Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 User’s

Guide
PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i
MX, and PERC H965e Adapter

Regulatory Model: UCPA-1200, UCPF-1200, and UCPN-1200

August 2023
Rev. A00
Notes, cautions, and warnings

NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.

CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid
the problem.

WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.

© 2022-2023 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its
subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.
 Contents

Chapter 1: Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12..........................................................8

Features of PERC H965i Adapter................................................................................................................................... 9
Features of PERC H965i Front...................................................................................................................................... 10
Features of PERC H965e Adapter................................................................................................................................. 11
Features of PERC H965i MX.......................................................................................................................................... 12
Technical specifications of PERC 12 cards..................................................................................................................13
Operating systems supported by PERC 12 cards.......................................................................................................14

Chapter 2: Applications and User Interfaces supported by PERC 12............................................. 15

Comprehensive Embedded Management ................................................................................................................... 15
Dell OpenManage Storage Management..................................................................................................................... 15
Human Interface Infrastructure Configuration Utility............................................................................................... 16
The PERC Command Line Interface..............................................................................................................................16

Chapter 3: Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12................................................................. 17

Controller features.............................................................................................................................................................17
Hardware Root of Trust ............................................................................................................................................ 17
Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM)...........................................................................................................17
Device enumeration..................................................................................................................................................... 17
UEFI Secure Boot.........................................................................................................................................................18
Auto-Configure Behavior (Execute Once) ........................................................................................................... 18
Auto-Configure Behavior (Primary and Secondary settings) .......................................................................... 19
Disk roaming.................................................................................................................................................................. 19
Hardware Accelerated I/O........................................................................................................................................ 20
Non–RAID disks............................................................................................................................................................ 21
Physical disk power management............................................................................................................................ 21
Firmware update...........................................................................................................................................................21
Snapdump...................................................................................................................................................................... 21
Physical disk coercion................................................................................................................................................. 21
PERC H965e support for PowerVault MD24XX enclosure...............................................................................22
Virtual disk features..........................................................................................................................................................23
Auto-import foreign virtual drives........................................................................................................................... 24
Virtual disk migration.................................................................................................................................................. 24
Online capacity expansion......................................................................................................................................... 24
Virtual disk write cache policy..................................................................................................................................25
Virtual disk initialization....................................................................................................................................................26
Full initialization............................................................................................................................................................26
Fast initialization.......................................................................................................................................................... 26
Background operations.................................................................................................................................................... 26
Background initialization............................................................................................................................................ 26
Consistency checks.................................................................................................................................................... 26
Drive features.....................................................................................................................................................................27
Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs).................................................................................................................................27
Instant secure erase....................................................................................................................................................27

Contents 3
 Physical disk erase.......................................................................................................................................................27
PERC managed Sanitize Erase operation.............................................................................................................. 28
4KB sector drives........................................................................................................................................................ 28
Non-Volatile Memory Express..................................................................................................................................28
Fault tolerance................................................................................................................................................................... 29
The SMART feature....................................................................................................................................................29
Patrol Read................................................................................................................................................................... 29
Physical disk failure detection.................................................................................................................................. 30
Controller cache........................................................................................................................................................... 31
Battery (Energy Pack) Transparent Learn Cycle................................................................................................ 32

Chapter 4: Install and remove a PERC 12 card..............................................................................33

Safety instructions............................................................................................................................................................ 33
Before working inside your system............................................................................................................................... 34
After working inside your system.................................................................................................................................. 34
Remove the PERC H965i Adapter................................................................................................................................ 34
Install the PERC H965i Adapter.................................................................................................................................... 35
Remove the PERC H965i Front card........................................................................................................................... 36
Install the PERC H965i Front card................................................................................................................................38
Remove PERC H965i MX................................................................................................................................................39
Install PERC H965i MX.................................................................................................................................................... 40
Removing the PERC H965e Adapter card...................................................................................................................41
Installing the PERC H965e Adapter card.................................................................................................................... 42

Chapter 5: Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and
PERC H965e Adapter............................................................................................................... 44
Creating the device driver media.................................................................................................................................. 44
Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC
H965e Adapter drivers from the support site..................................................................................................44
Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC
H965e Adapter drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools ........................................ 45
Windows driver installation............................................................................................................................................. 45
Install PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
while newly installing Windows............................................................................................................................ 45
Install PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
driver on which Windows is already installed................................................................................................... 46
Update PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
driver that runs on Microsoft Windows OS............................................................................................................46
Linux driver installation.................................................................................................................................................... 47
Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMOD support..................................................................47
Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMP support..................................................................... 47
Load the driver while installing an operating system................................................................................................48

Chapter 6: Manage the PERC 12 firmware................................................................................... 49

Upgrade firmware controller using Dell Update Package (DUP)...........................................................................49

Chapter 7: Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility....................................... 50

Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility............................................................................................................... 50
Exit the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.................................................................................................................. 50
Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility...........................................................................................................51

4 Contents
 View the HII Configuration Utility dashboard..............................................................................................................51
Configuration management............................................................................................................................................. 51
Create virtual disk and configure virtual disk parameters..................................................................................51
Select physical disks for creating VDs................................................................................................................... 52
Create profile based virtual disk.............................................................................................................................. 53
View disk group properties........................................................................................................................................53
View global hot-spare devices................................................................................................................................. 53
Convert to Non–RAID disk........................................................................................................................................54
Delete configurations................................................................................................................................................. 54
Controller management................................................................................................................................................... 54
Save persistent events.............................................................................................................................................. 54
Clear persistent events.............................................................................................................................................. 54
Manage snapdump...................................................................................................................................................... 55
Enable security.............................................................................................................................................................55
Disable security............................................................................................................................................................55
Change security settings...........................................................................................................................................55
Restore factory default settings............................................................................................................................. 56
Manage the SAS Storage link speed...................................................................................................................... 56
Manage the PCIe storage interface........................................................................................................................56
Auto-Configure Behavior Management................................................................................................................. 56
Advanced controller properties................................................................................................................................57
Virtual disk management................................................................................................................................................. 59
Virtual disk numbering................................................................................................................................................59
Configure Virtual Disks............................................................................................................................................... 61
Perform Online capacity expansion—Expand a VD within a disk group........................................................ 61
Perform Online capacity expansion—Expand a VD by adding a PD to a disk group..................................62
Check consistency of VDs........................................................................................................................................ 62
Device management......................................................................................................................................................... 62
View enclosure or backplane properties................................................................................................................ 62
View physical disk properties....................................................................................................................................63
Cryptographic erase................................................................................................................................................... 65
Physical disk erase...................................................................................................................................................... 66
Sanitize Block or Overwrite Erase operation........................................................................................................66
Assigning a global hot-spare.....................................................................................................................................66
Assign a dedicated hot-spare................................................................................................................................... 67
Convert a physical disk to a non–RAID disk......................................................................................................... 67
Hardware components.....................................................................................................................................................68
View battery (Energy Pack) properties................................................................................................................. 68
Security key management in HII configuration utility............................................................................................... 68

Chapter 8: Security key and RAID management........................................................................... 70

Security key implementation...........................................................................................................................................70
Local Key Management....................................................................................................................................................70
Create a security key........................................................................................................................................................70
Change security settings..................................................................................................................................................71
Disable security key........................................................................................................................................................... 71
Create a secured virtual disk.......................................................................................................................................... 72
Secure a non-RAID disk................................................................................................................................................... 72
Secure a pre-existing virtual disk.................................................................................................................................. 72
Import a secured non-RAID disk.................................................................................................................................... 73

Contents 5
 Import a secured virtual disk...........................................................................................................................................73
Dell Technologies OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM)........................................................ 73
Supported controllers for OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM)....................................74
Manage the Server Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) feature.........................................................................74
Disable the Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) feature..........................................................................74
Manage virtual disks in the SEKM mode............................................................................................................... 74
Manage non–RAID disks in the SEKM mode........................................................................................................ 74
Transition of drives from Local Key Management to Secure Enterprise Key Management..................... 74

Chapter 9: Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards......................................................... 75

Single virtual disk performance or latency in hypervisor configurations............................................................. 75
Unable to discover or detect a PERC card................................................................................................................. 75
Unable to install the Microsoft Windows operating system .................................................................................. 76
An incorrect firmware state is detected......................................................................................................................76
Foreign configuration not found in HII......................................................................................................................... 76
Degraded state of virtual disks...................................................................................................................................... 76
Boot-time errors................................................................................................................................................................ 76
Event log errors................................................................................................................................................................. 79
Application issues.............................................................................................................................................................. 88
Memory errors................................................................................................................................................................... 92
Preserved Cache state.................................................................................................................................................... 92
Security key errors............................................................................................................................................................92
Secured foreign import errors.................................................................................................................................. 92
Failure to select or configure non Self-Encrypting Disks non-SED.................................................................93
Failure to delete security key....................................................................................................................................93
Failure of Cryptographic Erase on encryption-capable physical disks........................................................... 93
General issues.................................................................................................................................................................... 93
PERC card has yellow bang in Windows operating system device manager................................................93
PERC card not seen in operating systems............................................................................................................93
Unlocked drives if not imported appear as locked.............................................................................................. 93
Physical disk issues........................................................................................................................................................... 94
Physical disk in failed state....................................................................................................................................... 94
Unable to rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk........................................................................................................94
An NVMe drive is indicated as faulty when moving the drive to new backplane using hot-insertion.... 94
Fatal error or data corruption reported................................................................................................................. 94
Multiple disks are inaccessible..................................................................................................................................94
Rebuilding data for a failed physical disk...............................................................................................................95
Virtual disk fails during rebuild using a global hot-spare....................................................................................95
Dedicated hot-spare disk fails during rebuild....................................................................................................... 95
Virtual disk fails rebuild using a dedicated hot spare..........................................................................................95
Physical disk takes a long time to rebuild..............................................................................................................95
Drive removal and insertion in the same slot generates a foreign configuration event ............................96
SMART errors.................................................................................................................................................................... 96
SMART error detected on a non–RAID disk.........................................................................................................96
SMART error detected on a physical disk in a non–redundant virtual disk.................................................. 96
SMART error detected on a physical disk in a redundant virtual disk............................................................96
Replace member errors....................................................................................................................................................97
Source disk fails during replace member operation.............................................................................................97
Target disk fails during replace member operation............................................................................................. 97
A member disk failure is reported in the virtual disk which undergoes replace member operation........ 97

6 Contents
 Linux operating system errors........................................................................................................................................98
Virtual disk policy is assumed as write-through...................................................................................................98
Unable to register SCSI device................................................................................................................................ 98
Drive indicator codes........................................................................................................................................................98
HII error messages............................................................................................................................................................ 99
Unhealthy Status of the drivers...............................................................................................................................99
Rebuilding a drive during full initialization..............................................................................................................99

Chapter 10: Appendix—RAID description................................................................................... 100

Summary of RAID levels.................................................................................................................................................100
RAID 10 configuration......................................................................................................................................................101
RAID terminology............................................................................................................................................................. 102
Disk striping.................................................................................................................................................................102
Disk mirroring.............................................................................................................................................................. 102
Spanned RAID levels................................................................................................................................................. 102
Parity data................................................................................................................................................................... 103

Chapter 11: Getting help.............................................................................................................104

Recycling or End-of-Life service information........................................................................................................... 104
Contacting Dell.................................................................................................................................................................104
Locating the Express Service Code and Service Tag.............................................................................................104
Receiving automated support with SupportAssist .................................................................................................105

Chapter 12: Documentation resources........................................................................................106

Contents 7
 1
Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID
Controller 12
Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 or PERC 12 is a series of RAID disk array controllers developed by Dell
for its PowerEdge servers. The PERC H965i Front, Adapter, MX internal and H965e external controllers have the following
characteristics:
● Reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant disk subsystem management
● RAID control capabilities including support for RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
● Supports Dell-qualified Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Solid-State Drives (SSDs), and PCIe SSD (NVMe)
● Supports drive speeds for NVMe drives are 8 GT/s (Gen 3) and 16 GT/s (Gen 4) at maximum x2 lane width.
● Supports data rate throughput of 6 Gbps for SAS 2.0, 12 Gbps for SAS 3.0, and 22.5 Gbps for SAS 4.0 drives.
● Supports Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) 3.0 and 6 Gbps throughput for SATA 3.0 drives.
NOTE: The PERC 12 controller tools such as PERCCLI2, drivers, and firmware are not backward compatible with previous
versions of PERC controllers.

