An NVMe PCIe SSD device can be removed without shutting down or rebooting the system. The prepare to remove task checks the activity status of the SSD, and only allows the removal operation to proceed if the device is idle. This video demonstrates both success and failure cases of the activity check.
In this video you will learn how to perform the NVMe device prepare to remove task using iDRAC Service Module 3.6.
To begin the process, login to the iDRAC home page using your credentials. Go to iDRAC Settings, click Settings from the drop-down list, and expand iDRAC Service Module Setup. Make sure that iDRAC Service Module is Running.
To view the available disks for removal, go to Configuration, click Storage Configuration from the drop-down list and expand Physical Disk Configuration.
In order to prepare the disk for removal, from the Storage Configuration page, choose a disk you want to remove and click Action. Click Prepare to remove, and then click Apply. Click Ok in the warning pop up to complete the process.
To view the status, go to Maintenance and click Lifecycle Log from the drop-down list. On the Lifecycle Log, notice that the Job successfully completed message is reported.
In the command line interface, type the command g-r-e-p space I-S-M0024 space forward slash bar forward slash log forward slash messages and Press [Enter] You will receive the ISM0024 NVMe device is successfully prepared for removal message.
Next, In the command line interface, type the command fdisk dash i Press [Enter] You can notice that the operating system is installed on the NVMe disk, on which the prepare to remove task is performed. Now, from the Storage Configuration page, choose a disk you want to remove and click Action. Click Prepare to remove, and then click Apply. To complete the process, click Ok in the warning pop up.
To view the status, go to Maintenance and click Lifecycle Log from the drop-down list. On the Lifecycle Log, notice that the Job failed message is reported.
In the command line interface, type the command g-r-e-p space I-S-M0025 space forward slash var forward slash log forward slash messages space bar tail space dash You will receive the message, I-S-M0025, unable to prepare the NVMe device for removal.
Prepare to remove action can fail either because NVMe device is busy, NVMe device is not present or if the NVMe device is not installed. For more information on iDRAC Service Module, see www.dell.com/idracmanuals.
