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148297
December 22nd, 2009 08:00
PERC 6/i and Windows 7 x64
I've installed Windws 7 x64 on a PowerEdge 2950.
When I try to enable drive caching by right clicking the disk in the Device Manager it shows:
"This device does not allow its write-caching setting to be changed"
The driver in use is the default one that is installed by Windows (version 6.1.7600.16385 dated 6/21/2006).
I found that the latest dell drive seems to be R211427 (version 2.24.0.64 a07).
I tried to run the install but it gives an warning about a possibly unsupported operation system.
My question is should I ignore the warning and is the dell download newer than the default Windows 7 driver?
Thanks,
Brien
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Dev Mgr
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December 27th, 2009 14:00
Are you using a raid controller of some kind (e.g. PERC6i or SAS5iR)? If so, you have to use Dell's OpenManage Server Administrator to change cache settings. There's one catch though; it tends to only want to install on server OSes (so not a desktop OS like Windows 7).
brien123
6 Posts
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December 28th, 2009 07:00
Yes, as my post is entitled, I am using a PERC 6/i.
What about my question about the driver? Will the Vista driver work on Win7? It gives a warning.
grm139
172 Posts
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December 29th, 2009 06:00
For PERC 6 on Win7 use the native driver. You do not need to upgrade but, the Vista drivers work on Win7.
brien123
6 Posts
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December 29th, 2009 10:00
Will the Vista driver allow me to change the cache setting? I don't want to have to install OMSA. Thanks.
grm139
172 Posts
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December 29th, 2009 11:00
NO.
You need a management application to change the hard drive cache settings. I am not sure OMSA will even install on a client OS (Windows7), you may want to try SAS RAID Storage Manager instead.
brien123
6 Posts
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December 29th, 2009 11:00
Why not? I can change it on another server that has a PERC 5/i just fine in device manager.
grm139
172 Posts
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December 29th, 2009 12:00
You may be able to change the setting the OS shows but, the actual write cache on the physical hard drives will not change. The OS change would acts over the physical hard drive settings, when dealing with a RAID volume on a PERC controller, the OS does not see the hard drives it only sees the RAID volume presented to it by the controllers and the controller will not pass this instruction (enable/disable write cache) to the physical drives. What version of the FW are you using?
brien123
6 Posts
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December 30th, 2009 08:00
I understand that, nonetheless, the Windows caching setting DOES have an effect. I would really like to enable it.
I'm not trying to set the drive's write caching behavior, I've already done that in the bios.
I'm running fw 1.22.02-0612 pkg 6.2.0-0013.
from windows help:
How can I change the write-caching setting for this device?
Most consumer-oriented storage devices such as USB flash drives, SD or MMC memory cards, or consumer external disk drives do not allow you to change the device’s caching settings. Internal SATA or serial-attached SCSI hard drives shipped with Windows do typically allow you to change the settings, although this can only be guaranteed by the manufacturer of the device. To understand the caching features offered by a given device and determine which settings best suit your needs, consult the documentation provided by the manufacturer.
grm139
172 Posts
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December 30th, 2009 11:00
With a PERC controller there is a couple of cashing option.
Virtual Disk Write policy (write-back or write-thru) – depending on this value the data will be directly sent to the hard drives (WT) or to the controller cache memory (WB). This value can be set on the controller BIOS configuration utility.
Hard drive cache (enable/disable) – this will determine how the hard drive manage the data internally. If it is disable the data will be written to the plates directly, if it is enable the data will be cached within the hard drive and then written down on the media. This value cannot be set from the controller BIOS configuration utility; a Dell management tool (OMSA/SMS) is needed to change it.
brien123
6 Posts
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December 31st, 2009 08:00
Neither of those 2 options correspond to the one I cited.
Windows itself maintains a cache for each disk. By default, it doesn't do write caching since it may cause data loss if a computer loses power.
You can generally enable _Windows_ write caching via the hard disk device properties.
I can enable it just fine when using a PERC 5/i on another server, but the PERC 6/i seems to be preventing it.
DOES ANYONE FROM DELL MONITOR THESE FORUMS?