Configuring Boot Order and RAID Levels

This chapter includes the following sections:

Configuring Boot Order

UCS-SCU displays a list of all bootable devices on the server.

To set the BIOS boot order of your server, follow these steps:

Procedure
    Step 1   Click Server Configuration in the left navigation pane, and then click Boot order Configuration. You can choose the devices that you want to participate in the boot order configuration, using the arrow keys between the Device Types and Boot Order column.
    Step 2   Highlight a device in the Device Types column (choose from either HDD, CD/DVD, Internal EFI Shell, Network Device, or FDD), click the left-to-right arrow key to arrange the server boot order that you prefer, and click Apply.
    Step 3   Click Apply.

    The Boot Order is saved on this server.
    Step 4   Reset the boot order by clicking Reset.
    Note   

    If the system has multiple boot devices under each component, for example, if the system has multiple bootable hard disks under the same controller or CD drives, SCU will not display this information. You will have to enter the BIOS and configure the order of these sub-components manually.

    RAID Configuration

    About RAID Configuration

    RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a technology for managing how data is stored on the physical disks that reside in your system or are attached to it . You can use the RAID Configuration functionality in the UCS-SCU to configure the on-board or PCIe supported RAID controller cards.

    If your system has multiple RAID controllers, UCS-SCU displays a list of all available RAID cards, and physical and logical disks on the RAID Configuration page. The following RAID configuration options are available:

    • Automatic setup with redundancy
    • Automatic setup without redundancy
    • Single RAID levels—RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 6
    • Nested RAID levels—RAID 10, RAID 50 and RAID 60

    RAID Configuration Page Components

    About Physical Disks Table

    The Physical Disks table in the RAID Configuration page lists the following:

    • ID—The identifying number of the physical disk.
    • Slot—The slot in which the physical disk belongs.
    • State—The status of the disk. For more information about the various disk states, see the following table.
      Table 1 Disk Status Conditions

      Status Condition

      Description

      Online

      The drive is already used in another array.

      Global Hotspare

      The drive will be used to repair any array in the system that had a drive failure, if the failed drive is equal to, or smaller than the hot spare drive.

      Unconfigured Good

      The drive is unused or available.

      Ready

      The drive is online and operating correctly.

      Offline

      The drive is offline or absent. No actions can be performed on the drive until it is back online.

      Unconfigured Bad

      The drive is not operational and needs to be replaced.

      Disks with a status of "Unconfigured bad" cannot be used for RAID configurations.

      Foreign

      The drive is part of an array created on a different controller, or created within one enclosure and moved to another on the same controller. It can be used to create a new array after clearing the configuration
    • Size—The size of the physical disk
    • Device Speed—The disk access speed of the controller.
    • Link Speed—The link speed of the controller
    • Logical Disk—The logical disk to which the physical disk belongs to.

    About Logical Disks Table

    The logical disks pane in the RAID Configuration page displays the information about the logical disks.

    The following table explains the RAID array attributes.

    Table 2 RAID Array Attributes

    Option

    Description

    ID

    Unique ID to the logical disk.

    Size

    Logical drive size. The maximum value depends on RAID level selected and the physical disks size involved.

    Primary RAID level

    RAID 0 (Data striping), 1 (Disk Mirroring), 5 (Data Striping with Striped Parity), 6 (Distributed Parity and Disk Striping).

    Secondary RAID Level

    Applicable only for nested RAID levels.

    Stripe size

    Size of the data stripe across all disks. Each physical disk has a smaller stripe of data. The sum of all the stripes equals the stripe size.

    Read policy

    No Read Ahead, Read Ahead, Adaptive. Read Ahead will read additional consecutive stripes. Adaptive will turn on Read Ahead for sequential reads and turn it off for random reads.

    Write policy

    Write Through or Write Back. With Write Through, I/O completion for write operations is signaled when the data is written to the disk. With Write Back, I/O completion is signaled when the data is transferred to cache.

    Cache policy

    Direct I/O or Cached I/O. Choose Direct I/O for unchecked read and write operations. Choose Cached I/O to cache all write operations and check the cache first for read operations

    Configuring RAID Arrays

    Only unconfigured good disks can be used for RAID configuration. Disks that are already part of RAID are not available for RAID configuration.

