Addition Storage for DELL EMC PowerVault ME4084

Jenin Thomas,

From what you stated you have it populated incorrectly, according to population rules on page 14 here.

The reason being is that you are supposed to fill both drawers, 1 row at a time, and the number of populated rows shouldn't differ by more than one row between the top and bottom drawers. Whereas you filled one drawer (all 3 rows) and left the other drawer empty. Now the reason for this is for airflow and cooling.

Let me know if this helps.

Also does this help in addition of drives (how much is minimum quantity that needs to be added)?

Can we shift the drives now to the bottom draw and expect the HDD Volume Mappings to remain intact?

If you power down the ME4, then move the drives, then power back up. The reason being is that as long as the system is downed, you can move the drives, assuming everything is optimal before the move.

Dear Chris,

Thanks for the advice. I will do this once the live system is allowed to be shutdown. However, I need a reply to my question about additional storage drives minimum quantity requirement.

My local presales support had suggested a minimum of 14 drives required for adding storage to this unit. However on looking at the allocation of drives  in the system, there is around 247GB remaining unallocated. Is there any way we can utilize this capacity, and if so how many drives are minimum required in RAID6 to enable this unallocated capacity for our requirements. (Please see attachment)

Hi, Unfortunately, I can't give any information about your configuration. But these might help please check it out. The 14 disc events mentioned are mentioned here. (DDICs must be added to disk slots in complete rows (14 disks at a time). https://dell.to/3jQnAlr

For RAID 6, I found this in the administrator guide (RAID 6 – Requires 4-16 disks) https://dell.to/3WQseP3

I would go according to the deployment and administrator guide above. I believe these documents might be very useful.