical disk Table 4 2 RAID Controller Virtual Disk States State Description Optimal The virtual disk contains physical disks that are all online Degraded The virtual disk with a redundant RAID level contains an ina...

Page 41: ...ata fault tolerance Disk performance requirements RAID 0 RAID 0 uses disk striping to provide high data throughput especially for large files in an environment that requires no data redundancy RAID 0 breaks the data down into segments and writes each segment to a separate physical disk I O performance is greatly improved by spreading the I O load across many physical disks Although it offers the b...

Page 42: ...small and there is a high proportion of read activity RAID 6 is recommended when large size physical disks are used or large number of physical disks are used in a disk group RAID 10 RAID 10 a combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0 uses disk striping across mirrored disks It provides high data throughput and complete data redundancy Utilizing an even number of physical disks four or more creates a RAID ...

Page 43: ...ound A maximum of four virtual disks can be initialized concurrently on each RAID controller module Background Initialization The storage array executes a background initialization when the virtual disk is created to establish parity while allowing full host server access to the virtual disks Background initialization does not run on RAID 0 virtual disks The background initialization rate is contr...

Page 44: ...isks in a disk group The storage array uses the Read operation to perform verification on the space configured in virtual disks and the space reserved for the metadata Cycle Time The media verification operation runs only on selected disk groups independent of other disk groups Cycle time is the time taken to complete verification of the metadata region of the disk group and all virtual disks in t...

Page 45: ... You can migrate from one RAID level to another depending on your requirements For example fault tolerant characteristics can be added to a stripe set RAID 0 by converting it to a RAID 5 set MDSM provides information about RAID attributes to assist you in selecting the appropriate RAID level You can perform a RAID level migration while the system is still running and without rebooting which mainta...

Page 46: ...isk is only accessed once Virtual Disk Capacity Expansion When you configure a virtual disk you select a capacity based on the amount of data you expect to store However you may need to increase the virtual disk capacity for a standard virtual disk by adding free capacity to the disk group This creates more unused space for new virtual disks or to expand existing virtual disks Disk Group Expansion...

Page 47: ...ess is placed in a suspended state if there is an active disk group process on the peer controller The suspended processes are resumed when the active process on the peer controller completes or is stopped NOTE If you try to start a disk group process on a controller that does not have an existing active process the start attempt fails if the first virtual disk in the disk group is owned by the ot...

Page 48: ...hout taking the target array offline However the disk group being migrated must be offline before your perform disk migration If the disk group is not offline prior to migration the source array holding the physical and virtual disks within the disk group marks them as missing However the disk groups themselves migrate to the target array An array can import a virtual disk only if it is in an opti...

Page 49: ...to the destination array for migration When inserting drives into the destination storage array during hot virtual disk migration wait for the inserted physical disk to be displayed in MDSM before inserting the next physical disk WARNING Without the delay between drive insertions the storage array can become unstable and manageability is temporarily lost Migrating virtual disks from multiple stora...

Page 50: ...ature enabled and the destination array does not have this feature enabled an Out of Compliance error message may be generated Disk Roaming You can move physical disks within an array The RAID controller module automatically recognizes the relocated physical disks and logically places them in the proper virtual disks that are part of the disk group Disk roaming is permitted when the RAID controlle...

Page 51: ...ver to access a virtual disk Not every operating system has the same number of LUNs available for use Host Types A host server is a server that accesses a storage array Host servers are mapped to the virtual disks and use one or more iSCSI initiator ports Host servers have the following attributes Host name A name that uniquely identifies the host server Host group used in Cluster solutions only T...

Page 52: ...on write data for a particular snapshot virtual disk The repository supports one snapshot only You cannot select a snapshot repository virtual disk as a source virtual disk or as a target virtual disk in a virtual disk copy If you select a Snapshot source virtual disk as the target virtual disk of a virtual disk copy you must disable all snapshot virtual disks associated with the source virtual di...

Page 53: ... the target virtual disk Target Virtual Disk When you start a virtual disk copy the target virtual disk maintains a copy of the data from the source virtual disk You can choose whether to use an existing virtual disk or create a new virtual disk as the target virtual disk If you choose an existing virtual disk as the target all data on the target is overwritten A target virtual disk can be a stand...

Page 54: ...ource virtual disk You can copy data from a virtual disk by Taking a point in time snapshot of the data online Copying the data to another virtual disk using a virtual disk copy offline You can select a snapshot virtual disk as the source virtual disk for a virtual disk copy This configuration is one of the best ways you can apply the snapshot virtual disk feature since it enables complete backups...

Page 55: ...e preferred owner must manually be assigned to the RAID controller module the host can access Ownership of a virtual disk is moved from the preferred controller to the secondary controller also called the alternate controller when the preferred controller is Physically removed Updating firmware Involved in an event that caused failover to the alternate controller Paths used by the preferred RAID c...

Page 56: ...et I O load balance policy routes I O requests in rotation to each available data path to the RAID controller module that owns the virtual disks This policy treats all paths to the RAID controller module that owns the virtual disk equally for I O activity Paths to the secondary RAID controller module are ignored until ownership changes The basic assumption for the round robin policy is that the da...

Page 57: ... controller modules to monitor or to change the polling interval Keep these guidelines in mind when using the Performance Monitor The Performance Monitor does not dynamically update its display if any configuration changes occur while the window is open You must close the Performance Monitor window and reopen it for the changes to be displayed Using the Performance Monitor to retrieve performance ...

Page 58: ... Polling Interval setting 6 Click Update to force an immediate poll of the storage array 7 Click Stop to stop monitoring the storage array 8 Click Save As on the Performance Monitor main dialog to save the currently displayed performance statistics 9 Select an appropriate directory 10 Type a file name in the File name text box NOTE The perf extension is the default 11 Select a file type from the F...

Page 59: ...iption Column Headings Description Devices Controller virtual disk or storage array total Total IOs Cumulative IO s per second from last start time Read Percentage Percentage of cumulative IO s that are READs Cache Hit Percentage Percentage of cumulative IO s that are in cache Current KB second Snapshot of throughput value per second 1KB 1024 bytes Maximum KB second Maximum recorded throughput val...

Page 60: ...60 Planning MD3200i Series Storage Array Terms and Concepts ...

Page 61: ... can launch the Array Management Window from the EMW Array Management Window AMW The AMW provides management functions for a single storage array You can launch more than one AMW at the same time to manage different storage arrays The EMW and the AMW consist of the following The title bar at the top of the window shows the name of the application Beneath the title bar is the menu bar You can selec...

Page 62: ...osts and managed storage arrays on the local sub network Manually add and remove hosts and storage arrays Locate the storage arrays Name or Rename discovered storage arrays Add storage array comments to the Table view Sort rows in the Table view according to different criteria Store your EMW view preferences and configuration data in local configuration files The next time you open the EMW data fr...

Page 63: ... Click OK Array Management Window You can launch the AMW from the EMW The AMW provides management functions for a single storage array You can have multiple AMWs open simultaneously to manage different storage arrays To launch the AMW 1 In the EMW on the Devices tab double click on the relevant storage array The context menu for the selected storage is displayed 2 In the context menu select Manage...

Page 64: ...ge array options for example renaming a storage array changing a password or enabling a background media scan Provide the ability to configure virtual disks from the storage array capacity define hosts and host groups and grant host or host group access to sets of virtual disks called storage partitions Monitor the health of storage array components and report detailed status using applicable icon...

Page 65: ...managed storage array This limit does not apply to systems that manage the storage array through the in band management method When you use out of band management you must set the network configuration for each RAID controller module s management Ethernet port This includes the Internet Protocol IP address subnetwork mask subnet mask and gateway If you are using a Dynamic Host Configuration Protoc...

Page 66: ...com manuals For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager online help topics Access Virtual Disk Each RAID controller module in an MD3200i Series storage array maintains a special virtual disk called the access virtual disk The host agent software uses the access virtual disk to communicate management requests and event information between the storage management station and ...

Page 67: ...nual Addition of a Storage Array Use Manual Addition if the storage array resides outside of the local subnet This process requires specific identification information to manually add a storage array To add a storage array that uses out of band management specify the host name or management port IP address of each controller in the storage array Before using this option verify that the applicable ...

Page 68: ... Setup tab in the AMW The list of initial setup tasks shows you how to set up a storage array Using the steps outlined in the Initial Setup Tasks Area ensures that the basic setup steps are completed properly Use the Initial Setup Tasks list the first time that you set up a storage array to perform these tasks Locate the storage array Find the physical location of the storage array on your network...

Page 69: ...ot automatically recognized and shown in the Mappings tab Configure ethernet management ports Configure the network parameters for the Ethernet management ports on the RAID controller modules if you are managing the storage array by using the out of band management connections View and enable premium features Your MDSM may include premium features View the premium features that are available and t...

Page 70: ...orm one of these actions In the AMW Setup tab select Rename Storage Array In the EMW Devices tab Tree view select Edit Rename In the EMW Devices tab Table view select Edit Rename In the EMW Devices tab Tree view right click on the desired array icon and select Rename The Name Rename Storage Arrays dialog is displayed 2 Select the relevant storage array from the Select storage array table If you do...

Page 71: ...se a long password with at least 15 alphanumeric characters to increase security To set a new password or change an existing password 1 Select the relevant storage array and navigate to the AMW for that storage array See Array Management Window on page 63 The AMW for the selected storage array is displayed 2 In the AMW perform one of these actions Select the storage array in the Logical pane and t...