NOTE: Mixing disks of different speed (7,200 RPM, 10,000 RPM, or 15,000 RPM) and bandwidth (6 Gbps, 12 Gbps, or 24
Gbps) while maintaining the same drive type (SAS or SATA) and technology (HDD or SSD) is supported.

NOTE: PERC 12 controllers support only single SCSI LUN and single NVMe namespace devices. Multi-LUN and Multi-
Namespace devices are not supported.

NOTE: Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drives are not supported on PERC 12 controllers.

Mixing NVMe drives with SAS and SATA is not supported. Also, mixing HDD and SSD in a virtual disk is not supported.
NOTE: For the safety, regulatory, and ergonomic information that is associated with these devices, and for more
information about the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) or Lifecycle Controller remote management, see
the platform-specific technical documentation.

NOTE: PERC 12 controller is supported in only UEFI mode as boot controller.

NOTE: SAS4 "22.5 Gbps" speed is used synonymously with "24G" and "24 Gbps" in documents and some applications. 22.5
Gbps is the data rate and 24 Gbps is the link speed.

Topics:
• Features of PERC H965i Adapter
• Features of PERC H965i Front
• Features of PERC H965e Adapter
• Features of PERC H965i MX
• Technical specifications of PERC 12 cards
• Operating systems supported by PERC 12 cards

8 Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Features of PERC H965i Adapter
Features of PERC H965i Adapter

Figure 1. Features of PERC H965i Adapter

1. Heatsink 2. Backplane Connector-B
3. Battery (Energy Pack) 4. Backplane Connector-A
5. PCIe connector

The following image shows another type of H965i adapter that you can use in a PowerEdge sled model. For example,
PowerEdge C6620. In this type of adapter, you can detach the battery and install it in the air shroud of the sled. For information
about installing battery into the air shroud, see Install the PERC H965i Adapter.

Figure 2. PERC H965i Adapter with a detachable battery

Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 9

Features of PERC H965i Front
PERC H965i Front

Figure 3. PERC H965i Front

1. PCIe connector B 2. PCIe connector A
3. Backplane connector B 4. Backplane connector A
5. Battery (Energy Pack) 6. Heat sink
7. Power card edge connector

10 Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Features of PERC H965e Adapter
PERC H965e Adapter

Figure 4. PERC H965e Adapter

1. Fan cable connector 2. Heat sink
3. Fan 4. Battery
5. Battery cable connector 6. Port 3
7. Port 2 8. Port 1
9. Port 0

Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 11

Features of PERC H965i MX

Figure 5. Features of PERC H965i MX

1. Battery (Energy Pack) under cover 2. Heatsink
3. Backplane connector A 4. Backplane connector B
5. PCIe cable connector

12 Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Technical specifications of PERC 12 cards
The following table lists the specifications of PERC 12 cards:

Table 1. Technical specifications of PERC 12 cards

Feature PERC H965i PERC H965i Front PERC H965i MX PERC H965e Adapter
Adapter
RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60
Non–RAID Yes Yes Yes Yes
Enclosures per port Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable 4
Processor Broadcom RAID-on- Broadcom RAID-on- Broadcom RAID-on- Broadcom RAID-on-chip,
chip, SAS4116W chip, SAS4116W chipset chip, SAS4116W SAS4116W chipset
chipset chipset
Battery (Energy Pack) Yes Yes Yes Yes
backup unit
Local Key Management Yes Yes Yes Yes
security
Secure enterprise key Yes Yes No Yes
manager security
Controller queue depth 8,192 8,192 8,192 8,192
Non-volatile cache Yes Yes Yes Yes
Cache memory 8 GB DDR4 3200 8 GB DDR4 3200 MT/s 8 GB DDR4 3200 8 GB DDR4 3200 MT/s
MT/s cache cache MT/s cache cache
Cache function Write-back, write- Write-back, write- Write-back, write- Write-back, write-through,
through, always through, always write- through, always always write-back, no read-
write-back, no read- back, no read-ahead write-back, no ahead
ahead read-ahead
Max no of VDs in RAID 240 240 240 240
mode
Max no of disk groups 64 64 64 64
Max no of VDs per disk 16 16 16 16
group
Hot-swap devices Yes Yes Yes Yes
supported
Auto-Configure behavior Yes Yes Yes Yes
(Primary and Execute
once)
Hardware XOR engine Yes Yes Yes Yes
Online capacity Yes Yes Yes Yes
expansion
Dedicated and global Yes Yes Yes Yes
hot-spare
Supported Drive Types 22.5 Gbps SAS, 22.5 Gbps SAS, 12 Gbps 22.5 Gbps SAS, 12 22.5 Gbps SAS, 12 Gbps
12 Gbps SAS, and SAS, and 6 Gbps SATA/ Gbps SAS, and 6 SAS
6 Gbps SATA/SAS. SAS. Gen3 (8 GT/s) and Gbps SATA/SAS.
Gen3 (8 GT/s) and Gen4 (16 GT/s) NVMe Gen3 (8 GT/s) and
Gen4 (16 GT/s) Gen4 (16 GT/s)
NVMe NVMe
VD strip element size 64 KB, 256 KB 64 KB, 256 KB 64 KB, 256 KB 64 KB, 256 KB

Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 13

Table 1. Technical specifications of PERC 12 cards (continued)
Feature PERC H965i PERC H965i Front PERC H965i MX PERC H965e Adapter
Adapter
PCIe support Gen 4 Gen 4 Gen 4 Gen 4
Configuration maximum ● Without SAS ● Without SAS Limited by platform: 240 SAS drives
SAS/SATA physical Expander: 16 Expander: 16 drives 8 drives per
disks support drives per per controller controller
controller ● With SAS Expander:
● With SAS Limited by platform
Expander: Limited offerings
by platform
offerings
Configuration maximum ● Without PCIe ● Without PCIe Switch Limited by platform: Not supported
NVMe physical drives Switch Expander: Expander: 8 drives 8 drives per
support 8 drives per per controller controller
controller ● With PCIe Switch
● With PCIe Switch Expander: Limited by
Expander: Limited platform offerings
by platform
offerings
Controller maximum ● 240 SAS/SATA ● 240 SAS/SATA ● 240 SAS/SATA 240 SAS
physical disks supported ● 24 NVMe ● 24 NVMe ● 24 NVMe
Drive sector size 512B, 512e, and 4Kn 512B, 512e, and 4Kn 512B, 512e, and 4Kn 512B, 512e, and 4Kn
supported
Storage Boot Support UEFI-only UEFI-only UEFI-only No boot support

Operating systems supported by PERC 12 cards

NOTE: A PERC H965e controller is not supported as a boot controller.

● For a list of supported operating systems by a specific server for the PERC 12 cards, see Dell Technologies Enterprise
operating systems support.
● For the latest list of supported operating systems and driver installation instructions, see the operating system
documentation at www.dell.com/operatingsystemmanuals.
● For specific operating system service pack requirements, see the Drivers and Downloads section at Dell Technologies
support site.

14 Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

 2
Applications and User Interfaces supported
by PERC 12
PERC 12 card management applications include the Comprehensive Embedded Management (CEM), Dell OpenManage Storage
Management, the Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) Configuration Utility, and the PERC Command Line Interface (CLI). They
enable you to manage and configure the RAID system, create and manage multiple disk groups, control and monitor multiple
RAID systems, and provide online maintenance.
Topics:
• Comprehensive Embedded Management
• Dell OpenManage Storage Management
• Human Interface Infrastructure Configuration Utility
• The PERC Command Line Interface

Comprehensive Embedded Management

Comprehensive Embedded Management (CEM) is a storage management solution for Dell systems that enables you to monitor
the RAID and network controllers installed on the system using iDRAC without an operating system installed on the system.
Using CEM enables you to do the following:
● Monitor devices with and without an operating system installed on the server.
● Provide a specific location to access monitored data of the storage devices and network cards.
● Allows controller configuration for all 12th generation of PERC 12 controllers.
NOTE: If you boot the system to HII (F2) or Lifecycle Controller (F10), then you cannot view the PERC cards on the CEM
UI. The PERC cards are displayed on the CEM UI only after the system boot is complete.

NOTE: It is not recommended that you create more than eight VDs simultaneously using CEM.

Dell OpenManage Storage Management

Dell OpenManage Storage Management is a storage management application for Dell servers that provides enhanced features
for configuring locally attached RAID disk storage. It enables you to perform controller and enclosure functions for all supported
RAID controllers and enclosures from a single User Interface (UI) or Command Line Interface (CLI).
The UI is wizard-driven with features for novice and advanced users, and provides Online Help (OLH). Using the Dell
OpenManage Storage Management application you can protect your data by configuring data-redundancy, assigning hot-spares,
or rebuilding failed physical disks. The fully featured CLI, which is available on selected operating systems, enables you to
perform RAID management tasks either directly from the console or by running commands.
NOTE: For more information, see the Dell OpenManage Storage Management User's Guide available at www.dell.com/
openmanagemanuals.

Applications and User Interfaces supported by PERC 12 15

Human Interface Infrastructure Configuration Utility
The Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility is a storage management application integrated into the system
BIOS <F2>. It is used to configure and manage your Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) virtual disks and physical disks.
This utility is independent of the operating system.

The PERC Command Line Interface

The PERC Command Line Interface (CLI) is a storage management application. This utility allows you to set up, configure, and
manage your Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) by using the CLI.
NOTE: For more information, see the Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller CLI Reference Guide and the Dell PowerEdge RAID
Controller 12 User’s Guide available on the support site.

16 Applications and User Interfaces supported by PERC 12

 3
Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12
Topics:
• Controller features
• Virtual disk features
• Virtual disk initialization
• Background operations
• Drive features
• Fault tolerance

Controller features
This section lists the following controller features supported on Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 cards:
● Hardware Root of Trust
● Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM)
● Device enumeration
● UEFI Secure Boot
● Auto-Configure Behavior (Execute Once)
● Auto-Configure Behavior (Primary and Secondary settings)
● Disk roaming
● Hardware Accelerated I/O
● Non–RAID disks
● Physical disk power management
● Firmware update
● Snapdump
● Physical disk coercion
● PERC H965e support for PowerVault MD24XX enclosure

Hardware Root of Trust

Hardware Root of Trust (RoT) builds a chain of trust by authenticating all the firmware components prior to its execution and
permits only the authenticated firmware to be installed and upgraded. The controller boots from an Internal Boot ROM (IBR)
that establishes the initial RoT and this process authenticates and builds a chain of trust with succeeding software using this
RoT.

Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM)

Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM) is a mechanism by which iDRAC can verify the authenticity of the PERC in the
system. Each PERC card is manufactured with a unique Device Identity certificate signed by Dell to ensure that the PERC is
a Dell Certified controller. iDRAC will automatically retrieve a Device Identity certificate from the PERC card during boot and
verify its identity against the PERC and notify the user if the device could not be authenticated. The SPDM feature is supported
in the PERC 8.4.0.0-18-27 or later versions.