    To create custom or multiple RAID arrays, follow these steps:

    Procedure
      Step 1   Click Server Configuration in the left navigation pane and then click RAID configuration.

      The RAID Configuration page displays with the list of physical disks and logical disks.
      Step 2   Click the Configure RAID icon on the top-right of the page

      The RAID Configuration page appears.
      Step 3   From the RAID level drop-down list, select one of the following RAID levels:
      • Automatic Setup without Redundancy
      • Automatic Setup with Redundancy
        Note   

        The automatic setup with or without redundancy overrides all the existing RAID arrays.
      • Single-level RAID Configuration
      • Nested RAID Configuration
      Step 4   Click Create Array.
      Note   

      The Create Array button is enabled only if the minimum required number of drive groups are created.

      A progress bar is displayed and then a RAID Configuration dialog box appears depicting the completion of a RAID configuration.
      Step 5   Click OK.

      The RAID Configuration page appears. You can view the following:

      • The drive group information is displayed in the Logical Disks table.
      • The physical disks information is displayed in the Physical Disks table.
      • The status of the physical disks that are part of the drive group changes to Online and the status of the backup physical disk changes to Hot spare.

      Automatic Setup without Redundancy

      Automatic setup without redundancy requires one or more hard drives. UCS-SCU creates RAID 0 with this option.

      The following table shows the default values that are displayed for automatic setup without redundancy

      Table 3 Default Values for Automatic Setup without Redundancy

      Parameter

      Value

      Controller

      MegaRAID SAS <family>

      RAID Level

      0

      Stripe Size

      64

      Read Policy

      No Read Ahead

      Write Policy

      Write Back

      Cache Policy

      Direct IO

      Size (MB)

      Depends on the physical disk size

      Note

      The common parameters, except for total size, are the default values for the controller.

      Automatic Setup with Redundancy

      Automatic setup with redundancy is the default RAID configuration option. This configuration requires at least two physical drives to be available. If two physical disks are not available, the default RAID configuration would be automatic setup without redundancy.

      The following table shows the default values that are displayed for automatic setup with redundancy

      Table 4 Default Values for Automatic Setup with Redundancy

      Parameter

      Value

      Controller

      MegaRAID SAS <family>

      RAID Level

      1

      Stripe Size

      64

      Read Policy

      No Read Ahead

      Write Policy

      Write Back

      Cache Policy

      Direct IO

      Size (MB)

      Depends on the physical disk size

      Note

      The common parameters, except for total size, are the default values for the controller.

      Single-Level RAID Configuration

      To configure single level RAID, follow these steps:

      Procedure
        Step 1   From the RAID drop-down list, select a RAID level (0 or 1 or 5 or 6).

        The Drive Groups pane appears with a list of physical disks and drive groups. For more information about a physical disk, hover the cursor over the physical disk until the tooltip is displayed
        Step 2   From the Physical Disks list, select the physical disks that you want to include in the Drive Groups list.
        The following table displays the minimum number of physical disks required for each of the RAID levels.

        Table 5 Minimum Number of Required Physical Drives

        RAID Level

        Number of Physical Disks Required

        RAID 0

        1

        RAID 1

        2

        RAID 5

        3

        RAID 6

        4
        Step 3   Click Create Drive Group.
        Note   

        The Create Drive Group button remains disabled until the minimum number of physical disks for a RAID level is selected.

        The selected physical disks are included in the Drive Groups list.

        Note   

        The Delete Drive Group button remains disabled until a drive group is created.
        Step 4   From the Physical Disks list, choose a drive to be a hot spare drive or a standby drive.
        Step 5   From the Stripe Size list, choose a stripe size for the RAID level.
        Step 6   From the Read Policy list, choose a read policy for the RAID level.
        Step 7   From the Write Policy list, choose a write policy for the RAID level.
        Step 8   From the Cache Policy list, choose a cache policy for the RAID level.
        Step 9   In the Size (MB) text field, enter the size of the logical disk in MB.

        Nested RAID Configuration

        Nested RAID levels have primary and secondary RAID levels. You need to create a minimum of two drive groups in nested RAID levels and the drive groups should have the same number of physical disks

        To configure nested RAID levels, follow these steps:

        Procedure
          Step 1   From the RAID drop-down list, select a RAID level (10 or 50 or 60).