Page 72: ...to ten times before the storage array enters a lockout state Before you can try to enter a password again you must wait 10 minutes for the storage array to reset To reset the password press the password reset switch on your RAID controller module see Figure 3 1 Viewing Storage Array Connections You can use the View Connections option to view the expansion enclosures connected to the RAID controlle...

Page 73: ...ther storage management stations Removing Storage Arrays You can remove a storage array from the list of managed arrays if you no longer want to manage it from a specific storage management station Removing a storage array does not affect the storage array or its data in any way Removing a storage array simply removes it from the list of storage arrays that are displayed in the drop down list in t...

Page 74: ... Display You can change the failover alert delay for a storage array The failover alert delay lets you delay the logging of a critical event if the multi path driver transfers virtual disks to the non preferred controller If the multi path driver transfers the virtual disks back to the preferred controller within the specified delay period a critical event is not logged If the transfer exceeds thi...

Page 75: ...he expansion enclosure This enclosure ID number is also shown in the MDSM To change the enclosure ID numbers 1 In the AMW select the storage array and select Storage Array Change Enclosure ID 2 Select a new enclosure ID number from the Change Enclosure ID list The enclosure ID must be between 0 and 99 inclusive 3 To save the changed enclosure ID click Change Changing the Enclosure Order in the Phy...

Page 76: ...ays 1 In the EMW select the Setup tab 2 Select Configure Alerts The Configure Alerts dialog is displayed 3 Select All storage arrays 4 Click OK The Configure Alerts dialog is displayed To configure e mail alerts see Configuring E mail Alerts on page 76 To configure SNMP alerts see Configuring SNMP Alerts on page 79 To configure alert notifications for a single storage array 1 In the EMW select the...

Page 77: ...the Select Storage Array dialog is displayed Select the storage array for which you want to receive e mail alerts and click OK The Configure Alerts dialog is displayed If you do not know which storage array to select click Blink to turn on the LEDs of the storage array 3 In the Configure Alerts dialog select the Mail Server tab 4 In Mail server type the name of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol SM...

Page 78: ... contains only the event information This alert type is the default Event Profile The alert e mail contains the event information and the storage array profile Event Support The alert e mail contains the event information and a compressed file that contains complete support information for the storage array that has generated the alert 9 For the selected e mail address in Frequency select Every ev...

Page 79: ...tons to specify an alert level All storage arrays Select this option to send an alert notification about events on all storage arrays An individual storage array Select this option to send an alert notification about events that occur in only a specified storage array These results occur depending on your selection If you selected All storage arrays the Configure Alerts dialog is displayed If you ...

Page 80: ...the SNMP address in the Configured SNMP addresses area and click Test A test message is sent to the SNMP address A message box with the results of the validation and any error information is displayed 4 Click OK An alert icon is displayed next to each node in the Tree view for which an alert is set Follow these guideline for SNMP alerts Any SNMP addresses that you had previously configured are dis...

Page 81: ...learn cycle at any time You can set the learn cycle earlier than the currently scheduled time You cannot set the learn cycle to start more than seven days later than the currently scheduled time To change the battery settings perform these steps 1 In the AMW select Storage Array Change Battery Settings The Battery Settings dialog is displayed 2 In Battery location select a battery 3 Check these de...

Page 82: ...le during synchronization To synchronize the RAID controller module clocks with the storage management station 1 In the AMW select Storage Array Synchronize RAID Controller Module Clocks 2 If a password is set in the Enter Password dialog type the current password for the storage array and click Synchronize The RAID controller module clocks are synchronized with the storage management station ...

Page 83: ...only if you want to use mutual CHAP authentication If you select CHAP but no CHAP target secret is defined an error message is displayed See Creating CHAP Secrets on page 84 3 To enter the CHAP secret click CHAP secret The Enter Target CHAP Secret dialog is displayed 4 Enter the Target CHAP secret NOTE The Target CHAP secret must be between 12 and 57 characters 5 Enter the exact same target CHAP s...

Page 84: ...lick CHAP Secret to enter the initiator CHAP permissions in the dialog that is displayed 6 Click OK 7 Click OK in the Manage iSCSI Settings window For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager online help topics Creating CHAP Secrets When you set up an authentication method you can choose to create a CHAP secret The CHAP secret is a password that is recognized by the initiat...

Page 85: ... defining mutual authentication settings Target CHAP Secret If you are using CHAP secrets you must define the CHAP secret for the target Valid Characters for CHAP Secrets The CHAP secret must be between 12 and 57 characters The CHAP secret supports characters with ASCII values of 32 to 126 decimal See Table 7 1 for a list of valid ASCII characters Table 7 1 Valid ASCII Characters for CHAP Secrets ...

Page 86: ...de letters numbers and the special characters underscore _ minus and pound sign No other special characters are permitted NOTE Open iSCSI which is used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with SP1 does not support using target alias Changing the iSCSI Target Discovery Settings To change the iSCSI target discovery settings 1 In the AMW select the Setup tab 2 Select Man...

Page 87: ...g the iSCSI host ports for IPv4 addressing is DHCP Always use this method unless your network does not have a DHCP server It is advisable to assign static DHCP addresses to the iSCSI ports to ensure continuous connectivity For Ipv6 addressing the default method is Stateless auto configuration Always use this method for IPv6 To configure the iSCSI host ports 1 In the AMW select the Setup tab 2 Sele...

Page 88: ...arly for IPv6 settings the configuration is obtained automatically based on the MAC address and the IPv6 routers present on the subnetwork You can click Advanced IPv4 Settings and Advanced IPv6 Settings to configure the Virtual Local Area Network VLAN support and Ethernet priority You can also click the Advanced Host Port Settings to configure the TCP listening port settings and Jumbo frame settin...

Page 89: ...TE For more information on creating and configuring a VLAN with MD Support Manager in the AMW click the Support tab then click View Online Help Ethernet Priority The network priority can be set from lowest to highest Although network managers must determine these mappings the IEEE has made broad recommendations 0 lowest priority default 1 to 4 ranges from loss eligible traffic to controlled load a...

Page 90: ... Array iSCSI End Sessions 2 Select the iSCSI session that you want to view in the Current sessions area The details are shown below in the Details area You can click Save As to save the entire iSCSI sessions topology as a text file 3 To end the session a Select the session that you want to end and then click End Session The End Session confirmation window is displayed b Type yes to confirm that yo...

Page 91: ...tatistics To view the baseline statistics Baseline statistics are point in time statistics that are gathered since you set the baseline time After you select the statistics type and either raw or baseline statistics the details of the statistics are displayed in the statistics tables NOTE You can click Save As to save the statistics that you are viewing in a text file 4 To set the baseline for the...

Page 92: ...Topology Actions Desired Action Steps Move a host Move a host group 1 Click the Mappings tab 2 Select the Host that you want to move and then click Mappings Move 3 Select a host group to move the host to and click OK Manually delete the host the host group 1 Click the Mappings tab 2 Select the item that you want to remove and select Mappings Remove Rename the host the host group 1 Click the Mappin...

Page 93: ...y To use the Event Monitor Set up alert destinations for the managed device that you want to monitor A possible alert destination would be the Dell Management Console More information about the Dell Management Console can be found at dell com Replicate the alert settings from a particular managed device by copying the emwdata bin file to every storage management station from which you want to rece...

Page 94: ...he Service Status area click Start 5 To disable the event monitor in the Service Status area click Stop Linux To enable the event monitor at the command prompt type SMmonitor start and press Enter When the program startup begins the system displays the following message SMmonitor started To disable the event monitor start terminal emulation application console ox xterm and at the command prompt ty...

Page 95: ...can use the Define Host Wizard to define the hosts that access the virtual disks in the storage array Defining a host is one of the steps required to let the storage array know which hosts are attached to it and to allow access to the virtual disks For more information on defining the hosts see Defining a Host on page 96 To enable the host to write to the storage array you must map the host to the...

Page 96: ... port identifier Rename a host group or a host Using the Mappings Tab In the Mappings tab you can Define hosts and hosts groups Add mappings to the selected host groups For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager online help topics Defining a Host You can use the Define Host Wizard in the AMW to define a host for a storage array Either a known unassociated host port identi...

Page 97: ...identifiers select the relevant host port identifier Add by creating a new host port identifier In New host port identifier enter a 16 hexadecimal character name and an up to 30 character Alias for the host port identifier and click Add NOTE The host port identifier name is in hexadecimal and must contain the letters A through F and numbers 0 through 9 6 Click Next The Specify Host Type window is ...

Page 98: ... entity of two or more hosts that share access to specific virtual disks on the storage array You create host groups with MDSM All hosts in a host group must have the same host type operating system In addition all hosts in the host group must have special software such as clustering software to manage virtual disk sharing and accessibility If a host is part of a cluster every host in the cluster ...

Page 99: ...a Host on page 96 You can also move a host to a different host group For more information see Moving a Host to a Different Host Group on page 99 Removing a Host From a Host Group You can remove a host from the Topology pane on the Mappings tab of the Array Management Window For more information see Removing a Host Group on page 100 Moving a Host to a Different Host Group To move a host to a differ...

Page 100: ...orm one of these actions Select Mappings Remove Right click the host node and select Remove from the pop up menu The Remove dialog is displayed 3 Click Yes The selected host group is removed For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager online help topics Host Topology Host topology is the organization of hosts host groups and host interfaces configured for a storage array Y...

