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2 Intern
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359 Posts
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Slow server POST times
Various server gear from regular rackmount to chassis/blade all seem to take a long time to POST. For example, we're doing a project swapping out a dual SD card module for the BOSS module in 8 FC640 servers. This whole process would be like 10 minutes if it didn't take so long to post each time. The process is as follows.
Backup the ESXi config to file.
Power down the server (its in maintenance mode)
Slide the FC640 out of the chassis.
Remove the dual SD card board and install the BOSS card board populated with two NVME drives>
Insert the FC640 into the chassis.
In iDrac power on and go to bios, create the RAID1 on the BOSS Card, make sure its first boot, attach virtual ESXi boot media and reboot.
POST - this takes so long! It has to do like a Lifecycle scan, it says stuff about the raid, it says things about the Broadcom like CTRL+S or whatever.... how can we skip all this BS and boot it fast just like a regular PC?
Once it finally boots to virtual media, reinstall ESXi. It reboots
Again insanely long POST.
It comes up DHCP, run the esxcli command to update it to the latest revision. You have to reboot.
Again insanely long POST.
Once its back up, restore the ESXi config backup file, it says it must auto reboot.
Again insanely long POST.
It comes back up as it was, checks back in with vcenter, and now you can vmotion machines from another blade to this and repeat the process until all is upgraded.
Finally, once the entire cluster is off SD boot media, start planning the VMware 7.x upgrade.
That POST process just seems to take the longest time.
DELL-Shine K
4 Operator
4 Operator
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3K Posts
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September 30th, 2022 20:00
Can you share part number of BOSS card and rives installed on the server? FC640 only support BOSS card with 2 M.2 SATA SSD drives. M.2 NVMe drives are not supported by FC640.
Can you also update BIOS and iDRAC FW to latest and check the behaviour
kjstech
2 Intern
2 Intern
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359 Posts
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October 4th, 2022 06:00
Everything works fine, with or without BOSS cards. I assumed NVME because the drives are like the size of a stick of gum. We inserted one on each side of the BOSS card and fastend with the included captive screws. Once all 8 of these were done (with 16 stick of gum sized drives), the populated BOSS card replaced the internal IDSDM card.
Doesn't matter if the server has an IDSDM card, BOSS card, or no card at all.... this is what takes so long..
Says DELL on it and a progress bar....
Wastes time saying something about Lifecycle controller
Says Broadcom mac addresses and a blurb about a CTRL key to go into some settings. Maybe this is like an iSCSI or FCoE boot, but we don't use this.
Says something about raid press a CTRL key combo to configure
generally it putses around on these steps before loading the OS.
An alternative, look at a PC like an Optiplex 5090 for example. As soon as you turn it on basically it shows dell in the middle with a spinning circle under it and then bam, your at the windows login screen. Why don't the all mighty powerful servers take this long to hand off control to the operating system?