Cache battery replacement?

Question

What the life expectancy of the cache battery?  How to replace?

tommo666 · Answer

Most tend to outlive the warranty of the server, so in excess of 3 years. If array manager allows you to re-condition the battery then you can expect longer life.

Replacing- Depends on the raid solution, some are separate battery packs that plug into the motherboard, others are on the raid card and it gets a bit more complicated.

endtrust · Answer

Okay, how about a PowerEdge 6300 (tag: UDFVN) with PERC 2 that is still working after 7 years but now will not perform 'Battery Recondition' procedure anymore?

What is the battery replacement procedure and the associated part number(s) to get it done?

Thank you for your answer... I have NOT been able to find ANYTHING on Dell's site regarding the parts or the procedures.

tommo666 · Answer

It would probably work out cheaper to buy a replacement card, plenty on ebay.

endtrust · Answer

Buy a replacement card? PERC card? Won't I lose the configuration if I swap cards?   Is the battery on the card or is it some external pack that I have seen referenced?    I appreciate your reply but am not sure how it will address the issue. I would welcome further clarifications or alternatives you may know.

tommo666 · Answer

The cache battery is on a daughter card that is connected to the main card. You won't lose your config if you get the same card because the config is stored on the drives and in the nvram on the raid card. A new card would read the config from the disks and ask you if you want to use that.

BryanMCI · Answer

Purchase a 4-'AAA' battery holder and 4 'AAA' NiMh rechargeable batteries.   Remove the original 3-wire connector from the battery back, and solder the wires to your new battery holder.

endtrust · Answer

THANK YOU! That is an awesome recommendation!

BryanMCI · Answer

I did this on one of my PERC 2/DC's.   Although my problem was the fact that NVRAM wasn't keeping the drive configuration.   Seems that the battery pack was not the culprit.  I'm going to try replacing the NVRAM chip, as it has an on-board lithium battery (that I presume is dead).

BryanMCI · Answer

http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?&handler=data.listcategory&D=*48Z35Y70PC1*&terms=48Z35Y-70PC1&Ntt=*48Z35Y70PC1*&Dk=1&Ns=SField&N=0&crc=true   Zero Power RAM  (256k NVRAM) Chip.

tommo666 · Answer

Yep, could be a dallas chip. If you can read the model info. You could try here: http://www.maxim-ic.com/support/

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Cache battery replacement?

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