Page 101: ...attached to the host server A host is added while turning on power to the RAID controller modules Linux To start or stop the host context agent enter the following command at the prompt SMagent start SMagent stop You stop and then restart SMagent after Moving a controller offline or replacing a controller Removing host to array connections from or attaching host to array connections to a Linux hos...

Page 102: ...e non preferred RAID controller module for processing This failure or error is called failover Drivers for multi path frameworks such as Microsoft Multi Path IO MPIO and Linux Device Mapper DM are installed on host systems that access the storage array and provide I O path failover For more information on Linux DM see Configuration Device Mapper Multipath for Linux on page 189 For more information...

Page 103: ...anage Host Port Identifiers dialog is displayed You can choose to manage the host port identifiers for a specific host or all of the host port identifiers for all of the hosts in Show host port identifiers associated with 2 If you want to manage the host port identifiers for a specific host select the host from the list of hosts that are associated with the storage array If you want to manage the ...

Page 104: ...lect the appropriate host port identifier and click Edit the Edit Host Port Identifier dialog is displayed update User label and Associated with host and click Save To replace the host port identifier Select the appropriate host port identifier and click Replace the Replace Host Port Identifier dialog is displayed replace the current host port identifier with a known unassociated host port identif...

Page 105: ... disk group and then you define the parameters for the first virtual disk in the new disk group Create a new virtual disk in the free capacity of an existing disk group You only need to specify the parameters for the new virtual disk A disk group has a set amount of free capacity that is configured when the disk group is created You can use that free capacity to subdivide the disk group into one o...

Page 106: ...start the Create Disk Group Wizard perform one of these actions To create a disk group from unconfigured capacity in the storage array On the Logical tab select an Unconfigured Capacity node and select Disk Group Create Alternatively you can right click the Unconfigured Capacity node and select Create Disk Group from the pop up menu To create a disk group from unassigned physical disks in the stor...

Page 107: ...tion the Manual Physical Disk Selection window is displayed 10 Select the appropriate RAID level in Select RAID level You can select RAID levels 0 1 10 6 and 5 Depending on your RAID level selection the physical disks available for the selected RAID level is displayed in Unselected physical disks table 11 In the Unselected physical disks table select the appropriate physical disks and click Add NO...

Page 108: ...osts can have 256 logical unit numbers LUNs mapped per storage partition but the number varies per operating system After you create one or more virtual disks and assign a mapping you must register the virtual disk with the operating system In addition you must make sure that the host recognizes the mapping between the physical storage array name and the virtual disk name Depending on the operatin...

Page 109: ... Disk Create Alternatively you can right click the unassigned physical disks and select Create Virtual Disk from the pop up menu To create a secure virtual disk On the Physical tab select one or more unassigned security capable physical disks of the same physical disk type and select Virtual Disk Create Alternatively you can right click the unassigned security capable physical disks and select Cre...

Page 110: ...ing window you can select Default Mapping The appropriate Host type Map later Using Mappings View 10 Click Finish The virtual disks are created Changing the Virtual Disk Modification Priority You can specify the modification priority setting for a single virtual disk or multiple virtual disks on a storage array Guidelines to change the modification priority of a virtual disk If more than one virtu...

Page 111: ... to change cache settings for a virtual disk After opening the Change Cache Settings dialog the system may prompt you that the RAID controller module has temporarily suspended caching operations This action may occur when a new battery is charging when a RAID controller module is removed or if a mismatch in cache sizes is detected by the RAID controller module After the condition is cleared the ca...

Page 112: ...ischarged completely not fully charged or are not present CAUTION Possible loss of data Selecting the Enable write caching without batteries option allows write caching to continue even when the batteries are discharged completely or are not fully charged Typically write caching is turned off temporarily by the RAID controller module until the batteries are charged If you select this option and do...

Page 113: ...d NOTE The operation to change the segment size is slower than other modification operations for example changing RAID levels or adding free capacity to a disk group This slowness is the result of how the data is reorganized and the temporary internal backup procedures that occur during the operation The amount of time that a change segment size operation takes depends on The I O load from the hos...

Page 114: ...r Disk Storage Manager online help topics NOTE The dynamic cache read prefetch setting can be changed later by selecting Virtual Disk Change Cache Settings You can change the segment size later by selecting Virtual Disk Change Segment Size The I O characteristic types shown below are only presented during the create virtual disk process When you choose one of the virtual disk I O characteristics t...

Page 115: ... data on a physical disk that is physically removed from the storage array The storage array has a security key Self encrypting disks provide access to data only through an array that has the correct security key The self encrypting disk or a security capable physical disk encrypts data during writes and decrypts data during reads For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manage...

Page 116: ... status of any disk group in the storage array The status information reports whether the storage array is Security Capable Secure Table 10 1 shows how to interpret the security status of a disk group The Physical Disk Security menu is displayed in the Storage Array menu The Physical Disk Security menu has these options Create Security Key Change Security Key Save Security Key File Validate Securi...

Page 117: ...urity enabled The Create a secure disk group option is displayed in the Create Disk Group Wizard Disk Group Name and Physical Disk Selection dialog The Create a secure disk group option is active only when these conditions are met A security key is installed in the storage array At least one security capable physical disk is installed in the storage array All of the physical disks that you selecte...

Page 118: ...ey the storage array is using To create a security key 1 In the AMW toolbar select Storage Array Physical Disk Security Create Security Key The Create Security Key window is displayed 2 Enter a string that becomes part of the secure key identifier in Security key identifier You can enter up to 189 alphanumeric characters without spaces punctuation or symbols Additional characters are generated aut...

Page 119: ...y during physical disk initialization Otherwise the physical disks remain locked and the data is inaccessible The Security Locked status prevents any unauthorized person from accessing data on a security enabled physical disk by physically removing the physical disk and installing the physical disk in another computer or storage array Changing a Security Key When you change a security key a new se...

Page 120: ...a file name to the end of the path or click Browse navigate to the required folder and enter the name of the file 5 In Pass phrase enter a string for the pass phrase The pass phrase must be between 8 and 32 characters long contain at least 1 uppercase letter contain at least 1 lowercase letter contain at least 1 number contain at least 1 non alphanumeric character for example The pass phrase that ...

Page 121: ...Save Security Key File The Save Security Key File Enter Pass Phrase window is displayed 2 Edit the default path by adding a file name to the end of the path or click Browse navigate to the required folder and enter the name of the file 3 In Pass phrase enter a string for the pass phrase The pass phrase must be between 8 and 32 characters long contain at least 1 uppercase letter contain at least 1 ...

Page 122: ...s to a different storage array After you install those physical disks in the new storage array you must unlock the physical disks before data can be read from or written to the physical disks To unlock the physical disks you must supply the security key from the original storage array The security key on the new storage array is different and cannot unlock the physical disks You must supply the se...

Page 123: ...es not have Optimal status follow the Recovery Guru procedures displayed by the MDSM application to correct any problem before trying to unassign the physical disk Hot spare physical disks must be of the same media type and interface type as the physical disks that they are protecting If there are secure disk groups and security capable disk groups in the storage array the hot spare physical disk ...

Page 124: ...le physical disks Manually assign individual physical disks to create hot spare physical disks out of the selected physical disks on the Physical tab Manually unassign individual physical disks to unassign the selected hot spare physical disks on the Physical tab See step 12 5 To assign hot spares in the Hot Spare Coverage window select a disk group in the Hot spare coverage area 6 Review the info...

Page 125: ...obal hot spares A global hot spare can replace a failed physical disk in any virtual disk with a redundant RAID level as long as the capacity of the hot spare is equal to or larger than the size of the configured capacity on the physical disk it replaces including its metadata Hot Spare Operation When a physical disk fails the virtual disk automatically rebuilds using an available hot spare When a...

Page 126: ...d as security capable the non security capable hot spare physical disk must be replaced with a security capable physical disk If you select a security capable physical disk as hot spare for a non secure disk group a dialog box is displayed indicating that a security capable physical disk is being used as a hot spare for a non secure disk group The availability of enclosure loss protection for a di...

Page 127: ...sing the Automatic method the software attempts to choose physical disks that provide enclosure loss protection If you choose to create a disk group by using the Manual method you must use the criteria specified in Table 10 2 Table 10 2 Criteria for Enclosure Loss Protection RAID Level Criteria for Enclosure Loss Protection RAID level 5 or RAID level 6 Ensure that all the physical disks in the dis...

Page 128: ...a six physical disk disk group 3 mirrored pairs you can achieve enclosure loss protection with only two expansion enclosures by specifying that the physical disk in each mirrored pair are located in separate expansion enclosures For example Mirror pair 1 Physical disk in enclosure 1 slot 1 and physical disk in enclosure 2 slot 1 Mirror pair 2 Physical disk in enclosure 1 slot 2 and physical disk i...

Page 129: ...eated from the Default Group To prevent this action from occurring remove the access virtual disk mapping from the Default Group Most hosts have 256 LUNs mapped per storage partition The LUN numbering is from 0 through 255 If your operating system restricts LUNs to 127 and you try to map a virtual disk to a LUN that is greater than or equal to 127 the host cannot access it An initial mapping of th...

Page 130: ...ected 8 To define additional mappings repeat step 4 through step 7 NOTE After a virtual disk is mapped it is no longer available in the Virtual Disk area 9 Click Close The mappings are saved The Topology pane and the Defined Mappings pane in the Mappings tab are updated to reflect the mappings Modifying and Removing Host to Virtual Disk Mapping You can modify or remove a host to virtual disk mappi...