Device enumeration
All devices attached to the controller are assigned an ID from a persistent range of numbers. This includes backplanes, physical
disks, and virtual disks. When a backplane is discovered, it is assigned a range of IDs based on the number of slots the backplane

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 17

has. Each slot is assigned a dedicated ID in ascending order from the reserved range. When a disk is inserted, an ID allocated to
the slot will be assigned.
Virtual disks are assigned an ID based on creation. The first virtual disk created will be assigned ID 1 and increases for each
virtual disk. If a virtual disk is deleted, a newly created virtual disk will reuse that ID before using the next free ID. The newly
created virtual disk will only reuse that ID if more than 120 seconds have passed since the pervious virtual disk was deleted.
● Operating system device enumeration
○ All devices are presented to the operating system as a SCSI device.
○ Virtual disks and non-RAID disks are presented to the OS in the order of their ID.
￭ virtual disks are presented first in ascending order of ID.
￭ non-RAID disks are presented second in ascending order of physical disk ID.
○ In case of some automated OS installation processes, by default, the OS is installed on the disk that is first presented to
the system. If you are installing to a virtual disk, it is recommended to make the first created VD the OS. If you installing
to a non-RAID disk, it is recommended to install the disk in slot 0 of the front backplane.
○
NOTE: Operating system enumeration may not be in this order if virtual disks or non-RAID disks are created while the
operating system is running. The operating system may name devices based on the order in which they were created
resulting in the operating system enumeration changing after reboot. It is recommended to restart the system for the final
device enumeration after creating any virtual disk or non-RAID disk.

UEFI Secure Boot

UEFI Secure Boot is a technology that eliminates a major security void that may occur during a handoff between the UEFI
firmware and UEFI operating system (OS). In UEFI Secure Boot, each component in the chain is validated and authorized
against a specific certificate before it is allowed to load or run. Secure Boot removes the threat and provides software identity
checking at every step of the boot-Platform firmware, Option Cards, and OS BootLoader. For more information about using
UEFI Secure Boot in PowerEdge servers, see the "Secure Boot Configuration from BIOS Settings or F2" section of the iDRAC
User's Guide available on the support site.
To view a list of supported operating systems, see PowerEdge server supported operating systems. By default, Windows and
VMware support UEFI on both in-box and out-of-box drivers. However, Linux supports UEFI only with in-box drivers. For
Out-of-Box Linux drivers, you must install Broadcom public key in the UEFI or OS signature database. For information about
installing signature database, see the technical documentation of the respective platform or OS. The Broadcom Public database
key is provided with a OS driver package on the Dell support site. The following table lists the OS and their supported driver
types and also indicates whether or not the UEFI Secure Boot feature is supported wth PERC12.

Table 2. UEFI Secure Boot Supported Operating systems on PowerEdge servers using PERC 12
Operating System Driver Type Secure Boot Supported? Signature Database
Microsoft Windows Server In-Box Yes Native
Windows Server Out-of-Box Yes Native
RHEL In-Box Yes Native
RHEL Out-of-Box Yes (with DB Install) Broadcom Public
SUSE SLES In-Box Yes Native
SUSE SLES Out-of-Box Yes (with DB Install) Broadcom Public
VMware VMware-provided Yes Native

Auto-Configure Behavior (Execute Once)

The Auto-Configure Behavior (execute once) operation configures eligible ready-state drives based on the selected
configuration. The supported configuration options for this feature are:
● Single drive RAID 0 with write-through cache policy
● Single drive RAID 0 with write-back cache policy
● Non-RAID disk
● Secured single drive RAID 0 with write-through cache policy

18 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

● Secured single drive RAID 0 with write-back cache policy
● Secured non-RAID disk
NOTE: The secured configuration options are available only when controller security is enabled and SEDs are present.

NOTE: The cache policy settings do not apply to non-RAID drives.

Auto-Configure Behavior (Primary and Secondary settings)

The Auto-Configure Behavior feature is used to configure new unconfigured drives (ready-state drives) during reboot and hot-
insertion based on the selected configuration options (primary and secondary settings). The primary setting of Auto-Configure
Behavior is used until the maximum configuration for the selected option is reached. Secondary setting of Auto-Configure
Behavior is used after the maximum configuration for primary Auto-Configure option is reached.
Primary and secondary Auto-Configure settings do not impact known unconfigured drives during boot and hot-insertion. Known
unconfigured drives are drives that were previously configured as virtual disk, hot-spare, or non-RAID disk and are now in the
Ready state because the configuration on those drives was deleted.
When primary and secondary Auto-Configure options are changed from Off to any other settings, all unconfigured drives
(including known devices) present on the controller are configured according to the selected options.

NOTE: Secured configuration options are available only when the controller security is enabled.

The following table provides options for the supported primary Auto-Configure Behavior:

Table 3. Auto-Configure Behavior settings

Settings Description
Off The Auto-Configure Behavior feature is disabled. All new unconfigured drives remain in unconfigured
or ready state. Existing configured drives are not affected when primary, secondary, or both Auto-
Configure settings are changed to Off.
NOTE: Applications use Off and Ready terms interchangeably for this setting.

Non–RAID New unconfigured drives are configured as non-RAID disks during boot or during hot-insertion. All
known unconfigured drives and existing configured drives remain unaffected during boot, hot-removal,
or reinsertion.
Secured Non-RAID New unconfigured drives are configured as non-RAID disks during boot or hot-insertion. All known
Disk unconfigured drives and existing configured drives remain unaffected during boot, hot-removal, or
reinsertion. SEDs are secured with the controller security key.

NOTE: Secondary Auto-Configure settings may not be supported on certain drive types. In such cases, the only available
secondary Auto-Configure behavior option is Off.

Disk roaming
Disk roaming is when a physical disk is moved from one cable connection or backplane slot to another on the same controller.
The controller automatically recognizes the relocated physical disks and logically assigns them to the virtual disks that are part
of the disk group. If the physical disk is configured as a non–RAID disk, then the relocated physical disk is recognized as a
non–RAID disk by the controller.
CAUTION:

It is recommended that you perform a disk-roaming operation only when the server is powered off. Do not
move drives between slots when the server is running. If it is attempted, maintain a 4-second delay between
the removal and insertion operation for SAS or SATA devices. Maintain an 8-second delay between the removal
and insertion operation for NVMe devices. Inability to observe this delay may result in issues while detecting
devices.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 19

Using disk roaming
About this task
Perform the following steps to use disk roaming:

Steps
1. Power off the server, PDs, enclosures, and server components.
2. Disconnect power cables from the server.
3. Move the physical disks to desired positions on the backplane or the enclosure.
4. Perform a safety check. Make sure the physical disks are inserted properly.
5. Power on the server.

Results
The controller detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the physical disks.

Hardware Accelerated I/O

The PERC12 features improved hardware accelerated I/O when compared to the previous generation of controllers. The
following table lists the different types of I/O provided by PERC 12 and previous generation of storage controllers:

Table 4. Comparison of performance for different I/O type for PERC 12 and previous generation of
controllers
I/O Type VD Cache Hardware Accelerated in Hardware Accelerated in
previous generations PERC12 generation
SAS/SATA non-RAID Read- N/A Yes Yes
Write
NVMe non-RAID Read Write N/A Yes Yes
Any RAID Level Single-Strip- Write-Through Yes Yes
Read
R0, R1, R10 Single-Strip-Write Write-Through Yes Yes
R0, R1, R10 Single-Strip-Read Write-Back with cache miss Yes Yes
R0, R1, R10 Single-Strip-Write Write-Back with cache miss Yes Yes
R5, R6 Single-Strip-Read Write-Back with cache miss Yes Yes
Any RAID Level MultiStrip- Write-Through No Yes
Read
Any RAID Level MultiStrip- Write-Back No Yes
Read
R0, R1, R10 MultiStrip-Write Write-Through No Yes
R0, R1, R10 Single-Strip-Read Write-Back with cache hit No Yes
R0, R1, R10 Single-Strip-Write Write-Back with cache hit No Yes
R5, R6 Write Write-Through No Yes
R5, R6 Write Write-Back No Yes
R5, R6 Single-Strip-Read Write-Back with cache hit No Yes
Cache Flush Write-Back No Yes
Degraded VD-Read Write-Through and Write- No Yes
Back

20 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Non–RAID disks
A non–RAID disk is a single disk to the host, and not a RAID volume. The only supported cache policy for non-RAID disks is
Write-Through, and cannot be altered.

Physical disk power management

Physical disk power management is a power-saving feature of PERC 12 series cards. The feature allows disks to be spun
down based on disk configuration and I/O activity. The feature is supported on all rotating SAS and SATA disks, and includes
unconfigured and hot-spare disks. By default, the physical disk power management feature is enabled on unconfigured drives
and disabled on hot-spare drives.

Firmware update
Upgrade or downgrade the PERC 12 firmware using Update Packages or PERC CLI. See Manage the PERC 12 firmware.

Secure firmware update

Enables you to upgrade firmware by using an RSA encryption-decryption algorithm. The firmware upgrade operations you
perform on a PERC 12 controller are secure. You can upgrade the PERC firmware by using only a Dell certified firmware.

Rebootless firmware update

Starting from PERC 12 generation of controllers, rebootless firmware update is supported in most cases. However, a system-
reset operation may still be required to activate the newly downloaded firmware in exceptional cases such as presence of
preserved cache or update to firmware components related to power handling or caching.

Snapdump
The Snapdump feature provides the Dell Technical Support team with the debug information that can help to find the cause of
firmware failure. In the instance of firmware failures, the firmware collects the logs and information at the time of failure, which
are stored in a compressed file called a snapdump.
Snapdumps are also generated manually to provide additional debug information. When a snapdump is generated, it is stored
in the controller's cache memory. In the event of a power loss the controller will offload the snapdump as part of its cache
preservation mechanism. Snapdumps are preserved by default through four restarts before it is deleted.

NOTE: The I/O operation will pause for about 5-10 seconds while collecting the on-demand snapdump.

To generate, delete, or download a stored snapdump, see the Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller CLI Reference Guide available on
the support site.

Physical disk coercion

Enables you to create consistent disk size for drives that have slightly different sizes. Use the coercion feature in HII to match
the sizes of drives that are slightly larger with the smaller drives in case you want to insert slightly smaller drives later. PERC 12
controllers support coercion modes such as None (32 MiB), 128 MiB, or 1 GiB. Default mode is 128 MiB. For virtual disks and
hot-spares, the last 512 MiB is used for configuration information.
Coerced size = (raw disk size minus 512 MiB configuration information) rounded down to the nearest full coercion mode size
bucket.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 21

Set Drive Coercion Mode
To provide consistent disk size for drives that are slightly different in sizes, set the drive coercion mode in HII.

Steps
1. Log in to HII.
2. Go to Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. Select the Drive Coercion Mode and click Apply Changes.

PERC H965e support for PowerVault MD24XX enclosure

The PERC H965e adapter card is an external card and supports MD24xx series disk-attached external storage enclosure. The
PERC H965e adapter supports up to eight MD2412 or MD2424 enclosures in a multipath configuration and up to four MD2460
enclosures in a multipath configuration. The PERC H965e adapter supports only symmetric enclosure topology. To set up a
configuration with redundant paths—port 0 and 1, or port 2 and 3—a controller must be cabled to the ports of a single
enclosure.

NOTE: The H965e adapter card does not support single path configuration.

NOTE: The H965e card supports redundant paths when used with Dell PowerVault MD2412, MD2424, and MD2460 series
disk-attached storage enclosures.

NOTE: For PowerVault MD24XX series disk-attached storage enclosure, the multipath configuration is the only valid
configuration.

