Hi there. In this video, we'll discuss the PowerVault ME52 feature, intelligent Drive firmware update. The IDFU feature enables administrators to apply online drive firmware updates without the need for a maintenance window, as was the case with previous PowerVault generations.
To view the IDFU option, log in to your Power Vault manager with administrator credentials. Once logged in, navigate to Settings, Systems. And then select the Properties tab at the top, and finally expand the Firmware box. On ME52 systems, you should see the option for the Intelligent Drive firmware update.
This should be enabled by default. When the IDFU is enabled, the Drive firmware update will not proceed as soon as it's uploaded. When certain activity is already running on the storage system, such as a controller firmware update, partner firmware update, collecting array logs or drive logs, or in situations where the disk group reconstruction or expansion is underway, the IDFU won't initialize the disk firmware upgrade. Until it detects a window of all processes.
If you experience any error scenarios when updating the Drive firmware, it's advised to disable the IDFU option and revert to a manual update attempt. With IDFU enabled, simply upload the updated disk driver downloaded from the Dell support page.
Once downloaded and extracted, navigate to the maintenance tab and select Firmware, and then select the Disks option. Identify the model of the drive you will be updating and copy the model name. For this example, we're using a CGate drive. From the downloaded and extracted firmware file, open the Readme text file. From this file, search for the model type to identify which file is the correct one to update the drive. For this example, the recommended file type is ST5E.lod.
Select Browse for file and navigate back to the extracted firmware folder. Open the drive manufacturer that applies to you. For this example, we'll open the CGate folder and select the ST5E. LOD file. Select the drives you wish to apply the update to and select Upload file. With IDFU enabled, the PowerVault manager will now update the drives when it detects it's safe to do so. And that's it.
Thanks for watching.