Page 131: ... the storage array the Enter Password dialog is displayed Type the current password for the storage array and click OK 7 If configuring a Linux host run the rescan_dm_devs utility on the host and remount the virtual disk if required This utility is installed on the host as part of the MDSM install process 8 Restart the host applications Changing Controller Ownership of the Virtual Disk If the host...

Page 132: ...used To change the ownership of the virtual disk to the connected controller 1 In the AMW select the Logical tab and select a virtual disk 2 Select Virtual Disk Change Ownership Preferred Path 3 Select the appropriate RAID controller module slot and click Yes to confirm the selection Removing Host to Virtual Disk Mapping To remove the host to virtual disk mapping 1 In the AMW select the Mapping ta...

Page 133: ...an be used To change the RAID controller module ownership of a disk group 1 In the AMW select the Logical tab and select a disk group 2 Select Disk Group Change Ownership Preferred Path 3 Select the appropriate RAID controller module slot and click Yes to confirm the selection CAUTION Possible loss of data access Changing ownership at the disk group level causes every virtual disk in that disk gro...

Page 134: ...ect Disk Group Change RAID Level 3 Select the appropriate RAID level and click Yes to confirm the selection The RAID level operation begins Removing a Host to Virtual Disk Mapping Using Linux DMMP To remove a host to virtual disk mapping using Linux DMMP follow these steps 1 Unmount the filesystem containing the virtual disk umount filesystemDirectory 2 Run the following command to display multi p...

Page 135: ...e returned by the multipath command Repeat this command for all paths related to this device For example echo 1 sys block sdf device delete echo 1 sys block sde device delete 5 Remove mapping from MDSM or delete the LUN if necessary 6 If you want to map another LUN or increase volume capacity perform this action from MDSM NOTE If you are only testing LUN removal you can stop at this step 7 If a ne...

Page 136: ...o the Default Group In this case the host that is associated with the restricted host type is able to access virtual disks in the Default Group with LUNs within its limits For example if the Default Group had two virtual disks mapped to LUNs 254 and 255 the host with the restricted host type would not be able to access those two virtual disks If the Default Group has a restricted host type assigne...

Page 137: ...u can change the RAID controller module ownership of a standard virtual disk or a snapshot repository virtual disk You cannot directly change the RAID controller module ownership of a snapshot virtual disk because the snapshot virtual disk inherits the RAID controller module owner of its associated source virtual disk Changing the RAID controller module ownership of a virtual disk changes the pref...

Page 138: ...lick Yes The ownership of the virtual disk is changed I O to the virtual disk is now directed through this I O path You are finished with this procedure NOTE The virtual disk may not use the new I O path until the multi path driver reconfigures and recognizes the new path This action usually takes less than 5 minutes 3 To change the RAID controller module ownership of a disk group perform these st...

Page 139: ...es in mind when you change the RAID level of a disk group You cannot cancel this operation after it begins The disk group must be in Optimal status before you can perform this operation Your data remains available during this operation If you do not have enough capacity in the disk group to convert to the new RAID level an error message is displayed and the operation does not continue If you have ...

Page 140: ...an one storage partition is required if Specific hosts must access specific virtual disks in the storage array Hosts with different operating systems are attached to the same storage array In this case a storage partition is created for each host type You can use the Storage Partitioning Wizard to define a single storage partition The Storage Partitioning wizard guides you through the major steps ...

Page 141: ... on the array to the disk group Data is accessible on disk groups virtual disks and physical disks throughout the entire modification operation The additional free capacity can then be used to perform a virtual disk expansion on a standard or snapshot repository virtual disk Disk Group Expansion To add free capacity to a disk group 1 In the AMW select the Logical tab 2 Select a disk group 3 Select...

Page 142: ...l disk from MDSM See Snapshot Repository Capacity on page 162 for step by step instructions Using Free Capacity You can increase the capacity of a virtual disk using the free capacity on the disk group of the standard virtual disk or the snapshot repository virtual disk The Free Capacity node shown in the Logical pane is a contiguous region of unassigned capacity on a defined disk group When incre...

Page 143: ...oup operation prepares the physical disks in the disk group for removal You can remove the physical disks for offline storage or you can import the disk group to a different storage array After you complete the export disk group operation all of the physical disks are offline Any associated virtual disks or free capacity nodes are no longer shown in MDSM Non Exportable Components You must remove o...

Page 144: ...roup The import disk group operation adds the imported disk group to the target storage array After you complete the import disk group operation all of the physical disks have Optimal status Any associated virtual disks or free capacity nodes are now shown in MDSM installed on the target storage array NOTE You lose access to your data during the export import process NOTE You must export a disk gr...

Page 145: ...y virtual disks Storage Array Media Scan The media scan is a background operation that examines virtual disks to verify that data is accessible The process finds media errors before normal read and write activity is disrupted and reports errors to the event log NOTE You cannot enable background media scans on a virtual disk comprised of Solid State Disks SSDs Errors discovered by the media scan in...

Page 146: ...virtual disk 2 Select Virtual Disk Change Media Scan Settings The Change Media Scan Settings window is displayed 3 Deselect Suspend media scan if selected 4 In Scan duration enter or select the duration in days for the media scan The media scan duration specifies the number of days for which the media scan runs on the selected virtual disks 5 To disable media scans on an individual virtual disk se...

Page 147: ...ilability formatting If you want to perform another long running operation you must suspend the media scan NOTE A background media scan is the lowest priority of the long running operations To suspend a media scan 1 In the AMW select the Logical tab and select any virtual disk 2 Select Virtual Disk Change Media Scan Settings The Change Media Scan Settings window is displayed 3 Select Suspend media...

Page 148: ...148 Configuration Disk Groups and Virtual Disks ...

Page 149: ...s based called the source virtual disk must be a standard virtual disk in your storage array Typically you create a snapshot so that an application such as a backup application can access the snapshot and read the data while the source virtual disk remains online and accessible NOTE No I O requests are permitted on the source virtual disk while the virtual disk snapshot is being created A snapshot...

Page 150: ...ng a Snapshot Virtual Disk When you create a snapshot virtual disk you can choose whether the snapshot is created immediately or is created according to a schedule that you determine This schedule can be a one time snapshot creation or an ongoing snapshot creation that occurs at regularly occurring intervals If a schedule is not specified the snapshot virtual disk creation happens immediately upon...

Page 151: ...r than one hour To accomplish this type of rapid recovery create a schedule that contains a start time of 8AM and an end time of 5PM then select 10 snapshots per day on Monday through Friday with no end date For more information on creating snapshot virtual disk schedules see the following sections on creating snapshots Guidelines for Creating Snapshot Schedules Certain guidelines apply when creat...

Page 152: ...k if the disk group of the source virtual disk has the required amount of free space A snapshot repository virtual disk requires a minimum 8 MB of free capacity The destination of a snapshot repository virtual disk is determined based on the free capacity available in the disk group If 8 MB of free capacity is not available in the disk group of the source virtual disk the Create Snapshot Virtual D...

Page 153: ...Using the simple path the following defaults are used for the other parameters of a snapshot virtual disk Capacity Allocation The snapshot repository virtual disk is created using free capacity on the same disk group where the source virtual disk resides Host to Virtual Disk Mapping The default setting is Map now Percent Full When the snapshot repository virtual disk reaches the specified reposito...

Page 154: ...ced Premium feature You cannot create a snapshot of a virtual disk that contains unreadable sectors You must satisfy the requirements of your host operating system for creating snapshot virtual disks Failure to meet the requirements of your host operating system results in an inaccurate snapshot of the source virtual disk or the target virtual disk in a virtual disk copy NOTE Before you create a n...

Page 155: ...virtual disk name and click Next The Specify Snapshot Repository Capacity window is displayed 8 Enter the snapshot repository virtual disks capacity as a percentage of the source virtual disks capacity and click Next The Preview window containing the summary of the snapshot virtual disk is displayed 9 Click Finish The Completed window is displayed 10 Click OK After creating one or more snapshot vi...

Page 156: ...ity for the snapshot virtual disk Using the advanced path you can specify the following parameters for your snapshot virtual disk Snapshot Virtual Disk Name A user specified name that helps you associate the snapshot virtual disk to its corresponding snapshot repository virtual disk and source virtual disk Snapshot Repository Virtual Disk Name A user specified name that helps you associate the sna...

Page 157: ...t or host group now or to map the snapshot virtual disk later The default setting is Map later Schedule Creates the snapshot virtual disk at a specified time or according to a regularly occurring interval If no schedule is specified the snapshot operation begins immediately This parameter can also be used to apply a schedule to an existing snapshot virtual disk Preparing Host Servers to Create the...

Page 158: ...isks are not valid source virtual disks snapshot repository virtual disks snapshot virtual disks target virtual disks that are participating in a virtual disk copy NOTE Virtual Disk Copy is an Advanced Premium feature You cannot create a snapshot of a virtual disk that contains unreadable sectors You must satisfy the requirements of your host operating system for creating snapshot virtual disks Fa...

Page 159: ...es additional instructions you can find those instructions in your operating system documentation After your host server is prepared see Creating a Snapshot Virtual Disk Using the Advanced Path on page 156 to create the snapshot using the advanced path If you want to use a snapshot regularly such as for backups use the Disable Snapshot and Re create Snapshot options to reuse the snapshot Disabling...

Page 160: ...sk group as base recommended Free capacity on different disk group Unconfigured capacity create new disk group 7 Enter the snapshot repository virtual disks capacity as a percentage of the source virtual disks capacity and click Next The Specify Virtual Disk Parameters window is displayed 8 In the Snapshot virtual disk parameters area select the relevant mapping option you can select Automatic Map...