Connect an H965e adapter to MD24xx enclosures

To set up a multipath enclosure on the PERC H965e card:
● On the controller, port 0 and 1, or port 2 and 3 must be used together. Interleaving of controller ports for multipath
configuration is not supported.
● To connect a single enclosure, cable the ports so that the enclosure is connected to port 0 and 1, or port 2 and 3 on the
controller card.
● To connect multiple enclosures, connect a set of ports on the controller to the first enclosure as mentioned in the above
bullet point. Connect cables from the first enclosure to the second enclosure. Then, continue to connect 2 cables from the
last enclosure in the chain to the next enclosure you want to include until you have up to 4 enclosures, or 8 enclosures with 4
enclosures per stack. See Figure 6 and Figure 7.
NOTE: The PERC H965e adapter card can detect and use redundant paths to disks contained in the enclosures. With
redundant paths to the same device, if one path fails, another path can be used to communicate between the controller and
the device.

NOTE: Max enclosure support for multipath: Eight (8) MD2412 and MD2424 enclosures or four (4) MD2460 enclosures.

NOTE: It is recommended that the wait-time for hot-removing or hot-inserting enclosure data or power cables is 2-3
minutes for 24 drives in a single MD24xx series disk-attached storage enclosure and up to five minutes for maximum
enclosures configuration.

22 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Figure 6. PERC H965e adapter card ports—Eight enclosures with multipath configuration for the MD2412 and
MD2424 series enclosures

Figure 7. PERC H965e adapter card ports-Four enclosures with multipath configuration for the MD2460 series
enclosures

Virtual disk features

NOTE: All VDs are exposed as 4k sector devices to the host and operating system.

This section lists the following virtual disk features supported on PERC 12 cards:

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 23

● Auto-import foreign virtual drives
● Virtual disk migration
● Virtual disk write cache policy
● Virtual disk initialization
● Online capacity expansion
● Background operations

Auto-import foreign virtual drives

By default, this feature is enabled on a PERC 12 controller. Foreign Virtual Drives (VDs) are automatically imported when a
server is either restarted, or a controller is reset or replaced. Ensure that you verify the new VD number after automatically
importing because a VD number may change after an auto-import operation. To resolve any issues pertaining to auto-importing,
see the Troubleshooting section in this User's Guide.

Virtual disk migration

The PERC 12 series supports migration of virtual disks from one controller to another without taking the target controller offline.
The controller can import RAID virtual disks in optimal, degraded, or partially degraded states. You cannot import a virtual disk
that is offline. When a controller detects a configured physical disk, it marks the physical disk as foreign, and generates an alert
indicating that a foreign disk was detected.
NOTE: You cannot migrate data managed by earlier versions such as PERC 10 and PERC 11 to PERC 12 controllers.
However, you can migrate data of unsecured non-RAID disks from PERC 10 and PERC 11 to the latest PERC 12 controllers.

NOTE: The source controller must be offline prior to performing the disk migration.

NOTE: Importing secured VDs is supported as long as the appropriate Local Key Management (LKM) is supplied or
configured.

NOTE: An additional reboot operation may be required for the UEFI BIOS to detect a newly imported Virtual disk.

NOTE: Importing a manually offlined VD is not supported. Recreate the VD exactly as it was before it was offline to get the
configuration back.

Online capacity expansion

You can dynamically expand an online VD by using Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
NOTE: The OCE feature is not supported on spanned VDs such as RAID 50 and RAID 60.

NOTE: If multiple VDs exist within a common disk group or if a single VD does not start at the first block of the disk group,
the OCE operation is not supported on those VDs.

NOTE: OCE typically impacts disk performance until the expansion operation is completed.

Drive mixing rules apply to an OCE operation which does not allow mixing of:
● SAS and SATA drives
● HDDs and SSDs
● NVMe drives with HDDs and SSDs
An OCE operation can be performed in the following methods:
● If there is free space available in a disk group, the capacity of a virtual disk can be expanded within the available free space.
● If there is no free space available within the disk group, physical disks can be added to the virtual disk to increase its
capacity.
● After replacing all disk group members with larger drives than the original member drives, use the PERC CLI utility to expand
the existing disk group to a larger size using the Expand Disk Group feature.
CAUTION: Do not remove drives or attempt disk migration during OCE operations. This results in loss of VDs.

24 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

 NOTE: An OCE operation is not supported when another OCE operation with PD addition is in progress on the controller.

NOTE: When an OCE operation is started on a VD, all VDs with write-back cache policy that are present on the controller
are converted to write-through. Cache policy is restored to original setting after the OCE operation is completed.

NOTE: An OCE operation is not supported when certain background operations are in progress on a VD or vice versa. Any
pending operations will start after the current operations are completed. Example operations are:
● Virtual Disk Initialization
● Consistency Check
● Background Initialization
● Drive Rebuild
● Copyback
● Patrol Read

NOTE: If the controller already contains the maximum number (64) of VDs (all VD configurations except a single drive R0),
contains the maximum number (240) of disk groups, or surpasses the maximum number (240) of configured PDs with the
OCE operation, you cannot perform an OCE operation.

NOTE: The RAID Level Migration (RLM) feature is not supported on PERC12 controllers.

Virtual disk write cache policy

The write cache policy of a virtual disk determines how the controller handles Write operations to the virtual disk.

Table 5. Write cache policies

Feature Description
Write-back The controller sends a data transfer completion response to the host when the controller
cache has received all the data in a transaction. The controller then writes the cached data to
the storage device in the background.
NOTE: The default cache setting of HDD-based VDs is write-back. Write-back caching is
also supported for single drive RAID 0 virtual disks.

Write-through The controller sends a data transfer completion response to the host system when the disk
subsystem has received all the data in a transaction.
NOTE: Certain data patterns and configurations perform better with a write-through
cache policy.

NOTE: All RAID volumes are presented as write-through to the operating system (Windows and Linux) independent of the
actual write cache policy of the virtual disk. PERC cards manage the data in cache independently of the operating system or
any applications.

NOTE: Use the Dell OpenManage Storage Management application or the HII Configuration Utility to view and manage
virtual disk cache settings.

Conditions under which write-back is used

Write-back caching is used under all conditions in which the battery (Energy Pack) is present and in good condition.

Conditions under which forced write-back with no battery is used

CAUTION: It is recommended that you use a power backup system when forcing write-back to ensure there is no
loss of data if the system suddenly loses power.
The write-back mode is available when you select force write-back with no battery (Energy Pack). When the forced write-back
mode is selected, the virtual disk is in write-back mode even if the battery is not present.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 25

Virtual disk initialization
The PERC 12 series controllers support two types of virtual disk initialization:
● Full initialization
● Fast initialization
CAUTION: Initializing virtual disks erases files and file systems while keeping the virtual disk configuration
intact.

Full initialization
NOTE: When the full initialization operation is in progress, you cannot perform any host data I/O operations on the VDs.

Performing a full initialization operation on a virtual disk overwrites all blocks and deletes any data that previously existed on
the virtual disk. Full initialization of a virtual disk eliminates the need for the virtual disk to undergo a Background Initialization
(BGI). Full initialization can be performed after the virtual disk is created. For more information on how to create a virtual disk
and configure virtual disk parameters (full initialization) in HII, see Create virtual disks.
You can start the Full Initialization operation on a virtual disk by using the Slow Initialize option in the Dell OpenManage
Storage Management application.
NOTE: If the system reboots during a full initialization operation, the operation is abruptly stopped and a BGI operation
starts on the virtual disk.

Fast initialization
A fast initialization on a virtual disk overwrites the first and last 8 MB of the virtual disk, clearing any boot records or partition
information. The operation takes only 2–3 seconds to complete, but it is followed by BGI, which takes longer to complete.
NOTE: During full or fast initialization, the host cannot access the virtual disk. As a result, if the host attempts to access
the virtual disk while it is initializing, all I/O sent by the host will fail.

NOTE: When using iDRAC to create a virtual disk, the drive undergoes fast initialization. During this process all I/O requests
to the drive will respond with a sense key of Not Ready and the I/O operation will fail. If the operating system attempts to
read from the drive as soon as it discovers the drive and while the fast initialization is still in process, the I/O operation fails
and the operating system reports an I/O error.

Background operations
Background initialization
Background Initialization (BGI) is an automated process that writes parity or mirror data on newly created virtual disks. BGI does
not run on RAID 0 virtual disks. You can control the BGI rate in the HII application. Any change to the BGI rate does not take
effect until the next BGI operation is started.
NOTE:
● If you cancel BGI, it automatically restarts within five minutes.
● Unlike full or fast initialization of virtual disks, background initialization does not clear data from the physical disks.
● Consistency Check (CC) and BGI typically cause some loss in performance until the operation completes.
Consistency check and BGI perform similar functions in that they both correct parity errors. However, CC reports data
inconsistencies through an event notification, while BGI does not. You can start CC manually, but not BGI.

Consistency checks
Consistency Check (CC) is a background operation that verifies and corrects the mirror or parity data for fault tolerant virtual
disks. It is recommended that you periodically run a consistency check on virtual disks. You can manually start a CC using the

26 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

HII Configuration Utility or the PERC CLI application. To start a CC using the HII Configuration Utility, see Check consistency of
VDs.

NOTE: CC or BGI typically causes some loss in performance until the operation completes.

CC and BGI both correct parity errors. However, CC reports data inconsistencies through an event notification, while BGI does
not. You can start CC manually, but not BGI.

Drive features
This section lists the following hard drive features supported on PERC 12 cards:
● Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs)
● Opal Security Management
● Instant secure erase
● 4KB sector drives
● Non-Volatile Memory Express
● Conditions under which a PERC supports an NVMe drive

Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs)

The PERC 12 series of cards support SEDs for protection of data against loss or theft by the use of encryption technology on
the drives. There is one security key per controller. You can manage the security key using Local Key Management (LKM) or
OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager also referred as Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM). The security key is used
by the controller to lock and unlock access to encryption-capable physical disks. To use this feature, you must:
● Have SEDs in your system.
● Create a security key.
SEDs that are secured by a non-PERC entity cannot be used by PERC. Ensure that the SED is re-provisioned in an applicable
manner by the non-PERC entity before connecting to PERC. For more information, see Security key and RAID management.

NOTE: You cannot enable security on non-optimal virtual disks.

NOTE: PERC 12 supports Trusted Computing Group Enterprise (TCG), Security Subsystem Classes (SSC) SAS or SATA
SEDs, and TCG Opal SSC NVMe drives.

Opal Security Management

Opal Security Management of Opal SEDs requires security key management support. You can use integrated Dell Remote
Access Controller (iDRAC) to generate the security key for the Opal drives which is used as an authentication key to lock and
unlock the Opal drives.

Instant secure erase

Instant Secure Erase (ISE) drives use the same encryption technology as SEDs but do not allow the encryption key to be
secured. The encryption technology allows the drive to be re-purposed and securely erased using the cryptographic erase
function.

NOTE: ISE drives do not provide protection against reading the drive data in case of a theft.

Physical disk erase

The Physical disk erase feature allows data that is saved on disks to be securely erased so that data cannot be recovered. The
PERC 12 series controllers provide four methods for erasing disks—Physical Disk Erase, Cryptographic Erase, Sanitize Block
Erase, and Sanitize Overwrite.
● Physical disk erase—Erases drives by writing data pattern on disks with varying number of passes. Physical disk erase is
supported on non-ISE and non-SEDs.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 27

● Cryptographic Erase—Cryptographically erases disks by changing the media encryption key. This feature is supported on ISE
or SEDs. In case of SEDs, unsecures the drives and reverts them to factory security settings. See Instant Secure Erase and
Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs).
● Sanitize Block Erase—Alters information by setting the physical blocks to a vendor specific value.
● Sanitize Overwrite Erase—Alters information by setting physical blocks to a user-specific value. Also, it can do multiple
overwrite operations and invert the pattern between consecutive overwrite passes.

