Perc 5/i Hotswappable in Linux

Hello nicklayb

Some of our controllers are capable of operating in JBOD/Non-RAID mode. I suspect that your 1950 has one of these controllers. The controllers capable of non-RAID mode will default new HDDs to this mode and they will be seen by the OS.

The PERC 5 and most of our RAID controllers do not have a non-RAID mode. Every drive in the server must be part of a virtual disk in order for the operating system to see it. Because of this you have to configure the drives as single disk RAID 0's to be seen, or any other RAID level.

This is not something that can be corrected. It is how the card functions. The PERC 5 does not have JBOD/non-RAID functionality, so any time you add a new drive you will need to add/create a virtual disk with it to make it visible to the operating system.

Thanks

Thank you for your fast answer. I understand the meaning of the way it works and why, the thing I don't really understand, is the use of the hotswap bays. I mean, the front backplane is fully hotswap but the system has to be restart to take effects. Also, is this working way is stable and reliable ?

And, as last question (i promise!), will an PCI-e SSD will be bootable in the Poweredge 2950 ?

Thank you for all your help.

I'm not sure you are quite understanding exactly how it works.  It is not the reboot that makes the disk insertion "take effect", it is the creation of the virtual disk on that disk that makes it take effect.  As Daniel said, the PERC does not support non-RAID, so the PERC cannot present the OS with the new disk until a virtual disk has been created with it.  If you had access to the RAID controller from the OS, you could configure the single-disk RAID 0 from the OS, without the need to reboot.  Without OMSA (OpenManage Server Administrator) to communicate with the controller from the OS, the only way to tell the controller to configure the drive is to boot to the CTRL-R utility.

You have two options to arrive at your desired operation:

1. Switch to a controller that supports non-RAID (like a SAS 5/6 or a third-party card, like your 1950), or

2. Install OMSA in CentOS, so that you can manage the VD's from within the OS.

Maybe Daniel (or someone) can tell you how or confirm whether or not OMSA can be installed in CentOS - I'm not much of a Linux guy.

We use OMSA on our CentOS servers, it's quite easy to setup: http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/OMSA#Yum_setup Once installed simply point your browser at: https://yourserverip:1311

Thank you all for your answer. I'm trying to install the OMSA package on PE2950 and running CentOS but it end up at :

sudo] password for serveur: 
Downloading GPG key: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/OMSA_7.2.1/RPM-GPG-KEY-dell
    Importing key into RPM.
erreur: impossible d'avoir le verrou exclusif sur /var/lib/rpm/Packages
erreur: ne peut ouvrir l'index Packages en utilisant db3 - Opération non permise (1)
erreur: impossible d'ouvrir la base de données Package dans /var/lib/rpm
erreur: /tmp/GPG-KEY-4185-lRlmhc: key 1 import failed.

I don't really what I'm doing wrong, if there is a way to install the repo bypasse the gpgkey or just download the rpm file I'll install 'em manually

Thank you !