Page 161: ... for the associated snapshot repository virtual disk that is shown in the Snapshot repository virtual disk field is source virtual disk name R sequence number For example if you are creating the first snapshot virtual disk for a source virtual disk called Accounting the default snapshot virtual disk is Accounting 1 and the associated snapshot repository virtual disk default name is Accounting R1 T...

Page 162: ...e Host Software Engineering GR R1 Snapshot Repository Capacity If you receive a warning that the capacity for the snapshot repository virtual disk is approaching its threshold you can increase the capacity of a snapshot repository virtual disk by using one of the following methods Use the free capacity available on the disk group of the snapshot repository virtual disk Add unconfigured capacity to...

Page 163: ...e the maximum free space is displayed in the Increase capacity by field If free capacity does not exist on the disk group the free space that is displayed in the Increase capacity by spinner box is 0 You must add physical disks to create free capacity on the disk group 4 To increase capacity of the snapshot repository virtual disk use one of these methods Use the free capacity on the disk group of...

Page 164: ...of the physical disks already being used by the disk group 9 Select either a single physical disk to add or two physical disks to add 10 Click Add The Add Physical Disks window closes 11 Check the Physical Disks to add enclosure slot area to make sure that the correct physical disks are added 12 Either accept the final capacity or enter or select the appropriate capacity in Increase capacity by fi...

Page 165: ... array performance by stopping copy on write activity to the snapshot repository virtual disk NOTE If you do not intend to re create the snapshot virtual disk at a later time in the Logical pane select the snapshot virtual disk and select Virtual Disk Delete to remove it The associated snapshot repository virtual disk is also removed For more information on removing a snapshot virtual disk see the...

Page 166: ...l I O activity to the source and snapshot virtual disk if mounted 2 Using your Windows system flush the cache to both the source and the snapshot virtual disk if mounted At the host prompt type SMrepassist f filename identifier and press Enter For more information see SMrepassist Utility on page 257 3 Click the Summary tab then click Disk Groups Virtual Disks to ensure that the snapshot virtual di...

Page 167: ...lp topics To use this option the snapshot virtual disk must be either in an Optimal status or Disabled status When using this option the previously configured snapshot name parameters and snapshot repository virtual disk are used To recreate the snapshot virtual disk 1 In the AMW select the Logical tab select a snapshot virtual disk 2 Select Virtual Disk Snapshot Re create 3 Type yes and click OK ...

Page 168: ...rall system performance Rules and Guidelines for Performing a Snapshot Rollback The following rules and guidelines apply to performing a snapshot rollback Rolling back a base virtual disk to a snapshot virtual disk does not affect the contents of the snapshot virtual disks Only one snapshot rollback operation can be performed at a time While a base virtual disk that is undergoing a rollback you ca...

Page 169: ...LI Guide Protecting Against a Failed Snapshot Rollback To protect your base virtual disk data it is recommended that you create a new snapshot virtual disk from the base virtual disk before beginning a rollback operation If the snapshot rollback fails use this new snapshot virtual disk to restore your base virtual disk Previous Versions of the MD Storage Manager Snapshot virtual disks created usin...

Page 170: ... status is shown in the Properties pane for the base virtual disk and snapshot virtual disk Resuming a Snapshot Rollback If an error occurs during the snapshot rollback and the operation is paused you can resume the rollback using the following steps 1 In the array management window select the Logical tab 2 Choose one Select the snapshot virtual disk and select Virtual Disk Snapshot Resume Rollbac...

Page 171: ...e do not cancel a snapshot rollback unless reliable recovery options exist for restoring the content of the base virtual disk 1 In the array management window select the Logical tab 2 Choose one Select the snapshot virtual disk and select Virtual Disk Snapshot Cancel Rollback Right click the snapshot virtual disk and select Cancel Rollback The Confirm Cancel Rollback dialog is displayed 3 To cance...

Page 172: ...172 Configuration Premium Feature Snapshot Virtual Disks ...

Page 173: ... target virtual disk on the same storage array The source virtual disk is the virtual disk that contains the data you want to copy The source virtual disk accepts the host I O read activity and stores the data until it is copied to the target virtual disk The source virtual disk can be a standard virtual disk a snapshot virtual disk or the source virtual disk of a snapshot virtual disk When you st...

Page 174: ...another device such as a tape drive or other media NOTE Recovering from a backup copy You can use the Edit Host to Virtual Disk Mappings feature to recover data from the backup virtual disk you created in the previous procedure The Mappings option enables you to unmap the source virtual disk from its host and then to map the backup virtual disk to the same host Types of Virtual Disk Copies You can...

Page 175: ... and a snapshot repository virtual disk are created during the online copy operation The snapshot virtual disk is not an actual virtual disk containing data instead it is a reference to the data contained on the virtual disk at a specific time For each snapshot taken a snapshot repository virtual disk is created to hold the copy on write data for the snapshot The snapshot repository virtual disk i...

Page 176: ...Permissions After the virtual disk copy is complete the target virtual disk automatically becomes read only to the hosts The target virtual disk rejects read and write requests while the virtual disk copy operation has a status of Pending or In Progress or if the operation fails before completing the copy Keep the target virtual disk Read Only enabled if you want to preserve the data on the target...

Page 177: ...he virtual disk copy is complete read and write I O activity to the source virtual disk are permitted A virtual disk can be selected as a target virtual disk for only one virtual disk copy at a time A virtual disk copy for any virtual disk cannot be mounted on the same host as the source virtual disk Windows does not allow a drive letter to be assigned to a virtual disk copy A virtual disk with a ...

Page 178: ...hat is participating in a virtual disk copy while the virtual disk copy has a status of In Progress Also make sure that the Read Only attribute for the target virtual disk is disabled after the virtual disk copy has completed to prevent error messages from being displayed The Virtual Disk Copy premium feature includes The Create Copy Wizard which assists in creating a virtual disk copy The Copy Ma...

Page 179: ... virtual disks Setting the copy priority for the virtual disk copy When you have completed the wizard dialogs the virtual disk copy starts and data is read from the source virtual disk and written to the target virtual disk Operation in Progress icons are displayed on the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk while the virtual disk copy has a status of In Progress or Pending Failed Virtu...

Page 180: ...to the alternate RAID controller module to allow the virtual disk copy to complete under all of these conditions A virtual disk copy has a status of In Progress The preferred RAID controller module of the source virtual disk fails The ownership transfer does not occur automatically in the failover Copy Manager After you create a virtual disk copy by using the Create Copy Wizard you can monitor the...

Page 181: ...O activity to the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk 2 Unmount any file systems on the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk 3 In the AMW select the Logical tab and select the source virtual disk 4 Select Virtual Disk Create Copy The Select Source Virtual Disk and Copy Type window is displayed 5 In the Select source virtual disk area select the appropriate virtual disk 6 In ...

Page 182: ...py than standard virtual disks During a virtual disk copy resources for the storage array are diverted from processing I O activity to completing a virtual disk copy This affects the overall performance of the storage array When you create a new virtual disk copy you define the copy priority to determine how much controller processing time is diverted from I O activity to a virtual disk copy opera...

Page 183: ...elines in mind when you stop a virtual disk copy To use this option select only one copy pair in the Copy Manager When the virtual disk copy is stopped all of the mapped hosts have write access to the source virtual disk If data is written to the source virtual disk the data on the target virtual disk no longer matches the data on the source virtual disk To stop a virtual disk copy complete the fo...

Page 184: ...re your host server and virtual disk 1 Stop all I O activity to the source and target virtual disk 2 Using your Windows system flush the cache to both the source and the target virtual disk if mounted At the host prompt type SMrepassist f filename identifier and press Enter For more information see SMrepassist Utility on page 257 3 To ensure that the virtual disk is in Optimal or Disabled status s...

Page 185: ...hosts are mapped to the source virtual disk the data that is copied to the target virtual disk when you perform the re copy operation may have changed since the previous virtual disk copy was created Select only one virtual disk copy in the Copy Manager dialog To re copy the virtual disk 1 Stop all I O to the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk 2 Unmount any file systems on the source ...

Page 186: ...e target virtual disk as a source virtual disk or the target virtual disk for a new virtual disk copy If you remove a virtual disk copy the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk no longer displays in the Copy Manager Keep these guidelines in mind when you remove copy pairs Removing copy pairs does not delete the data on the source virtual disk or target virtual disk If the virtual disk c...

Page 187: ...ray restarts To upgrade from a standard performance tier storage array to a high performance tier storage array you enable the high performance tier premium feature using the Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Management MDSM software When the high performance tier feature is enabled or disabled the array restarts During this time data access and management access to the controller is temporaril...

Page 188: ...188 Configuration Premium Feature Upgrading to High Performance Tier ...

Page 189: ...age arrays NOTE The required Device Mapper software components are installed on a Linux host server by running the MD3200i Series resource media installation program on the server and selecting either the Full or Host install option For detailed installation procedures see the Dell PowerVault MD3200i and MD3220i storage arrays Deployment Guide at support dell com manuals Benefits of using DM Multi...

Page 190: ...e MD3200i Series resource media Insert the Resource media in the system to start the installation of Modular Disk Storage Manager MDSM and Modular Disk Configuration Utility MDCU NOTE Red Hat install of 5 x requires a remount of the DVD media to make contents executable 2 Reboot when prompted by the install program The installation program prompts for and needs a reboot at completion of the instal...