PERC managed Sanitize Erase operation

The PERC managed Sanitize Block Erase or Sanitize Overwrite Erase operation can be triggered and monitored using HII and
PERCCLI. Prerequisites for performing this operation are:
NOTE: Drive mixing rules apply to an OCE operation which does not allow mixing of:
● Have an unconfigured physical disk.
● Physical disks must support only the necessary sanitize method.

NOTE: If drive supports the cryptographic erase operation, drive will not be eligible to perform the required sanitize
operation.
Limitations of the PERC managed Sanitize Erase operation:
● Available for the Sanitize Secure Erase operation managed by a PERC card.
● Once the sanitize erase operation is started, the following operations will be blocked from executing:
○ Non-RAID creation
○ Dedicated or Global hot-spare creation
○ Another erase operation
○ VD creation
○ Copyback Operations
○ Rebuild Operations
○ Replace missing physical drives
○ Auto Rebuild

4KB sector drives

The PERC 12 series controllers support 4 KB sector drives. Before installing Windows on 4KB sector drives, see Windows
operating system installation errors.
NOTE: Mixing 512–byte native and 512–byte emulated drives in a VD is allowed, but mixing 512–byte and 4 KB native
drives in a VD is not allowed.

Non-Volatile Memory Express

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is a standardized, high-performance host controller interface and a storage protocol for
communicating with non-volatile memory storage devices over the PCIe interface standard. The PERC 12 controller supports up
to 8 direct-attach NVMe drives. The PERC 12 controller is a PCIe endpoint to the host, a PowerEdge server, and configured as
a PCIe root complex for downstream PCIe NVMe devices connected to the controller.
NOTE: The NVMe drive on the PERC 12 controller is identified as a SCSI disk in the operating system. The NVMe CLI will
not work for the attached NVMe drives.

Conditions under which a PERC supports an NVMe drive

● A single Namespace must be present.
● The NameSpace Identifier (NSID) with ID 1, which is (NSID=1), must be present.
● The namespace with NSID=1 must be formatted without end-to-end data protection information and must have the
metadata disabled
● PERC supports 512-bytes or 4 KB sector disk drives for NVMe devices.

28 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Drive recovery for NVMe initialization failure
If an NVMe drive fails to initialize, the drive that is connected to PERC can be recovered in HII. The NVMe initialization errors in
the drives are listed as recoverable and nonrecoverable errors in HII.
The recoverable drives are identified as the following in the HII: Unusable (Recoverable), Error: <error string>.
The nonrecoverable drives are listed as Usable in HII. Metadata and End-to-end Data Protected (EEDP) formatted disks
cannot be recovered when connected to PERC 12.

Drive recovery with correctable NVMe initialization errors

Recover the drives with recoverable NVMe initialization errors in HII to enable the drives to work properly.

Steps
1. Log in to HII.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Enclosure X.
The drives with recoverable and non-recoverable errors are listed.
3. Select the drive and click Recover.
If the drive data is successfully recovered, the drive is listed under physical drives and removed from the recoverable error
list. If the drive has other recoverable errors, the drive is listed again in the recoverable errors list.
4. If the repair is not successful, click Recover.
If the error is still not resolved or if the drive has other non-recoverable errors, the drive is moved to the non-recoverable
error list.

Fault tolerance
The PERC 12 series supports the following:
● The SMART feature
● Patrol Read
● Physical disk failure detection
● Controller cache
● Battery (Energy Pack) Transparent Learn Cycle
The following sections describe methods to achieve fault tolerance.

The SMART feature

The SMART feature monitors certain physical aspects of all motors, heads, and physical disk electronics to help detect
predictable physical disk failures. Data on SMART compliant physical disks can be monitored to identify changes in values
and determine whether the values are within threshold limits. Many mechanical and electrical failures display some degradation
in performance before failure.
A SMART failure is also referred to as predicted failure. There are numerous factors of a predicted physical disk failure—
bearing failure, a broken read or write head, and changes in spin-up rate. Also, there are factors related to read or write surface
failure, such as seek error rate and excessive bad sectors.
NOTE: For detailed information on SCSI interface specifications, see t10.org. For detailed information on SATA interface
specifications, see t13.org.

Patrol Read
The Patrol read feature is designed as a preventative measure to ensure physical disk health and data integrity. Patrol read
scans and resolves potential problems on configured physical disks. The Dell OpenManage Storage Management application can
be used to start patrol-read and change its behavior.
Some properties of the patrol-read feature are:
● Runs on all disks on the controller that are configured as part of a virtual disk, including hot-spares.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 29

● The Patrol read feature does not run on physical disks that are not part of non-RAID disks, virtual disks, or drives that are in
Ready state.
● The amount of controller resources dedicated to patrol read operations adjusts based on the number of outstanding disk I/O
operations. For example, if the system is processing a large number of I/O operations, then patrol read uses fewer resources
to allow the I/O to take a higher priority.
● Patrol read does not run on disks that are involved in any of the following operations:
○ Rebuild
○ Replace member
○ Full or background initialization
○ Consistency Check
○ Online capacity expansion (OCE)
NOTE: By default, patrol read automatically runs every seven days on configured hard drives.

For more information about patrol read, see the Dell OpenManage documentation available at www.dell.com/
openmanagemanuals.

Physical disk failure detection

If a disk fails and it is replaced with a new disk, the controller will automatically start a rebuild on the new disk. See, Configured
slot behavior. Automatic rebuilds can also be performed on hot-spares. If you have configured hot-spares, the controller will
automatically try to use them to rebuild the degraded virtual disk.

Using persistent hot-spare slots

The PERC 12 series is configured so that the system backplane or storage enclosure disk slots are dedicated as hot-spare slots.
Any slots with hot-spares are persistent. If a hot-spare disk fails or is removed, a replacement disk that is inserted into the same
slot automatically becomes a hot-spare with the same properties as the hot-spare slot it is replacing. If the replacement disk
does not match the disk protocol and technology, it does not become a hot-spare.
For more information about persistent hot-spares, see the Dell OpenManage documentation available on the support site.
NOTE: If all the VDs that are associated with a dedicated hot-spare are removed, then the hot spare will be converted to a
global hot-spare.

NOTE: If all the VDs attached to a controller are removed from a system, then the hot-spare slots, if any, will be deleted.

Configured slot behavior

This feature is similar to persistent hot-spare slot behavior. If a fault-tolerant VD is configured to the system and a drive is
replaced, the configured slot will automatically rebuild (copyback) on the inserted drive regardless of the data on the drive. This
operation overwrites the data on the drive.

Table 6. Drive state operation

Drive state/operation Unconfigured Slot configured in VD
slot
Insert unconfigured drive into the system. Ready Rebuild or copyback starts
Insert configured drive into the system. Foreign ● Rebuild or copyback starts
● Original drive data lost
Insert configured locked drive into the system Foreign Cryptographic Erase (If configured VD is not
(unlockable). secured).
● Rebuild or copyback starts
● Original drive data lost
Insert locked drive into the system (non-unlockable). Foreign locked Foreign locked

30 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

Physical disk hot-swapping
Hot swapping is the manual replacement of a disk while the PERC 12 series cards are online and performing their normal
functions. Ensure that the following requirements are met before hot-swapping a physical disk:
● The system backplane or enclosure must support hot-swapping.
● To perform a rebuild or copyback operation, the replacement drive must be of the same protocol and disk technology. For
example, only a SAS hard drive can replace a SAS hard drive and only a SATA SSD can replace a SATA SSD.
NOTE: To check if the backplane supports hot-swapping, see the platform-specific Installation and Service Manual available
on the support site.

Using Replace Member and Revertible hot-spares

The Replace Member functionality enables a previously commissioned hot-spare to revert to a usable hot-spare. When a disk
failure occurs within a virtual disk, an assigned hot-spare—dedicated or global—is commissioned and begins rebuilding until
the virtual disk is optimal. After the failed disk is replaced in the same slot and the rebuild to the hot-spare is complete, the
controller automatically starts to copy data from the commissioned hot spare to the newly inserted disk. After the data is
copied, the new disk is a part of the virtual disk and the hot-spare is reverted to being a ready hot-spare. This allows hot-spares
to remain in specific enclosure slots. While the controller is reverting the hot-spare, the virtual disk remains optimal. The
controller automatically reverts a hot-spare only if the failed disk is replaced with a new disk in the same slot. If the new disk is
not placed in the same slot, a Manual Replace Member operation can be used to revert a previously commissioned hot-spare.
NOTE: A Manual Replace Member operation typically causes a temporary impact on disk performance. After the operation
is complete, performance returns to normal state.

NOTE: Replace member is also referred to as "copyback and replace" in some management applications or events.

Automatic Replace Member with predicted failure

An Automatic Replace Member feature is triggered when there is a SMART predictive failure reported on the VD of a PD. The
Automatic Replace Member featuerd is initiated when the first SMART error occurs on a physical disk that is part of a virtual
disk. The target disk needs to be a hot-spare that qualifies as a rebuild disk. The physical disk with the SMART error is marked
as failed only after the successful completion of the replacement task. This prevents the array from reaching degraded state.
If an Automatic Replace Member operation occurs using a source disk that was originally a hot-spare (that was used in a
rebuild), and a new disk is added and set as a target disk for the replace member operation, the hot-spare drive will revert to the
hot-spare state after the operation completes.

NOTE: To enable the Automatic Replace Member feature, use the Dell OpenManage Storage Management application.

Controller cache
The PERC 12 series of cards contain local DRAM on the controllers. This DRAM can cache I/O operations for improvement of
both read and write operations.
I/O workload to HDDs, such as random read-write 512 B and 4 kB, may take some time to flush cached data. Cache is flushed
periodically, but for configuration changes or system shutdown, the cache is required to be flushed before the operation can be
completed. It can take several minutes to flush cache for some workloads depending on the speed of the HDDs and the size of
data in the cache.
The following operations require a complete cache flush:
● Configuration changes (add or delete VDs, VD cache setting changes, foreign configuration scan, and import)
● System restart or shutdown
● Abrupt power loss causing Controller cache preservation.
NOTE: iDRAC or OpenManage Storage Management periodically scans for the foreign configurations when the foreign
disks are present. This action degrades the performance. If a foreign disk is present, it is recommended that you import,
clear, or remove the foreign disk to prevent an impact on the performance.

Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 31

Controller cache preservation
The controller is capable of preserving its cache even if the server is improperly shut down or if a power outage occurs. The
PERC 12 series controller is attached to a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) that provides backup power during system power loss to
preserve the controller's cache data.

Cache preservation with non–volatile cache

The Non–Volatile Cache (NVC) allows controller cache data to be stored indefinitely. If the controller has data in the cache
memory during a power outage or improper system shutdown, little power from the battery (Energy Pack) is used to transfer
the cache data to non-volatile flash storage where it remains until power is restored and the system is started. If the cache
preservation process is interrupted by power-on, the controller may request an extra reset during the boot to complete the
process.

Recovering cache data

About this task
To recover cached data in case of power loss or improper shutdown of the server, do the following:

Steps
1. Restore the system power.
2. Start the system.
3. If preserved cache exists on the controller, a message is displayed. For more information about how to recover cache, see
Preserved Cache state.

Battery (Energy Pack) Transparent Learn Cycle

A Transparent Learn Cycle (TLC) is a periodic operation that calculates the charge that is remaining in the battery (Energy
Pack) to ensure that there is sufficient energy. The operation runs automatically and causes no impact to the system or
controller performance.
The controller automatically performs a TLC operation on the battery (Energy Pack) to calibrate and gauge its charge capacity
every 90 days. The operation can be performed manually, if required.
NOTE: If enabled, virtual disks stay in the write-back mode during a TLC. When the TLC operation completes, the controller
sets the next TLC to 90 days in the future.

