PowerFlex: How to configure virtual disks using Storcli on Different OS

VxRack Node comes with 24 disks (22 hard drive and 2 SSD disks)
This article supposes that the customer uses first SSD for CacheCade and the second SSD for the SSD Storage Pool for ScaleIO.
This article describes how to use StorCLI to create VD on storage device HDD/SSD on servers with an LSI 3108 RAID controller card.

Use the following command-line tools for the following Operating Systems:-
ESXi OS- /opt/lsi/storcli/storcli
Linux OS- /opt/MegaRAID/storcli/storcli64
Windows OS- storcli64

Following are the high-level tasks to be performed depending on each scenario:-

• Creating virtual disks on hard drive devices used as part of the Storage Pool. This procedure creates the virtual device on the hard drives in systems that are going to be part of the Storage Pool.
• Creating virtual disks on SSD devices used as part of the Storage Pool. This procedure creates the virtual device on the SSD drives in the node that are going to be part of the Storage Pool.
• Creating virtual disks on SSD devices used to support CacheCade. This procedure creates the virtual device on the SSD drives in the node that are going to be configured as cache and used by CacheCade software.

Creating virtual devices for hard drive
 
The VD for Hard disks (hard drive) are configured with Direct IO, write-back and read-ahead enabled.
 
You must create one VD for each hard drive.
 
Create the VD by running the following command:
Log in to the SDS, and from the command prompt, run the following.
Command:

storcli64 /c0 add vd type=raid0 drives=<EID>:<Slt> direct wb ra pdcache=off

 
Example:

storcli64 /c0 add vd type=raid0 drives=6:2 direct wb ra pdcache=off
EID and Slt are the Enclosure ID and the Slot ID values.
Output, similar to the following, is displayed:
Controller = 0
Status = Success
Description = Add VD Succeeded

 
Creating virtual devices for SSD CacheCade disks
 
Create VD on SSD devices to be used to provide CacheCade acceleration with an LSI 3108 RAID controller card.
 
1. Create the VD for caching, by running the following command:

storcli64 /c0 add vd cc Type=raid0 drives=<EID>:<Slt> WB

Where EID and Slt are the enclosure and the slot ID for the drive.
Output, similar to the following, is displayed:
 
Example:

storcli64 /c0 add vd cc Type=raid0 drives=6:0 WB
Controller = 0
Status = Success
Description = Add VD Succeeded

 
2. Apply the caching feature to an hard drive device by running the following command on.
Every device that is to be cached:

storcli64 /c0/vX set ssdcaching=on

X is the VD of the hard drive disk to which to apply caching.
 
Output, similar to the following, is displayed:

storcli64 /c0 /v2 set ssdcaching=on
Controller = 0
Status = Success
Description = None
 
Detailed Status :
===============
 
-----------------------------------------
VD Property   Value Status  ErrCd ErrMsg
-----------------------------------------
 2 SSDCaching On    Success     0 -
-----------------------------------------

 
3. Discover the CacheCade VD ID by running the following command:

storcli64 /c0/vall show | findstr /c:"Cac0"

The number after the "/" character is the VD ID to use in the next step.
Output, similar to the following, is displayed:

DG/VD TYPE State Access Consist Cache Cac sCC Size                Name
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22/1     Cac0 Optl  RW         Yes       RWBD  -      ON   372.093 GB     

 
4. Disable the read-ahead cache by running the following command, using the VD ID.
Displayed in the output of the previous step:

storcli64 /c0/vX set rdcache=nora

vX is the VD ID for the CacheCade disk.

Set the writecache to Write Back by running the following command:-

storcli64 /c0/vX set wrcache=WB

vX is the VD ID for the CacheCade disk.
 
 
5. Display the cache configuration using the following command:

storcli64 /c0/dall show cc

Or run 

storcli64 /c0 show

Verify from the output of the above command that under VD List, under the Cache column, it shows NRWBD(NR=No Read Ahead(nora)  WB=WriteBack  D=Direct IO) for the SSD CacheCade disk Cac0.
 

 

VD LIST :
======
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DG/VD TYPE  State Access Consist Cache   Cac sCC        Size        Name
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22/1    Cac0  Optl   RW           Yes     NRWBD -      ON   372.093 GB     

Creating virtual devices for SSD storage disks
Create the VD by running the following command:
 
1. Log in to the SDS, and from the command prompt, run the following command:

storcli64 /c0 add vd type=raid0 drives=<EID>:<Slt> direct wt nora

Example:

storcli64 /c0 add vd type=raid0 drives=11:0 direct wt nora

EID and Slt are the Enclosure ID and the Slot ID values.
 

2. Display the cache configuration using the following command:

storcli64 /c0 show

Verify from the output of the above command that under VD List, under the Cache column, it shows NRWTD (NR=No Read Ahead(nora)  WT= WriteThrough D=Direct IO) for the SSD storage disk RAID 0.
 

VD LIST :
======
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DG/VD TYPE  State Access Consist Cache   Cac sCC     Size        Name
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
23/23  RAID0 Optl  RW        Yes       NRWTD   -     ON     372.093 GB