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After PERC H700 firmware update in T710 , Array 2 disappeared
Hello all,
I have taken over management of a number of servers, and my predecessor did a rather poor job of patching them. Unfortunately, in the course of doing updates, I have run into a snag.
We have one PowerEdge T710 with a PERC H700 controller in it, running Server 2003R2. It has two virtual disks: The first array is a RAID-1 boot array composed of two 146GB SAS drives. The second array (which I did not fully realize until after the upgrade) is a RAID-6 comprised of four (4) non-Dell WD Red 3TB SATA drives. It is this virtual disk that disappeared completely after the update to the latest firmware.
Upon reboot, the server now told me that the second array could not be found. I had no option but to go into the controller setup, thus losing the configuration of my second virtual disk. I backed up to the 12.10.1 firmware (as I had read about some bugs in newer firmware after the fact) and the 3TB disks show up under Physical Disk Management, but not under the Foreign View, so I cannot even import them.
Does anyone have any ideas at this point? Optimally, I'd like to re-import the virtual disk, if I cannot do that, I at least need to be able to re-create the array. I was of the understanding that all PERC H700 firmware going forward supported non-Dell hard drives: is this still an issue? Or, could it be an issue with 3TB sized drives?
Any help would be appreciated.
PrepIT
25 Posts
0
January 23rd, 2014 08:00
Note: I have just attempted from the foreign view to import and received the following message:
Error! Foreign Config Import
1 out of 1 failed to import !
Offline virtual disks cannot be imported
PrepIT
25 Posts
0
January 23rd, 2014 14:00
Post-mortem. I backed the PERC H700 controller firmware down to 12.3.0-0032. This allowed the drives to be recognized as a foreign config and re-imported into the controller. The virtual drive is back in place.
What I don't understand is why updating to the latest 12.10.6-0001 firmware took the drives completely out of the equation. I'm willing to agree, the drives chosen for the task were not the ones I'd have chosen myself (I'd have gone for nearline WD RE or Seagate Constellations) and I'll concede they aren't a "supported solution" per terms of Dell offering tech help. However, there is nothing wrong with the drives, and I don't get how the new firmware disregards them completely. My understanding is as of the 12.3 firmware, non-Dell drives were no longer blocked from operation.
I'm now extremely reluctant to update the firmware again, even though there are much newer (possibly marked urgent) updates.