NOTE: During a Transparent Learn Cycle, the battery will be discharged to around 70% to calibrate and gauge the capacity.
After the cycle is completed, the battery will charge back up to full capacity.

Transparent Learn Cycle completion time

The time frame for completion of a learn cycle is a function of the battery (Energy Pack) charge capacity and the discharge
and charge currents used. Typical time completion for a transparent learn cycle is between 4 to 8 hours. If the learn cycle is
interrupted, it begins at a new cycle.

Conditions for replacing the battery (Energy Pack)

A PERC card battery (Energy Pack) is indicated as Failed when the battery stops functioning. If the battery is declared as
failed, then all the virtual disks in write-back mode transitions to write-through mode. After replacing the battery, virtual disk
transitions back to the write-back mode.

32 Features of PowerEdge RAID Controller 12

 4
Install and remove a PERC 12 card
Topics:
• Safety instructions
• Before working inside your system
• After working inside your system
• Remove the PERC H965i Adapter
• Install the PERC H965i Adapter
• Remove the PERC H965i Front card
• Install the PERC H965i Front card
• Remove PERC H965i MX
• Install PERC H965i MX
• Removing the PERC H965e Adapter card
• Installing the PERC H965e Adapter card

Safety instructions
NOTE: To avoid injury, do not lift the system on your own. Get others to assist you.

WARNING: Opening or removing the system cover while the system is turned on may expose you to a risk of
electric shock or injury due to moving parts such as fan blades.

CAUTION: Do not operate the system without the cover in place for a duration exceeding five minutes.
Operating the system without the system cover in place can result in component damage.

CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

CAUTION: To ensure proper operation and cooling, all system bays and fans must be always populated with a
component or a blank.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use an antistatic mat and antistatic strap while working on components inside
the system.

NOTE: While replacing the hot swappable PSU, after next server boot; the new PSU automatically updates to the same
firmware and configuration of the replaced one. For more information about the Part replacement configuration, see the
Lifecycle Controller User's Guide at https://www.dell.com/idracmanuals

NOTE: While replacing faulty storage controller/FC/NIC card with the same type of card, after you power on the system;
the new card automatically updates to the same firmware and configuration of the faulty one. For more information about
the Part replacement configuration, see the Lifecycle Controller User's Guide at https://www.dell.com/idracmanuals

NOTE: Ensure to install the latest iDRAC version to support the 700 W PSU.

NOTE: Ensure to install the latest iDRAC version to support the 1100 W Titanium Mixed Mode AC/HVDC PSU and (-48V)
1100 W DC PSU.

CAUTION: Ensure to have two or more people to lift the system horizontally from the box and place it on a flat
surface, rack lift, or into the rails.

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 33

 NOTE: For detailed information on cabling the cards, see the system-specific owner's manual at Installation and Service
Manual available at https://www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals

Before working inside your system

Prerequisites
Follow the safety guidelines listed in Safety instructions.

Steps
1. Power off the system and all attached peripherals.
2. Disconnect the system from the electrical outlet and disconnect the peripherals.
3. If applicable, remove the system from the rack.
For more information, see the Rail Installation Guide relevant to your rail solutions at www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals.
4. Remove the system cover.

After working inside your system

Prerequisites
Follow the safety guidelines listed in Safety instructions.

Steps
1. Replace the system cover.
2. If applicable, install the system into the rack.
For more information, see the Rail Installation Guide relevant to your rail solutions at www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals.
3. Reconnect the peripherals and connect the system to the electrical outlet, and then power on the system.

Remove the PERC H965i Adapter

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

NOTE: Tasks indicated in this procedure may vary based on the server model from which the PERC H965i Adapter is
removed.

Steps
1. Power off the server, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet and
peripherals.
NOTE: Perform a graceful shutdown of the system to ensure data in the cache is moved to the disk(s) before the
controller is removed.

2. Open the system.

3. Locate the PERC card in the expansion riser on the system board.

34 Install and remove a PERC 12 card

 CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only.

4. Unfasten and lift the riser from the system board. Remove the PERC card.
5. Unfasten the screw that is used to hold the cable cover.
6. Disconnect any cables connected to the card:
a. Press down and hold the metal tab on the cable connector.
b. Pull the cable out of the connector.
7. Replace the storage controller card and reconnect the data cables before placing them in the riser. Tighten the screw again
to hold the cable cover firmly. For more information on installing the card, see Install the PERC H965i Adapter.
8. Reinstall the riser on the system board and fasten the riser.
9. Close the system.
10. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn the system on, including any attached peripherals.

Figure 8. Remove the PERC H965i Adapter

Install the PERC H965i Adapter

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

NOTE: The steps may vary based on the platforms where PERC H965i Adapter is installed.

Steps
1. Turn off the system, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet.

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 35

2. Open the system.
3. Align the card-edge connector with the connector on the riser.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only.

4. Press the card-edge until the card is fully seated.

5. Unfasten the screw that is used to hold the cable cover.
6. Connect the data cable connectors to the card. Tighten the screw again to hold the cable cover firmly.
7. Route the data cable through the channel on the inner side of the server chassis to the backplane.
8. Attach the connector to the corresponding connector on the backplane as labeled on the controller. If you are installing a
PERC 12 H965i adapter card that has a detachable battery, for example, in a PowerEdge C6620 sled, install the battery in
the air shroud by doing the following:
a. Insert the battery into the air shroud by ensuring that the surface that has the battery part number label is on top.
b. Carefully place the battery cable in the air shroud notch and push the battery down. Hooks on both sides of the battery
lock it into the air shroud slots and the battery is firmly held in position.
c. Connect the battery socket to the controller socket.
d. Install the air shroud. See the "Installing the air shroud" section in the Installation and Service Manual of the respective
sled model available on the support site.
e. Install the riser that holds the PERC 12 card. See the "Installing the expansion card riser" section in the Installation and
Service Manual of the respective sled model available on the support site.
f. Carefully route the battery cable underneath the heat sink in the space available between the DIMMs and CPU socket.
9. Close the system.
10. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn the system on, including any attached peripherals.

Figure 9. Install the PERC H965i Adapter

Remove the PERC H965i Front card

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or

36 Install and remove a PERC 12 card

 telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and anti-static wrist strap while working on components inside
the system.

Steps
1. Power off the server, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet and
peripherals.
NOTE: Perform a graceful shutdown of the system to ensure data in the cache is moved to the disk before the
controller is removed.

2. Open the system.

3. Locate the PERC card in the controller carrier at the front of the system.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only.

4. Unscrew the fasteners on the controller carrier and slide the carrier away from the backplane, disconnecting the controller
from the backplane. When you unfasten the four (4) controller screws, even the plastic shroud that holds the battery is
removed.
5. Disconnect any cables connected to the card:
a. Press down and hold the metal tab on the cable connector.
b. Pull the cables out of the connector.
6. Remove the PERC controller from the controller carrier.
● If necessary, remove the battery from the plastic shroud by carefully pulling it out, and then removing the cable that
connects the battery to the controller.
● To replace the battery, connect the battery cable to the controller, place the battery between the guiding ribs on the
plastic shroud.
● Slowly press-fit to lock it firmly.
7. Insert the replacement controller into the carrier and secure it with the appropriate screws.
8. Take the replacement storage controller and reconnect the cables before reconnecting it to the backplane.
9. Close the system.
10. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn the system on, including any attached peripherals.

Figure 10. Remove the PERC H965i Front card

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 37

Install the PERC H965i Front card
Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and anti-static wrist strap while working on components inside
the system.

Steps
1. Power off the system, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet.
NOTE: Perform a graceful shutdown of the sled to ensure that data in the cache is moved to the disk before the
controller is removed.

2. Open the system.

3. Connect the PERC card to the carrier and ensure that the screws are properly fastened in place. For information about
removing or replacing the battery, see Remove the PERC H965i Front card.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, hold the card by its edges only.

4. Connect the cable connectors to the card.

NOTE: Ensure that you connect the cable according to the connector labels on the cable. The cable does not function
properly if reversed.

5. Align the carrier with the guide pins until the controller is securely seated.
6. Slide the card into the connector until it is fully seated in the connector. Tighten the screws on the carrier that connect to
the chassis to secure the carrier.
7. Close the system.
8. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and power on the system and any attached peripherals.

Figure 11. Install the PERC H965i Front card

38 Install and remove a PERC 12 card

Remove PERC H965i MX
Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, hold the card by its edges only.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

NOTE: The steps may vary based on the platform from where PERC H965i MX is removed.

Steps
1. Turn off the sled, including any attached peripherals, and remove the sled from the MX chassis.
NOTE: Perform a graceful shutdown of the system to ensure that data in the cache is moved to the disk before the
controller is removed.

2. Open the sled.

3. Locate the PERC card on the system board.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, hold the card by its edges only.

4. Using the blue tab, rotate the lever of the controller.

5. Pull the release lever upward to disengage the controller from the connector.
6. Disconnect the cable from the card. To disconnect the cable:
a. Press and hold the metal tab on the cable connector.
b. Pull the cable out of the connector.
7. Lift the card from the system board.
8. Replace the storage controller card and connect the cable. For information on installing the card, see Install PERC H965i
MX.
9. Close the sled.
10. Insert the sled into the MX chassis and turn on the system and any attached MX chassis peripherals.

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 39

 Figure 12. Remove the PERC H965i MX

Install PERC H965i MX

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

NOTE: Steps may vary based on the platform where PERC H965i MX is installed.

Steps
1. Turn off the sled and any attached peripherals, and remove the sled from the MX chassis.
2. Open the sled.
3. Connect the backplane data cable connector to the card.
NOTE: Ensure that you connect the cable according to the connector labels on the cable. The cable does not function
properly if reversed.

4. Align the bracket notches with the tabs on the sides of the sled chassis and align the PERC card connector with the
connector on the system board.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, hold the card by its edges only.

5. Press the PERC card into the connector until it is firmly seated.
6. Press the release lever to secure the card to the sled.

40 Install and remove a PERC 12 card

 NOTE: The pin on the release lever secures the card to the chassis of the sled.

7. Route the data cable through the clip on the card and through the channel on the inner side of the chassis.
8. Attach the connector to the corresponding connector on the backplane as labeled in the controller.
9. Close the sled.
10. Insert the sled into the MX chassis and turn on the system and any attached MX chassis peripherals.

Figure 13. Install the PERC H965i MX

Removing the PERC H965e Adapter card

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

Steps
1. Power off the system, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet and
peripherals.
2. Open the system.
3. Locate the PERC card on the system board.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only.

4. Disconnect the SAS4 SFF cables, if connected, to any external storage enclosure(s)
5. Remove the corresponding riser and lift the card from the PCIe slot.

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 41

6. Replace the storage controller card and connect the cable.
7. Close the system.
8. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and power on the system, including any attached peripherals.

Figure 14. Remove the H965e Adapter card

Installing the PERC H965e Adapter card

Prerequisites
CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform
troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or
telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by
your warranty. Read and follow the safety instructions that are shipped with your product.

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of
the system.

Steps
1. Power off the system, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet.
2. Open the system.
3. Align the card-edge connector with the PCIe slot on the system riser.
CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, hold the card by its edges only.

4. Press the card-edge down until the card is fully seated in the PCIe slot on the system riser.
5. Insert the riser into the system board and connect the SAS4 SFF cables to the card.
6. Close the system.
7. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and power on the system and any attached peripherals.