Page 191: ... new Partition to Device Mapper on page 193 5 Create a file system on a DM partition See Create a file system on a Device Mapper Partition on page 194 6 Mount a DM partition See Mount a Device Mapper Partition on page 194 The following instructions show how to complete each of these steps In the following command descriptions x is used to indicate where a substitution must be made On Red Hat Enter...

Page 192: ...L MD32xxi size 5 0G features 3 queue_if_no_path pg_init_retries 50 hwhandler 1 rdac rw _ round robin 0 prio 6 active _ 5 0 0 0 sdc 8 32 active ready _ round robin 0 prio 1 enabled _ 4 0 0 0 sdb 8 16 active ghost where mpath1 is the name of the virtual device created by device mapper It is located in the dev mapper directory DELL is the vendor of the device MD3200i is the model of the device Sdc is...

Page 193: ...ipathing device nodes dev mapper mpath x for example use the following command where mpath x is the multipathing device node on which you want to create the partition fdisk dev mapper mpath x NOTE The x value is an alphanumeric operating system dependent format The corresponding value for mapped virtual disks can be seen using the previously run multipath command See your operating system document...

Page 194: ...ile system creation raw I O and file system I O must be done through the partition node and not through the multipathing device nodes Create a file system on a Device Mapper Partition Use the standard mkfs command to create the file system on the newly created Device Mapper partition For example mkfs t filesystem type dev mapper partition node where partition node is the partition on which the fil...

Page 195: ...d Wide Identifier or vendor model string 2 Edit the etc multipath conf file as follows blacklist wwid drive_wwid or blacklist device vendor vendor_string model model_string NOTE RedHat version 6 0 and 6 1 users must rebuild the initramfs root file image to include the updated configuration file by running the dracut force command 3 Reboot the host Linux Host Server Reboot Best Practices It is reco...

Page 196: ...ecial device type used for in band management of the MD3200i Series array known as the Access Disk or Universal Xport device CAUTION Certain commands such as lsscsi displays one or more instances of Universal Xport devices These device nodes must never be accessed mounted or used in any way Doing so could cause loss of communication to the storage array and possibly cause serious damage to the sto...

Page 197: ...I O error messages I O may hang if the host server or storage array is rebooted while I O is active All I O to the storage array must be stopped before shutting down or rebooting the host server or storage array multipath f multipath_dev_node Flushes out Device Mapper for the specified multipathing device Used if the underlying physical devices are deleted unmapped multipath F Flushes out all unus...

Page 198: ...e multipath conf file a multipathing node may be created for the root disk The command multipath ll lists vendor product ID which can help identify this issue Troubleshooting Question Answer How can I check if multipathd is running Run the following command etc init d multipathd status Why does the multipath ll command output not show any devices First verify if the devices are discovered or not T...

Page 199: ...ample if a device related with dev dm 1 is deleted you must run multipath f dev dm 1 to remove dev dm 1 from DM mapping table If multipathing daemon is stopped restarted run multipath F to flush out all stale mappings Failback does not happen as expected with the array Sometimes the low level driver cannot auto detect devices coming back with the array Run rescan_dm_devs to rescan host server SCSI...

Page 200: ...200 Configuration Device Mapper Multipath for Linux ...

Page 201: ...rom EMW and AMW or only EMW You can activate the files immediately or wait until a more convenient time You may want to activate the firmware or NVSRAM files at a later time because of these reasons Time of day Activating the firmware and the NVSRAM can take a long time so you can wait until I O loads are lighter The RAID controller modules are offline briefly to load the new firmware Type of pack...

Page 202: ... firmware and click OK NOTE The RAID Controller Module Firmware area and the NVSRAM area list the current firmware and the current NVSRAM versions respectively 3 To locate the directory in which the file to download resides click Select File next to the Selected RAID controller module firmware file text box 4 In the File Selection area select the file to download By default only the downloadable f...

Page 203: ...odule firmware or the NVSRAM You can select more than one storage array NOTE The Details pane shows the details of only one storage array at a time If you select more than one storage array in the Storage Array pane the details of the storage arrays are not shown in the Details pane 11 Click Firmware in the Download area If you select a storage array that cannot be upgraded the Firmware button is ...

Page 204: ...ater select the Transfer files but don t activate them activate later check box NOTE If any of the selected storage arrays do not support downloading the files and activating the firmware or NVSRAM later the Transfer files but don t activate them activate later check box is disabled 17 Click OK The Confirm Download dialog is displayed 18 Click Yes The download starts and a progress indicator is di...

Page 205: ... in the NVSRAM File information area The attributes indicate the version of the NVSRAM file 5 Click Transfer NOTE If the file selected is not valid or is not compatible with the current storage array configuration the File Selection Error dialog is displayed Click OK to close it and choose a compatible NVSRAM file 6 Click Yes in the Confirm Download dialog The download starts 7 Perform one of thes...

Page 206: ... storage arrays with similar RAID controller module types 10 To locate the directory in which the NVSRAM file to download resides click Browse in the Select file area The Select File dialog is displayed 11 Select the file to download and click OK Any attributes of the NVSRAM file are displayed in the NVSRAM file information area The attributes indicate the version of the NVSRAM file 12 Click OK Th...

Page 207: ... download firmware to avoid the risk of application errors Downloading firmware incorrectly could result in damage to the physical disks or loss of data Perform downloads only under the guidance of your Technical Support representative Stop all I O to the storage array before the download Make sure that the firmware that you download to the physical disks are compatible with the physical disks tha...

Page 208: ...TE Due to a limitation with Linux expansion enclosure EMM firmware updates must be performed using out of band management only Failure to do so may result in the host server becoming unresponsive and it may require a reboot You can transfer a downloadable firmware file to the expansion enclosure EMM in the expansion enclosures attached to the storage array CAUTION Risk of possible loss of data or ...

Page 209: ...tart 6 Click Yes to continue with the firmware download NOTE If you click Stop while a firmware download is in progress the download in progress finishes before the operation stops The status for the remaining expansion enclosures changes to Canceled 7 Monitor the progress and completion status of the download to the expansion enclosures The progress and status of each expansion enclosure that is ...

Page 210: ...cted failure is reported by a physical disk Media Errors and Unreadable Sectors If the RAID controller detects a media error while accessing data from a physical disk that is a member of a disk group with a redundant RAID level RAID 1 RAID 5 or RAID 10 the controller tries to recover the data from peer disks in the disk group and uses recovered data to correct the error If the controller encounter...

Page 211: ...rray Components 211 16 Management Installing Array Components Recommended Tools You may need the following items to perform the procedures in this section Key to the system keylock 2 Phillips screwdriver Wrist grounding strap ...

Page 212: ...left end of the bezel away from the front panel 4 Unhook the right end of the bezel and pull the bezel away from the system Figure 16 1 Removing and Installing the Front Bezel Installing the Front Bezel 1 Hook the right end of the bezel onto the chassis 2 Fit the free end of the bezel onto the system 3 Secure the bezel with the keylock See Figure 16 1 1 bezel 2 keylock 3 release latch 4 hinge tab ...

Page 213: ...ives are connected to a backplane through hard drive carriers and can be configured as hot swappable Removing a Hard Drive Blank CAUTION To maintain proper system cooling all empty hard drive bays must have drive blanks installed 1 If installed remove the front bezel See Removing the Front Bezel on page 212 2 Press the release tab and slide the hard drive blank out until it is free of the drive ba...

Page 214: ...nt bezel See Installing the Front Bezel on page 212 Removing a Hard Drive CAUTION Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician You must 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...

Page 215: ...rive is powered down When the drive indicators are off the drive is ready for removal 3 Press the release button to open the drive carrier release handle See Figure 16 4 4 Slide the hard drive out until it is free of the drive bay CAUTION To maintain proper system cooling all empty hard drive bays must have drive blanks installed 5 Insert a drive blank in the empty drive bay See Installing a Hard ...

Page 216: ... are fully installed Inserting a hard drive carrier and attempting to lock its handle next to a partially installed carrier can damage the partially installed carrier s shield spring and make it unusable 1 If applicable remove the front bezel See Removing the Front Bezel on page 212 2 If applicable remove the drive blank from the bay See Removing a Hard Drive Blank on page 213 3 Press the release ...

Page 217: ...Management Installing Array Components 217 Figure 16 5 Removing and Installing a Hard Drive Into a 3 5 Hard Drive Carrier 1 screws 4 2 hard drive 3 SAS screw hole 4 hard drive carrier 2 4 1 3 ...

Page 218: ...218 Management Installing Array Components Figure 16 6 Removing and Installing a Hard Drive Into a 2 5 Hard Drive Carrier 1 screws 4 2 hard drive 3 SAS screw hole 4 hard drive carrier 4 1 3 2 ...

Page 219: ...ust install the RAID controller module blank in slot 1 CAUTION RAID controller modules can be removed and installed without turning off the array It is recommended that you do not remove the RAID controller module while data is being transferred Replacing or installing a RAID controller module that is connected to a host server causes it to loose communication with the array and may require a rebo...

Page 220: ...rver Figure 16 7 Removing and Installing a RAID Controller Module Blank Installing a RAID Controller Module Blank To install a RAID controller module blank 1 Align the blank with the RAID controller module bay 2 Insert the blank into the chassis until it clicks into place 1 release latch 2 RAID controller module blank 1 2 ...

Page 221: ...ell is not covered by your warranty Read and follow the safety instructions that came with the product 1 Disconnect the cables connected to the RAID controller module 2 Push down on the release tab and pull the release lever away from the chassis See Figure 16 8 3 Grasp the release lever and pull the module away from the chassis NOTE To avoid damage to the sensitive EMI contacts on the RAID contro...

