Updating Disk Firmware on R710

Question

Hi this is my first post on this forum I'm not sure if this problem is an issue with my R710 or if it is a problem with the PERC6i in it. I've tried searching and so far my google foo has come up with nothing except for scary solutions that I don't want to attempt. I recently purchased some dell branded ST2000NM0023 disks for my server. I noticed the firmware on them appears to out of date (GE09 is what is show in megacli) latest version is GS15 released in 2017. I decided it would be good to update the disks before I start loading them up with data so I went and grabbed the Windows executable to update to version GS15. For some reason when I run the executable it waits 10 seconds then an error message appears saying that it is not compatible with my system. Right now I have server 2012 installed and grabbed the .exe listed as compatible with server 2012 and ST2000NM0023 from dell.com/support. I thought that maybe it was an issue with disk IO since the OS was installed on the raid arrary so I then downloaded the EFI version of Nautilus Disk Updater (also listed for the R710). Nautilus boots up in EFI mode but there are no options in the menu and all input boxes are blank. I thought that maybe it was an issue with the R710 (all firmware is up to date using LCC) and downloaded the DOS version of Nautilus. The DOS version was a little more helpful and said that it doesn't support the SAS 3GB/s controllers so I could eliminate Nautilus as being an option to update it. So I did some more reading and it sounds like you can update the drives directly from LSI's megacli utility using the -pdfwdownload option. I took a look at this option but I have some issues with it, it looks like megacli expects the disk to do its own verification. This is a scary prospect as I don't know much about how a SAS disk verifies if a firmware file is the right one and to make matters worse Nautilus version A19 has two different firmware files for the Seagate Megaladon disk so I can't even determine which one is the right option. For now I'm just going to stick with the current firmware version and hope for the best unless someone has a workaround for this problem. I tried downloading the .bin file for Redhat and tried using it on centos but it looks like the bin verifies if its running on redhat so it didn't run either. I'm not sure if this is a common problem but would like to hear how other users have got around this problem. Would buying a H700 and using that instead solve this in my case?

Daniel My · Answer

Hello

I recently purchased some dell branded ST2000NM0023 disks for my server.

It sounds like they are not Dell drives. Are you sure that they are Dell drives? Our drives will have a Dell sticker and a Dell part number on them. They should have a 5 digit part number and a 25 digit PPID. I suggest checking the drive to see if it has that information.

Thanks

cmachine2014 · Answer

They’re dell part number 0TF7F78 I can’t find a 5 digit part number on the sticker.

That might be one of our part numbers. We often label our part numbers with a 0 at the beginning, and the 0 isn't part of the number in our part database. There is still an extra digit though, could you double check the rest of the part number?

Thanks

Daniel My · Answer

They’re dell part number 0TF7F78 I can’t find a 5 digit part number on the sticker.

That might be one of our part numbers. We often label our part numbers with a 0 at the beginning, and the 0 isn't part of the number in our part database. There is still an extra digit though, could you double check the rest of the part number?

Thanks

cmachine2014 · Answer

Sorry about that fat fingers mistyped it DP/N is 0T7F78

Daniel My · Answer

Sorry about that fat fingers mistyped it DP/N is 0T7F78

I show that is a drive for our storage appliances(Equallogic and Compellent). The installer package you are running is likely checking your system model and seeing that is is not a compatible system. That would stop the update from running.

I'm surprised that a drive running firmware for one of our storage appliances is working on the server. I would suggest that you not change the firmware. If you update to different firmware it may stop working.

Thanks

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

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