42 Install and remove a PERC 12 card

Figure 15. Install the PERC H965e Adapter card

Install and remove a PERC 12 card 43

 5
Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter,
PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and
PERC H965e Adapter
The PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX and PERC H965e Adapter cards require software drivers to
operate with the supported operating systems.
This chapter contains the procedures for installing the drivers for the PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i
MX, and PERC H965e Adapter cards. The two methods for installing a driver discussed in this chapter are:
● Installing a driver during operating system installation: Use this method if you are performing a new installation of the
operating system and want to include the drivers.
● Updating existing drivers: Use this method if the operating system and the RAID controllers are already installed and you
want to update to the latest drivers.
NOTE: It is recommended to download the latest Out-of-Box (OoB) drivers from the Dell Support site because the Inbox
drivers in the operating system may not contain the full functionality and the latest fixes.

Topics:
• Creating the device driver media
• Windows driver installation
• Update PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter driver that runs on Microsoft
Windows OS
• Linux driver installation
• Load the driver while installing an operating system

Creating the device driver media

Use one of the following two methods to create the device driver media:
● Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter drivers from the
support site
● Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter drivers from the
Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools

Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC
H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter drivers from the support site
Download the latest Out-Of-Box (OOB) drivers from the Dell Support site because the Inbox drivers in the operating system
may not contain the full functionality and the latest fixes.

About this task

To download drivers from the Dell Support website, do the following:

Steps
1. Go to the support site.
2. Enter the Service Tag of your system in the Choose by Service Tag to get started box or select Choose from a list of
all Dell products.
3. Select the system type, operating system, and the SAS RAID category from the drop-down menu.

44 Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
 The drivers that are applicable to your selection are displayed.
4. Download the required drivers to a USB drive, CD, or DVD.
5. When installing an OS, use the media that you created to load the driver. For more information on reinstalling
the operating system, see the relevant technical documentation about operating system available at www.dell.com/
operatingsystemmanuals.

Download and save PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC
H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter drivers from the Dell Systems
Service and Diagnostic Tools
About this task
To download drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools media:

Steps
1. Insert the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostics Tools media in your system.
The Welcome to Dell Service and Diagnostic Utilities screen is displayed.
2. Select your system model and operating system.
3. Click Continue.
4. From the list of drivers displayed, select the driver you require.
5. Select the self-extracting ZIP file and click Run.
6. Copy the driver to a CD, DVD, or USB drive.
7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 for all the drivers you require.

Windows driver installation

Before you install the Windows driver for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
you must first create a device driver media.
● Read the Microsoft Getting Started document that shipped with your operating system.
● Ensure that your system has the latest BIOS, firmware, and driver updates. If required, download the latest BIOS, firmware,
and driver updates from www.dell.com/support/home.
● Create a device driver media using one of the following methods:
○ USB drive
○ CD
○ DVD

Install PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX,
and PERC H965e Adapter while newly installing Windows
About this task
To install the driver:

Steps
1. Boot the system using Windows or newer media.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to navigate to the Where do you want to install Windows window, and then select
Load driver.
3. When prompted, insert the installation media and browse to the appropriate location.
4. Select the driver files.
5. Click Next and continue installation.

Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter 45
Install PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX,
and PERC H965e Adapter driver on which Windows is already
installed
About this task
Perform the following steps to configure the driver for the controller on which Windows is already installed:

Steps
1. Power off the system.
2. Install the new SAS controller in the system.
For instructions on installing the controller in the system, see Install and remove the PERC 12 cards.
3. Power on the system.
The Found New Hardware Wizard screen displays the detected hardware device.
4. Click Next.
5. On the Locate device driver screen, select Search for a suitable driver for my device and click Next.
6. Browse and select the drivers from the Locate Driver Files screen.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.
9. Reboot the system when prompted.

Update PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front,

PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter driver that
runs on Microsoft Windows OS
Prerequisites

NOTE: Close all applications on your system before you update the driver.

Steps
1. Insert the media containing the driver.
2. Select Start > Settings > Control Panel > System.
The System Properties screen is displayed.
NOTE: The path to System may vary based on the operating system family.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Click Device Manager.
The Device Manager screen is displayed.
NOTE: The path to Device Manager may vary based on the operating system family.
5. Expand Storage Controllers by double-clicking the entry or by clicking the plus (+) symbol next to Storage Controllers.
6. Double-click the controller for which you want to update the driver.
7. Click the Driver tab and click Update Driver.
The screen to update the device driver wizard is displayed.
8. Select Install from a list or specific location.
9. Click Next.
10. Follow the steps in the wizard and browse to the location of the driver files.
11. Select the INF file from the drive media.
12. Click Next and continue the installation steps in the wizard.
13. Click Finish to exit the wizard and reboot the system for the changes to become effective.

46 Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
 NOTE: Dell provides the Dell Update Package (DUP) to update drivers on systems running RHEL 8 or RHEL 9. DUP is
an executable application that updates drivers for specific devices. DUP supports CLI and silent execution.

Linux driver installation

The Driver Update Disk (DUD) image files are created only for those operating system releases in which the native (in-box)
driver is insufficient for installation. If an operating system is being installed with a corresponding DUD image file, see Load the
driver while installing an operating system. If not, use the native device driver and then:
● For RHEL 8 and RHEL 9: Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMP support.
● For SLES15 SP4: Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMP support.
.
NOTE: To view the complete list of boot loader options, see the installation guide of your operating system.

NOTE: The Ubuntu operting system is not supported on Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12.

Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMOD support

Prerequisites

NOTE: This procedure is applicable for RHEL 8.0 and later versions.

About this task

To install the RPM package with KMOD support, do the following:

Steps
1. Expand tarball driver release package.
2. Install the driver package by running the command: rpm –ihv kmod-mpi3mr-<version>.rpm.
NOTE: Use rpm -Uvh <package name> when upgrading an existing package.

3. If the previous device driver is in use, you must restart the system for the updated driver to take effect.
4. Verify the loaded driver version by running the following command: modinfo mpi3mr.

Install or update a RPM driver package using the KMP support

Prerequisites

NOTE: This procedure is applicable for SUSE Enterprise Linux 15.x.

About this task

To install the RPM package with KMP support, do the following:

Steps
1. Expand the tarball driver release package.
2. Install the driver package by running the commands: rpm -ivh broadcom-mpi3mr-kmp-<version>.rpm
NOTE: Use rpm -Uvh broadcom-mpi3mr-kmp-<version>.rpm to update an existing package.

3. If the previous device driver is in use, you must restart the system for the updated driver to take effect.
4. Verify the loaded driver version by running the following command: modinfo mpi3mr.

Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter 47
Load the driver while installing an operating system
About this task
NOTE: Steps provided are general steps for the Linux based operating systems. For exact information about loading drivers
while installing operating systems, see the Dell technical documentation of the operating system on the Dell support site or
the official support of the operation system vendor.

Steps
1. Perform the following operation to install the driver media:
a. Download the PERC Linux driver ISO file, or install the Lifecye Controller driver pack.
b. Mount the ISO file to the server, burn the ISO to CD/DVD, or copy the ISO image file to USB. The USB has to match
with the ISO file.
c. For Lifecye Controller driver pack, boot the Lifecye Controller and complete the tasks prompted by the operating system
deployment wizard.
2. Boot to the installer.
3. On the Bootloader screen, select E and press Enter.
4. Do one of the following:
● If the operating system is RHEL, the CLI displays the syntax vmlinuz. Enter inst.dd.
For example, when you are prompted with the command vmlinuz intrd=initrd.img
inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=RHEL-7.0\x20x86_64 quiet inst.dd.

● If the operating system is SLES, the CLI displays the syntax linuxefi.. Enter dud=1.
For example, when you are prompted with the command linuxefi/boot/x86_64/loader/linux
splash=silent dud=1.

NOTE: Boot parameters may vary based on the operating system version. See operating system installation manuals for
exact boot parameter syntax.

5. Attach the driver media (ISO, USB).

6. Press F10 to boot to the operating system.
7. Wait for the OS image file to boot and OS installer to begin. When prompted, select the driver media (for example, USB, CD,
or an ISO image file).
8. When prompted, select the driver media.
If applicable, select the PERC driver mpi3mr.
NOTE: Ensure that the selected driver is indicated bt an X symbol.
9. Extract or load the driver.
10. Before proceeding or closing the Driver Select menu, disconnect the driver media.
NOTE: Ensure that you disconnect the driver media so that the drivers are loaded successfully. If the installation media
is deleted, reattach it.

11. Press C or select Exit to go to the installation.

48 Driver support for PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter
 6
Manage the PERC 12 firmware
This section provides information about downloading, installing, and upgrading the PERC 12 firmware using the Dell Update
Package (DUP).

NOTE: The PCIe Switch-based configuration support is available in firmware 8.4.0.0.18-27 and later versions.

Topics:
• Upgrade firmware controller using Dell Update Package (DUP)

Upgrade firmware controller using Dell Update

Package (DUP)
About this task

NOTE: If the Online Capacity Expansion operation is in progress then you cannot update the firmware version.

Steps
1. Go to the Drivers and Downloads page on the support site.
2. Locate your controller.
3. Download the DUP file.
a. To upgrade by using Windows or iDRAC, download the Windows executable file.
b. To upgrade using Linux, download the .bin file.
NOTE: For VMware, firmware must be upgraded by using iDRAC or the PERC CLI.

4. Install the DUP by doing one of the following:

a. For Windows, run the executable file in the Windows environment.
b. For Linux, run the .bin file in the Linux environment.
c. For iDRAC, click System iDRAC > Maintenance > System Update, upload Windows executable, and then install.

Manage the PERC 12 firmware 49

 7
Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII
Configuration Utility
The Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility is a storage management application integrated into the System
BIOS <F2>. It is used to configure and manage the controller(s), virtual disks, and physical disks. This utility is independent of
the operating system.
Topics:
• Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility
• Exit the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility
• Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility
• View the HII Configuration Utility dashboard
• Configuration management
• Controller management
• Virtual disk management
• Device management
• Hardware components
• Security key management in HII configuration utility

Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility

About this task
Perform the following steps to boot to the HII Configuration Utility:

Steps
1. Power on the server.
2. When the server starts, press F2 to open the System Setup page.
3. Click Device Settings.
The Device Settings page lists all the RAID controllers in the system.
To access the management menu of the controller, use the arrow keys or the mouse device.
NOTE: For more information about each option, click Help in the upper-right corner. For information about individual
options pause the pointer over each link and view the description in the bottom pane.

NOTE: Some of the options within the HII Configuration Utility are not present if the controller does not support the
corresponding feature. Options may also be grayed out if the feature is not applicable to the current configuration.

Exit the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility

About this task
To exit the HII Configuration Utility, do the following:

Steps
1. Click Finish at the bottom-right corner on the System Setup Main Menu page.
2. When prompted to confirm if you want to perform the operation, click Yes.

50 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility
Steps
1. Enter the UEFI configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
The Device Settings screen displays a list of NIC ports and the RAID controllers.
2. To enter PERC 12 configuration utility, click the appropriate PERC controllers.
The Dashboard view screen is displayed.