Page 222: ...re for the RAID controller module For information about the latest firmware see support dell com Opening the RAID Controller Module CAUTION Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician You must 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...

Page 223: ...ervicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by your warranty Read and follow the safety instructions that came with the product 1 Place the cover onto the RAID controller module and offset it slightly towards the back so that the hooks on the cover fit over the corresponding slots on the RAID controller module 2 Slide the cover toward the front till it snaps into place See Figure 16 9 3...

Page 224: ...Read and follow the safety instructions that came with the product 1 Turn off the array and host server 2 Disconnect all the cables connected to the array 3 Remove the RAID controller module See Removing a RAID Controller Module on page 221 4 Open the RAID controller module See Opening the RAID Controller Module on page 222 5 Loosen the screw that secures the backup battery unit to the RAID contro...

Page 225: ...ing the RAID Controller Module on page 223 5 Replace the RAID controller module See Installing a RAID Controller Module on page 222 6 Connect all the cables to the array 7 Turn on the array and the host server Power Supply Cooling Fan Module NOTE Your storage array includes two integrated hot swappable power supply cooling fan modules The array supports two hot swappable power supply cooling fan m...

Page 226: ...eases significantly to provide adequate cooling The fan speed decreases gradually when a new power supply cooling fan module is installed 1 Turn off the power supply cooling fan module 2 Disconnect the power cable from the power source 3 Remove the straps that secure the power cable and then disconnect the power cable from the power supply cooling fan module WARNING The power supply cooling fan mo...

Page 227: ...Management Installing Array Components 227 Figure 16 11 Removing and Installing a Power Supply Cooling Fan Module 1 release tab 2 power supply 3 power supply handle 1 3 2 ...

Page 228: ... with the product 1 Slide the power supply cooling fan module into the chassis until it is fully seated and the release tab clicks into place See Figure 16 11 2 Connect the power cable to the power supply cooling fan module and plug the cable into a power outlet 3 Secure the power cable using the strap See Figure 16 12 Figure 16 12 Securing the Power Cable CAUTION When connecting the power cable s...

Page 229: ...rVault MD3220i See Removing a Hard Drive on page 214 NOTE Mark each hard drive with it s slot position as you remove it 4 Slide the control panel out of the chassis after Pushing the release tab toward the front of the array in PowerVault MD3200i See Figure 16 13 Pulling the release pin toward the front of the array in PowerVault MD3220i See Figure 16 14 Figure 16 13 Removing and Installing the Co...

Page 230: ... Slide the control panel into the array until The release tab clicks into place in PowerVault MD3200i See Figure 16 13 The release pin clicks into place in PowerVault MD3220i See Figure 16 14 3 Replace the hard drives in their respective slots See Installing a Hard Drive on page 216 4 Connect all the power cables to the array 5 Turn on the array and the host server 1 release pin 2 control panel 1 ...

Page 231: ...See Removing a RAID Controller Module on page 221 5 Remove the power supply cooling fan modules See Removing a Power Supply Cooling Fan Module on page 225 6 Remove the control panel See Removing the Control Panel on page 229 7 Remove the screws that secure the RAID controller module power supply cage to the chassis 8 Grasp the cage removal ring at the bottom center of the array and pull the RAID c...

Page 232: ...232 Management Installing Array Components Figure 16 15 Removing and Installing the RAID Controller Module Power Supply Cage 1 screws 6 2 RAID controller module power supply cage 2 1 ...

Page 233: ...nts 233 Figure 16 16 Removing and Installing the Backplane PowerVault MD3200i Figure 16 17 Removing and Installing the Backplane PowerVault MD3220i 1 screws 5 2 backplane 3 captive screw 1 screws 4 2 backplane 3 captive screw 2 1 3 2 1 3 ...

Page 234: ...0i 4 Align the slots on the RAID controller module power supply cage with the tabs on the chassis See Figure 16 15 5 Push the RAID controller module power supply cage toward the front of the array 6 Replace the screws that secure the RAID controller module power supply cage to the chassis 7 Replace the control panel See Installing the Control Panel on page 230 8 Replace the power supply cooling fa...

Page 235: ...t representative to detect any firmware mismatches Viewing the Firmware Inventory To view the firmware inventory 1 Perform one of these actions based on whether you want to view the firmware information for one storage array or all storage arrays One storage array From the Array Management Window select Advanced Maintenance Firmware Inventory All storage arrays From the Enterprise Management Windo...

Page 236: ...236 Management Firmware Inventory ...

Page 237: ...For more information on VDS see microsoft com Volume Shadow Copy Service The Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service VSS is a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system The VSS component utilizes third part vendor specific software modules known as providers to access and utilize snapshot and disk copy functionality provided by third party storage resources such as MD3200i Series storage arr...

Page 238: ...during your Windows setup the registration graphical user interface GUI prompts you to provide the name of your array because settings in the GUI are array specific not host specific Storage Management VSS Hardware Provider Tips The number of snapshot virtual disks that can be created using a single snapshot set varies with the I O load on the RAID controller modules Under little or no I O load th...

Page 239: ...ge array status The current status is represented by icons next to the managed storage array The status icons shown in the Tree view in the EMW represent a summary status for each storage array If a storage array has a status of Needs Attention or a status of Fixing you must determine the condition that is causing this status before attempting any management actions You can determine the condition...

Page 240: ...y Guru on page 245 For the status of a storage array the icons shown in the following table are used in the Tree view the Table view and both the EMW Status Bar and the AMW Status Bar Table 19 2 Status Icon Status Icon Description Optimal Each component in the managed storage array is in the desired working condition Needs Attention There is a problem with the managed storage array that requires y...

Page 241: ... storage arrays with either condition The EMW Tree view has additional status icons that are shown in the following table Table 19 3 Additional Status Icons Status Icon Description Unsupported Alerts with a Needs Upgrade Status Setting an alert on a s storage array with a Needs Upgrade status is not supported In this case the storage array shows both a Needs Upgrade status and an Unsupported Alert...

Page 242: ...vanced Troubleshooting Support Data Collect Select the Support tab and click Gather Support Information The Collect All Support Data window is displayed Adding a Storage Array The Contacting Storage Array icon is shown in the Tree view and Table view until the current status of each managed storage array is known The Contacting Storage Array icon is shown in the EMW Status Bar and the AMW Status B...

Page 243: ...Data You can use the Collect Support Bundle option to automatically save a copy of the support bundle when the client monitor process detects a critical event During a critical event the support bundle is saved to the local physical disk of the client system in the same area that is used for other recovery information This information is not overwritten for at least 72 hours WARNING Use this optio...

Page 244: ... Disk Data window is displayed 2 Enter a name for the physical disk data filename in Specify filename or click Browse to navigate to a previously saved file to overwrite an existing file The suffix bin is added to the file automatically if you do not specify a suffix for the file 3 Click Start The physical disk data collection is completed and saved at the location that you entered 4 Click OK Even...

Page 245: ...lick Save As The Save Events dialog is displayed 4 Navigate to the relevant folder enter the relevant file name and click Save 5 To erase all log entries from the event log click Clear All 6 To exit the event log click Close For more information see the PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager online help topics Recovery Guru The Recovery Guru is a component of MDSM that diagnoses critical events o...

Page 246: ... following actions Select Storage Array View Profile Select the Summary tab and click Storage Array Profile in the Status area Select the Support tab and click View Storage Array Profile The Storage Array Profile dialog is displayed The Storage Array Profile dialog contains several tabs and the title of each tab corresponds to the subject of the information contained 2 Perform one of these actions...

Page 247: ...lect the Select sections and select the check boxes corresponding to the sections that you want to save d Select an appropriate directory e In File Name type the file name of your choice To associate the file with a particular software application that is displayed it specify a file extension such as txt NOTE The file is saved as ASCII text f Click Save 6 To exit the storage array profile click Cl...

Page 248: ...ew the physical associations 1 In the AMW select a node in the Logical pane of the Logical tab or in the Topology pane of the Mappings tab 2 Select View Associated Physical Components Alternatively if the selected node is a virtual disk you can right click the node to open a pop up menu and select View Associated Physical Components If the selected node is a disk group unconfigured capacity or fre...

Page 249: ...city nodes Go to step 7 5 To search for all nodes based on their RAID level perform these steps a Select Find all virtual disks with RAID level b Select the RAID level from the list c Go to step 8 6 To search for all nodes based on their virtual disk capacity perform these steps a Select Find all virtual disks with capacity b Type the capacity in the GB box c Specify that the capacity to be matche...

Page 250: ...k or target virtual disk These virtual disks are displayed in the Logical pane of the Logical tab The Go To option is available only if the Snapshot premium feature or the Virtual Disk Copy premium feature is enabled or if snapshot virtual disks or virtual disk copies currently exist on the storage array The Go To option is not accessible from the Mappings tab of the AMW 1 On the Logical tab of th...

Page 251: ... completing this procedure make sure that you wait some time before you decide that the storage array is still unresponsive To recover from an unresponsive storage array 1 Check the Tree View in the EMW to see if all storage arrays are unresponsive 2 If any storage arrays are unresponsive check the storage management station network connection to make sure that it can reach the network 3 Ensure th...

Page 252: ...by using the ping command to verify that the host can be reached Type one of these commands and press Enter ping host name ping RAID controller module IP address 13 If the verification successful see step 14 if not step 15 14 Remove the host with the Unresponsive status from the EMW and select Add Storage Array to add the host again 15 If the host does not return to Optimal status go to step 16 16...

