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PowerEdge 2950 PERC 6/i RAID 5 Hard Drives
I have a PowerEdge 2950 with PERC 6/i RAID 5 Hard Drives. Performance is bad, real bad. This machine is only used for Backup Exec. My other 2950's perform wonderfully with older drives and firmware. The PERC is running the following:
Package: 6.2.0-0013
FW Version: 1.22.02-0612
BIOS Version: 2.04.00
CtrlR Version: 1.02-015B
The SAS Hard Drives installed are from two different manufacturers and Revs
Fujitsu SAS with REV D306
Seagate SAS with REV HS0C
Can I assume the performance issue is due to the different drives? If so, is there anything I can do to get proper performance other than replacing Hard Drives?
If I replace the 4 Seagate drives with Fujitsu REV D306 drives can I expect to get good performance?
DELL-Geoff P
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April 16th, 2013 08:00
For performance issues, I would update the server's bios, controller firmware and the ESM\BMC for starters. 2 of the 3 are out of date. The bios should be at 2.7; the controller firmware should be at 6.3. The ESM\BMC should be at 2.5.
The hard drives should be OK.
Here are the links to update:
Bios: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER24647M/1/PE2950-020700CBIOS.exe
ESM\BMC: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00928610M/1/2950_ESM_Firmware_4NNNG_WN32_2.50_A00.EXE
Perc 6/i: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00416609M/1/SAS-RAID_Firmware_W83M2_WN32_6.3.1-0003_A14.EXE
Update the BMC and Perc first, then start the bios update so you only have to restart the server once.
Regards,
theflash1932
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April 16th, 2013 09:00
As Geoff eluded to, the drives appear (I'm sure Geoff knows or checked) to be Dell-branded drives, which means they are certified for use on the controller and have the latest revision of Dell's firmware. Running certified drives with the latest firmware for each specific drive makes the make and model irrelevant. I would agree with Geoff that all system firmware should be updated to the latest so everything is working together the best way they know how.
If that doesn't help, then tell us a little more about how it's set up - RAID level, stripe size, how bad is "bad"? Anything else special about the way it is/was set up, what it's running, etc.?
sknock
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April 17th, 2013 05:00
OK - Thanks for the links. These updates have been applied. I'll check back in a few days to let you know if the updates solved the problem.
sknock
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April 17th, 2013 05:00
flash - The Fujitsu drives are Dell branded, but the Seagate drives do not have the Dell logo. This is a bit odd because we get all equipment from Dell.
Also the Seagate REV is HS09 and NOT HS0C. I mistyped it somehow.
This 2950 (16GB RAM) is used for Backup of a small amount of data, around 400GB. The first attempt of the Full BU took 9.5 hours and logged a rated speed of 655MB per minute. The other 2950 (8GB RAM) logs the rate at between 4,000 and 5,000MB per minute with the backup taking about 2 hours. These machines are running Windows 2008 R2 64Bit OS's and BackupExec 2010 R3.
Let me know if there is anything I can clarify.
sknock
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May 2nd, 2013 08:00
Updating the firmware was the ticket. Thanks to Geoff and Theflash1932 for your assistance!