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April 16th, 2025 01:55
Perc Issues
I have a R660, that had 5 Dell Standard 1TB SATA SSD drives, in slots 0-4
I have replaced them with 10x Dell 3.2 TB NVMe SSD in all slots
Only 4 Drives show up in the Perc 6-9
Going into the F2 and then the raid settings, the PERC does not give me the choice to create Virtual Drives.
To recap, it's not the PERC, because the drives can be seen as SATA drives and in part NVMe
Its not the drives, because they are all new and slots 6-9 can see the NVMe drives when swapping within the slots 6-9
there must be a configuration I am missing. Has anyone seen this?
Also the drives 0-5 the little icon that looks like a heart beat monitor blinks but 6-9 remains solid
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DELL-Rey G
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April 17th, 2025 16:06
I dont see a config that supports 10 nvme drives with the fperc12 (H965i). The configs I see start on page 77, with an 8 bay option on page 79, but this is a different physical layout of the front of the system and possibly an 8 slot backplane, rather than the 10 slot backplane you have now. There is a 10 drive nvme only configuration on page 83, but we dont get information as to part numbers that would be required to make a conversion like that, but perhaps some of the tech support people that volunteer can correct me if I am wrong.
Dell PowerEdge R660 Installation and Service Manual
Rey
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Dell-Martin S
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April 16th, 2025 06:41
Hi,
It sounds like you have a compatibility issue with your PERC controller and NVMe drives. Here is a breakdown of the possible causes and troubleshooting steps:
PERC controller compatibility: most PERC controllers are designed for SAS and SATA drives and do not support NVMe drives. The R660 server may require a special NVMe PCIe interposer card to support NVMe drives connected directly to the backplane.
NVMe backplanes/enclosures: Make sure your server backplane/enclosure supports NVMe drives. Some backplanes only support SAS/SATA, even if the server itself is NVMe-capable.
BIOS/UEFI settings: Check your BIOS/UEFI settings for NVMe support. You may need to enable NVMe in the BIOS for the drives to be recognized correctly.
Driver issues: Although you can see the drives, the correct drivers are required for full functionality, including RAID configuration. Make sure you have the latest NVMe drivers installed.
Riser card: Check if the riser cards installed in your server support NVMe. Some riser cards may only support SAS/SATA.
DELL-Rey G
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April 16th, 2025 15:15
From what you are describing, you have the 10 x 2.5 in (sas/sata w/4 universal) slots, thats why only the last 4 slots see the nvme drives. If you look at the LEDs on the drives, the "hearbeat" LED is probably blinking rapidly, this indicates the drive is not supported in that slot.
Rey
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glacius258
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April 16th, 2025 16:58
Thank you both for your responses.
From what DELL-Rey G is stating its seems to be reasonable. Allow me to update some info here:
PERC Card: I understand some PERC Cards are not made to handle certain situations or drives, and that is understandable. I am using PERC H965i Controller, which means that it is a tri-mode RAID controller that supports SAS, SATA, and NVMe drives. However, it is designed to work with NVMe drives in a hardware RAID configuration, not in pass-through or HBA mode. The fact that the Server can see and use 4 out of 10 NVMe drives kind of reinforces that.
Back Plane: The back plane upon opening the server is a single backplane it is not 2 different backplanes (not sure if that is even made). Leaves me to believe that the backplane should receive the same type of drive, no matter the slot.
Riser card: I am not sure how the riser card is related. The riser card houses my networking cards, and the BOSS cards, neither of these affect the Front
Drivers: Using the iDRAC 9 I have ran the updates, I am fully up to date. Since there is no OS there is nothing to worry about there.
BIOS\UEFI – Could you tell me what I should be setting for this? Maybe a screen shot to make sure I match it.
ADDED NOTES: I noticed something when swapping the drives in and out.
The SSD Model: MTFDDAK3T8TGA-1B works in slots 0-9 and uses the PERC H965i controller
The NMVE Model: Dell Ent NVMe CM7 U.2 MU 3.2TB works only in slots 5-9, and shows Bus Protocol of PCIe, no controller
If indeed the last 4 are universal drives and the others are SAS\SATA, is there a way to make it all universal? Maybe plug into the the system board directly or remove\replace the perc or a bios setting change?