Page 253: ...sive and a subsequent try to connect to the storage array succeeds the storage array becomes responsive For an out of band managed storage array determine if management operations are taking place on the storage array from other storage management stations A RAID controller module determined limit exists to the number of Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol TCP IP connections that can b...

Page 254: ...l disks click OK The LEDs stop blinking If any other blink operations Blink Disk Group Blink Storage Array Blink Physical Disk Ports or Blink Expansion Enclosure are currently being invoked from another storage management station these LEDs also stop blinking 5 In the rare case that the LEDs on the physical disks do not stop blinking in the AMW select Storage Array Blink Stop All Indications If th...

Page 255: ...re 1 Select the Physical tab 2 Select a physical disk in the expansion enclosure that you want to locate 3 Select Physical Disk Blink Expansion Enclosure The LED or LEDs on the expansion enclosure or physical disks come on 4 When you have located the expansion enclosure click OK The LEDs stop blinking If you have an expansion enclosure with a blue LED the LED goes off If any other blink operations...

Page 256: ...ecify filename text box enter a name for the file to be saved or browse to a previously saved file if you want to overwrite an existing file Use the convention filename dmp for the name of the file The suffix dmp is added to the file automatically if you do not specify a suffix for the file 4 Click Start NOTE Each test shows a status of Executing while it is in progress The test then shows Complet...

Page 257: ...dows navigate to C Program Files Dell MD Storage Manager util and run the following command SMrepassist f filesystem identifier where f flushes all the memory resident data for the file system indicated by filesystem identifier and filesystem identifier specifies a unique file system in the following syntax drive letter mount point path The file system identifier may consist of only a drive letter...

Page 258: ... occur If a storage array is managed through more than one host it is possible that the storage array may become unresponsive to communication over the connections given by one host However you may still be able to manage the storage array over the connections provided by another host Recovering From an Unidentified Storage Array To recover from an unidentified storage array 1 Make sure that the n...

Page 259: ...text agent software so that the new controller is found If a problem exists make the appropriate modifications to the host 4 If you have an out of band storage array use the following procedure Click Refresh after each step to make sure of the results a Make sure that the network can access the controllers by using the ping command Use the following syntax ping controller IP address If the network...

Page 260: ...are taking place on the storage array from other storage management stations The type of management operations being done and the number of management sessions taking place together establish the number of TCP IP connections made to a controller When the maximum number of TCP IP connections are made the controller stops responding This problem corrects itself because after some TCP IP connections ...

Page 261: ...minal window does not respond When the program starts the following message is displayed SMagent started After the program completes the startup process text similar to the following messages is displayed Modular Disk Storage Manager Agent Version 90 02 A6 14 Built Wed Feb 03 06 17 50 CST 2010 Copyright C 2009 2010 Dell Inc All rights reserved Checking device n a dev sg10 Activating Checking devic...

Page 262: ...262 Troubleshooting Your Storage Array Software ...

Page 263: ...if The array emits a series of beeps The array fault LEDs are lit See RAID Controller Modules on page 31 There is a constant scraping or grinding sound when you access the hard drive See Getting Help on page 273 Troubleshooting Loss of Communication For information about troubleshooting loss of communication see Troubleshooting Array and Expansion Enclosure Connections on page 269 Troubleshooting ...

Page 264: ...ify if it is working Connect the cable to a different power source Replace the power cable If the problem is not resolved see Getting Help on page 273 If the DC power LED is not lit verify that the power switch is turned on If the power switch is turned on see step 2 If the power supply s fault indicator is lit see Getting Help on page 273 CAUTION Power supply cooling fan modules are hot swappable...

Page 265: ...hooting Power Supply Cooling Fan Module on page 264 If the problem is not resolved see Getting Help on page 273 Troubleshooting Expansion Enclosure Management Modules CAUTION Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician You must only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation or as directed by the online or telephone service and suppor...

Page 266: ...sequence update the firmware to the latest supported firmware on both the EMMs For more information about downloading the latest firmware see Management Firmware Downloads on page 201 If the link status LEDs are not green a Turn off the server b Reseat the cables on the expansion enclosure and the server c Turn on the expansion enclosures and then the storage array and wait until the system is ful...

Page 267: ... if the LED has turned blue See Recovery Guru on page 245 b If following the recovery guru procedures does not solve the problem complete the following procedure to further troubleshoot the array c Turn off the host server as appropriate d Remove the RAID controller module and verify that the pins on backplane and RAID controller module are not bent See Removing a RAID Controller Module Blank on p...

Page 268: ...to ensure that the most current version of the firmware is installed For more information see the Support Matrix at support dell com manuals 2 Remove the hard drive from the system See Removing a Hard Drive on page 214 NOTE You must ensure that you check the hard drive indicators before removing the faulty hard drive from the system 3 Check the hard drives and the backplane to ensure that the conn...

Page 269: ...k the link status LED If the link status LED is not green replace the cables If the problem is not resolved see Getting Help on page 273 8 Reboot the host server NOTE You must turn off the host server before resetting the cables on the storage array or expansion enclosure If the problem is not resolved see Getting Help on page 273 Troubleshooting a Wet Storage Array CAUTION Many repairs may only b...

Page 270: ...ation 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 Read and follow the safety instructions that came with the product 1 Ensure that the following components are properly installed Hard drives RAID controller module s Power supply cooling fan modules Control panel Backplane 2 Ensure that all...

Page 271: ... controller module completes these initial tests and the controllers are booted successfully If the RAID controller module detects a non Dell supported storage array the controller aborts startup The RAID controller module does not generate any events to alert you in the event of an invalid array but the array status LED is lit with a flashing amber color to indicate a fault state For full details...

Page 272: ... power supply failure Two or more temperature sensors are unreadable Failure to detect or unable to communicate with peer port NOTE If both RAID controller modules fail simultaneously the array cannot issue critical or noncritical event alarms for any array component When the array is under critical condition its array status LED blinks amber Noncritical Conditions A noncritical condition is an ev...

Page 273: ...lephone based support and service options Availability varies by country and product and some services may not be available in your area To contact Dell for sales technical support or customer service issues 1 Visit support dell com 2 Click your country region at the bottom of the page For a full listing of country region click All 3 Click All Support from Support menu 4 Select the appropriate ser...

Page 274: ...274 Getting Help ...

Page 275: ...31 I O Type 114 iSCSI Target Authentication 83 iSCSI Target Identification 86 RAID Controller Module Ownership of a Disk Group 132 RAID Controller Module Ownership of a Virtual Disk or a Disk Group 137 RAID Level of a Disk Group 133 139 Segment Size of a Virtual Disk 113 Virtual Disk Cache Settings 111 Virtual Disk Modification Priority 110 CHAP Secrets Creating 84 Initiator CHAP Secret 85 Target ...

Page 276: ...apacity Expansion 46 Disk Groups and Virtual Disks Creating 105 Download NVSRAM Firmware 204 Physical Disk Firmware 206 RAID Controller and NVSRAM Firmware 202 RAID Controller and NVSRAM Packages 201 RAID controller module Firmware 208 drive carrier hard drive 216 E Edit Remove or Rename Host Topology 92 Enclosure Loss Protection 126 Entering Mutual Authentication Permissions 84 Enterprise Managem...

Page 277: ... host 99 Removing a Host Group 100 Host Topology 100 Host to Virtual Disk Mapping 128 Host to Virtual Disk Mappings Creating 129 Modifying and Removing 130 Removing 132 Hot Spare Drive Protection 126 Global Hot Spares 125 Operation 125 Hot Spares and Rebuild 125 I I O Data Path Protection 102 Inside the box 19 installing backplane 234 control panel MD1200 230 EMM 222 EMM blank 220 front bezel 212 ...

Page 278: ...73 Physical Disk Security with Self Encrypting Disk 115 Physical Disk States 38 Physical Disks 37 Erasing Secure 122 Unlocking Secure 122 Physical Disks Virtual Disks and Disk Groups 37 Power Indicator Codes 30 Power Supply and Cooling Fan Features 29 Preferred RAID Controller Module Ownership 180 Preparing Host Servers Simple path 153 R RAID 40 Changing Level of disk group 139 RAID 0 41 RAID 1 41...

Page 279: ...th 152 Snapshot Virtual Disks Disabling 165 Re creating 167 Starting or Stopping the Host Context Agent 101 Storage Array RAID Controller Module Clocks 81 Storage Array Media Scan 145 Storage Arrays 66 Automatic Discovery 67 Manual Addition 67 Storage Partitioning 140 support contacting Dell 273 T telephone numbers 273 Troubleshooting Automatically Collect the Support Bundle Data 243 Capturing the...

Page 280: ... AMW 63 EMW 62 Overview 61 Using Go To 250 V Viewing iSCSI Statistics and Setting Baseline Statistics 91 Viewing or Ending an iSCSI Session 90 Virtual Disk Background Initialization 43 Consistency Check 44 Copy and Modification Operations 179 Copy Restrictions 177 Copying 180 Creating 178 Creating a Copy for an MSCS Shared Disk 176 Cycle Time 44 Failed Copy 179 Foreground Initialization 43 Media V...

Page 281: ...Index 281 Virtual Disk Operations Limit 45 Virtual Disk Ownership 55 Virtual Disk States 40 Virtual DiskCopy Target 53 Virtual Disks and Disk Groups 39 ...

Page 282: ...282 Index ...

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