          The Drive Groups pane appears with a list of physical disks and drive groups. For more information about a physical disk, hover the cursor over the physical disk until the tooltip is displayed
          Step 2   From the Physical Disks list, select the physical disks that you want to include in the Drive Groups list.
          The following table displays the minimum number of physical disks and data groups required for each of the RAID levels.

          Table 6 Minimum Number of Required Physical Drives

          RAID Level

          Minimum Number of Physical Disks Required

          Minimum Number of Data Groups Required

          RAID 10

          4

          2

          RAID 50

          6

          2

          RAID 60

          8

          2
          Step 3   Click Create Drive Group.
          Note   

          The Create Drive Group button remains disabled until the minimum number of physical disks for a RAID level is selected.

          The selected physical disks are included in the Drive Groups list.

          Note   

          The Delete Drive Group button remains disabled until a drive group is created.
          Step 4   From the Stripe Size list, choose a stripe size for the RAID level.
          Step 5   From the Read Policy list, choose a read policy for the RAID level.
          Step 6   From the Write Policy list, choose a write policy for the RAID level.
          Step 7   From the Cache Policy list, choose a cache policy for the RAID level.
          Step 8   In the Size (MB) text field, enter the size of the logical disk in MB.

          Clearing RAID Arrays

          Deleting All Virtual Disks

          To clear up all the disks, follow these steps:

          Procedure
            Step 1   Click Server Configuration in the left navigation pane and then click RAID configuration.

            The RAID Configuration page displays with the list of physical disks and logical disks.
            Step 2   Click the Clear Configuration icon on the top-right of the page

            The RAID Configuration dialog box appears.
            Step 3   Click Yes to confirm the operation.

            All the virtual disks under Logical Disks are cleared and the state of the hard disks change to Unconfigured Good.

            Deleting Multiple or Single Virtual Disks

            In single RAID levels and nested RAID levels, if the number of unconfigured good physical disks is less than the minimum disks required for the selected RAID level, a RAID Configuration dialog box appears specifying that logical disks need to be deleted to free up the physical disks.

            To clear up the logical disks, follow these steps:

            Procedure
              Step 1   Click Yes in the RAID Configuration dialog box that appears.

              A Delete Logical Disks dialog box appears.
              Step 2   Select the logical disk or disks to be deleted. The physical disks that are part of the logical disk is displayed at the bottom of the dialog box.
              Note   

              If you delete a logical disk, all the information stored in the disk will be inaccessible.
              Step 3   Click Delete.

              UCS-SCU Supported RAID Controllers

              LSI Embedded MegaRAID

              Supported Platforms

              The LSI Embedded MegaRAID is supported on the following platforms:

              • UCS-C220 M3
              • UCS-C240 M3 (in the 16 HDD configuration)

              Supported RAID Options

              When you are using the LSI Embedded MegaRAID controller, you can use the following RAID options:

              • Automatic setup without redundancy
              • RAID 0
              • RAID 1
              • RAID 5 —To enable this level, you need to install a key, like the LSI TSOC Raid key.
              • RAID 10
              The following table shows the default values that are displayed for automatic setup without redundancy for LSI Embedded MegaRAID.

              Table 7 Default Values for Automatic Setup without Redundancy

              Parameter

              Values

              Controller

              LSI Embedded MegaRAID

              RAID Level

              0

              Stripe Size

              64

              Read Policy

              Read Ahead

              Write Policy

              Write Through

              Cache Policy

              Direct IO

              Size (MB)

              Depends on the physical disk size

              To learn about configuring the RAID levels, go to the Configuring RAID Arrays section.

              Enabling LSI MegaRAID Controller


              Note

              The support for the LSI Embedded MegaRAID controller is disabled by default in the BIOS.

              To enable the controller in the BIOS, follow these steps:

              Procedure
                Step 1   Reboot the server and press F2 when prompted to enter the BIOS Setup utility.
                Step 2   Select the Advanced tab, then South Bridge.
                Step 3   Set Onboard SCU Storage Support to Enabled.
                Step 4   Press F10 to save your changes and exit the utility.