PowerScale F900 Node with Self-encrypting Drives is Slow to Boot

Summary: When rebooting a PowerScale F900 node with Kioxia CM6 Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs), during the boot sequence, there is a visible delay while the drives become ready. This results in approximately a 12-minute delay before the boot completes. ...

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Symptoms

On an F900 node with Kioxia CM6 Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs), during the drive initialization step of the boot sequence, you can see that an approximate 30 second delay occurs before each drive becomes ready. This results in a 12-minute overall delay to boot completion (30 seconds x 24 drives): 
2022-04-08T08:25:33.360607-05:00 <0.7> xxxx-1(id1) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: nvme0: <Generic NVMe Device> at device 0.0 numa-domain 0 on pci13 
2022-04-08T08:25:33.360612-05:00 <0.7> xxxx-1(id1) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: nvme0: setting MPS from 128 to 256 to match parent 
2022-04-08T08:26:03.646191-05:00 <0.7> xxxx-1(id1) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: nvd0: <Dell Ent NVMe FIPS CM6 RI 3.84TB> NVMe namespace 
2022-04-08T08:26:03.655115-05:00 <0.7> xxxx-1(id1) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: nvd0: 3662830MB (7501476528 512 byte sectors)

Cause

An issue in the shipping firmware version on this drive causes the drive to take a minimum of 15 seconds to transition states when querying and unlocking the drive's encryption bands.

Resolution

The issue is resolved in Kioxia CM6 firmware version 3.1.0 and later. Install the latest Drive Support Package and run a drive firmware update to apply the latest firmware to resolve this issue.
 
NOTE: It is recommended to run the drive firmware upgrade first when upgrading any combination of drive firmware, node firmware, and OneFS on nodes affected by this issue. Doing so is nondisruptive, and eliminates the aforementioned boot delay during the subsequent reboots triggered by node firmware or OneFS upgrades.

Affected Products

PowerScale F900
Article Properties
Article Number: 000215684
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 05 Jan 2026
Version:  2
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