View the HII Configuration Utility dashboard

The following table lists the features displayed in the Dashboard View page of the HII Configuration Utility:

Table 7. Dashboard view screen

Dashboard view options Description
Main menu Displays the following configuration options:
● Configuration Management
● Controller Management
● Virtual Disk Management
● Device Management
● Energy Pack Management
Help Press F1 to view context-sensitive Help information.
Configuration Management Displays the following options under Configuration Management:
● Create Virtual Disk—Creates a virtual disk by selecting RAID level, hard drives, and
virtual disk parameters.
● Create Profile Based Virtual Disk—Creates a virtual disk by using a wizard. This wizard
makes intelligent choices based on the profile that you selected.
● View Disk Group Properties—Displays associated virtual disks for the disk group and any
available free capacity.
● View Global Hot Spares—Displays the drives that are assigned as global hot-spare
devices.
● Convert to Non-RAID disk—Allows changing the state of the RAID capable disks to
Non-RAID disks.
● Clear Configuration—Deletes all existing configurations on the RAID controller.
Controller Management Displays controller status and basic properties of the controller:
● Advanced Controller Management—Provides to links to various controller management
activities.
● Advanced Controller Properties—Displays controller cache and memory-related
properties
Virtual Disk Management Displays the properties of a specific virtual disk. You can perform operations such as Blink,
Initialization, and Check Consistency.
Device Management Displays logical enclosure details and the physical disks that are attached to it.
Energy Pack Management Displays the details such as its type, status, capacity, and so on about the energy pack.

Configuration management
Create virtual disk and configure virtual disk parameters
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See, Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 51

2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Create Virtual Disk.
3. Select the RAID level. You can select PDs from either unconfigured capacity or free capacity.
The list of physical disks appear.
4. Click Select Physical Disks. See Select physical disks for creating VDs.
5. Select the physical disks for the selected RAID level and click OK.
6. Click Confirm and click Yes.
7. Click OK. The CONFIGURE VIRTUAL DISK PARAMETERS section is displayed.
NOTE: Mixing of TCG Enterprise and TCG Opal SED protocols in a virtual disk is not supported.

Table 8. Virtual disk parameters and their descriptions

Virtual disk parameters Description
Virtual Disk Name Enter the name of the virtual disk.
Virtual Disk Size Displays the maximum capacity available for the virtual disk.
Virtual Disk Size Unit Displays the virtual disk storage space either in GiB or TiB.
Strip Element Size Select the strip element size. The disk striping involves partitioning each physical disk
storage space in stripes of the sizes 64 KiB and 256 KiB.
Read Cache Policy Displays the controller read policy. By default, the read cache policy is set to No Read-
Ahead .
Write Cache Policy Displays the controller write cache policy You can set the write policy to:
● Write-Through—The controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host
when the disk subsystem has received all the data in a transaction.
● Write-Back—The controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host when
the controller cache has received all the data in a transaction.
● Force Write-Back—The controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the
host when the controller cache has received all the data in a transaction, even if the
controller energy pack is below the threshold charge.
By default, the Write Cache Policy is set to Write-Back.
Disk Write Cache Policy Select the disk cache policy to Default, Enable, or Disable. By default, the Disk Write
Cache Policy is set to Default.
Default Initialization Select the default initialization to:
● No —Virtual disk is not initialized.
● Fast—The first and last 8 MB of the virtual disk is initialized.
● Full—Entire virtual disk is initialized.
For more information, see Virtual disk initialization. By default, the default initialization is
set to No.

8. Click Create virtual disk.

9. Click Confirm and click Yes. The virtual disk is created.

Select physical disks for creating VDs

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See, Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Create Virtual Disk.
3. Click Select Physical Disks.
4. Select the media type. For example, SSD, HDD, or both. Based on your selection, the drives are displayed for creating RAID
drives.
5. Select the interface type. For example, SAS, SATA, or NVMe.
6. Select the logical sector size. For example, 512B, 4KiB, or both.

52 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

Create profile based virtual disk
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility .
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Creating Profile Based Virtual Disk.
The following list of RAID modes are displayed:
● Generic RAID 0
● Generic RAID 1
● Generic RAID 5
● Generic RAID 6
● File Server
● Web/Generic Server
● Database
Based on the RAID mode selected, one or more the physical disk selection criteria is displayed.
3. From the Physical Disk Selection Criteria drop-down menu, select a criterion based your requirement.
The Profile Parameters of the selected option is displayed.
NOTE: Based on the physical disk selection criteria, if enough disks are not available to satisfy the applicable RAID level,
then the Physical Disk Selection Criteria option is grayed out.

NOTE: Before using drives for profile based VD creation, ensure that the drives are securely erased. When selecting a
drive, ensure that you do not mix:
● HDDs and SSDs.
● NVMe, SAS, and SATA types.
● Drives that support only Physical Region Page (PRP) and that support both PRP and Scatter Gather List (SGL).
● 512b and 4K block-size drives.
● Drives of different link speeds such as 3G, 6G, 12G, and 24G, or 2.5GT, 5.0GT, 8.0GT, 16.0GT, or 32.0GT.
● Drives of SED and non-SED types.
● SEDs are not secured.
● Drives of single and multiple LUN types.
4. Click Create Virtual Disk.
5. Select Confirm and click Yes to continue.
The virtual disk is created with the parameters of the profile selected.

View disk group properties

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > View Disk Group Properties.
The list of disk group properties are displayed:

Table 9. disk group properties

Properties Descriptions
Capacity Allocation Displays all the virtual disks associated with the specific disk group. It also
provides information about the available free disk space.
Secured Displays whether the disk group is secured or not.

View global hot-spare devices

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 53

2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > View Global Hot-Spares.
The list of PDs that are allocated as global hot-spares is displayed.

Convert to Non–RAID disk

To convert a physical disk to non–RAID disk using the HII Configuration Utility, do the following:

Steps
1. Start the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Convert to Non–RAID Disk.
A list of available PDs is displayed.
3. Select the physical disk to convert to Non-RAID disk.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Confirm.
6. Click Yes.
The non-RAID disk is successfully created.

Delete configurations
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Clear Configuration.
3. CAUTION: It is recommended that you back up data stored on the virtual disks and hot-spare disks on the
controller before deleting the virtual drive.
When prompted to indicate if you want to delete VDs and hot-spares, select the Confirm check box, and then click Yes.
The virtual disks and hot-spare disks available on the controller are deleted successfully.

Controller management
Save persistent events
To save persistent events, you must have a USB or file system on the server.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Save Persistent Events.
4. When prompted to indicate if you want to save persistent events, click OK.

Clear persistent events

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Clear Persistent Events.
4. Click OK.

54 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

Manage snapdump
Prerequisites
To save the snapdump, you must have a USB or a file system attached to the server before starting the server. For information
about the Snapdump feature, see Snapdump.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Manage Snapdump.
4. In the OPERATIONS section, select a file system and its corresponding directory. To save the Snapdump data of the
selected file, click Save new On-Demand Snapdump. To delete the Snapdump data, click Clear All Snapdumps.
5. Click OK.

Enable security
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigating to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Enable security, select Local Key Management.
4. Click Ok.
5. If you want to use the security key generated by the controller, click Suggest Security Key and OK.
The operation is successful.
6. Enter the key in the Security Key and Confirm boxes.
7. Select the I Recorded the Security Settings For Future Reference check box and click Enable Security.
8. Select Confirm and click Yes.
9. Click OK.
The operation is successful.

Disable security
You can disable the LKM security feature by using the HII.

About this task

NOTE: Before disabling the drive security feature, ensure that all secured drives are either erased or removed.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Disable security.
4. When prompted if you want to disable security, click Confirm, and then click Yes.

Change security settings

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management.
3. Click Change Security Settings, select Change Current Security Settings.
4. Click Ok.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 55

5. If you want to use the security key generated by the controller, click Suggest Security Key and confirm the security key by
re-entering.
The operation is successful.
6. Click Save Security Settings.
7. Select Confirm and click Yes.
8. Click Ok.

Restore factory default settings

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Set Factory Defaults.
3. Select Confirm and click Yes.

Manage the SAS Storage link speed

About this task
To change the storage link speed of the eligible SAS/SATA disks, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Manage SAS Storage Link
Speed.
3. To change the link speed, select the appropriate options for each link, and then click Apply Changes.
4. Click OK.

Manage the PCIe storage interface

About this task
To change the storage interface of the eligible NVMe disks, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Manage PCIe Storage Interface.
3. To change the link speed, click View/Change Link Speed and select the appropriate options for each port, and then click
Apply Changes.
4. To manage the PCIe width, select the appropriate width for each available link, and then click Apply Changes.
5. Select the Confirm check box and click Yes.
6. Click OK.
NOTE: Physical drive slot numbers do not correlate with the controller PHY numbers. The physical drive slot numbers
displayed on the HII may not be the same slot numbers in which the drives are actually installed.

Auto-Configure Behavior Management

About this task
To change the Auto-Configure Behavior of the eligible disks, do the following:

56 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Manage Controller Personality.
3. To change the Auto-Configure behavior (Primary or Secondary or both) on all the new disks that will be inserted, select the
appropriate options for Auto-Configure Behavior (Primary) and Auto-Configure Behavior (Secondary), and then click
Apply Changes.
4. To run immediate one-time Auto-Configure operation, select the Auto-Configure Behavior (Execute Once) option, and
then click Apply Now.

Advanced controller properties

Set the patrol read mode

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. Click Patrol Read.
The following options are displayed:
● Start—Starts patrol-read for the selected controller.
● Suspend—Suspends the ongoing patrol-read operation on the controller.
● Resume—Resumes the suspended patrol-read operation.
● Stop—Stops patrol-read for the selected controller.
● Rate—Indicates the percentage of system resources dedicated to perform the patrol-read operation.
4. To enable or disable patrol-read and to correct unconfigured areas on the physical disk, click Correct Unconfigured Areas.
5. Click Apply Changes.

Configure hot-spare drives

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. Click Spare.
The following options are displayed:
● Replace Member—Enables or disables the option to replace the member.
● Auto Replace Member on HDD Predictive Failure—Enables or disables the option to start a Replace Member
operation if a predictive failure error is detected on a PD.
● Auto Replace Member on SSD Predictive Failure—Enables or disables the option to start a Replace Member
operation if a predictive failure error is detected on an SSD.
4. Select the applicable option and click Apply Changes.
The changes are saved successfully.

Set task rates

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. Click Task Rates.
The following options are displayed:
● Background Initialization (BGI) Rate
● Patrol Read Rate
● Consistency Check Rate
● Rebuild Rate

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 57

 ● Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
4. You can make the necessary changes and then Apply Changes.
The task rates operation is completed successfully.

Controller properties

Manage the write-cache feature of NVMe devices

About this task

To enable the write-cache feature on NVMe devices, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. In the Controller Properties section, set the Write Cache for NVMe Devices feature to Enabled, Disabled, or Default.
4. Click Apply Changes.
The write-cache policy of NVMe devices is updated.

Manage the write-cache feature of SATA devices

About this task

To enable the write-cache feature on SATA devices, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. In the Controller Properties section, set the Write Cache for SATA Devices feature to Enabled, Disabled, or Default.
4. Click Apply Changes.
The write-cache policy of SATA devices is updated.

Select boot mode

About this task

To select the boot mode, perform the following steps:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. In the Controller Properties section, select either Continue on Errors or Safe Mode on Errors from the Boot Mode list.
NOTE: By default, the boot mode option is set to Continue on Errors.

Table 10. Boot mode options

Option Description
Continue on Errors The controller attempts to automatically clear errors and continue booting. Errors can result in
safe mode if the controller is unable to clear them.
Safe Mode on Errors The controller is routed to safe mode when critical errors arise. PERC firmware disables
most of the features on the controller. The controller requires attention from the user to
acknowledge and rectify the issues.

4. Click Apply Changes.

58 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

 The boot mode operation is completed successfully.

Abort the consistency check

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. In the Controller Properties section, set the Abort Consistency Check on Error option to Enabled or Disabled.
4. Click Apply Changes.
The option to abort the consistency check operation on a redundant virtual disk is enabled if there is any inconsistency found
in the data.

Discard preserved cache

By using the Discard Preserved Cache feature, you can delete the preserved cache on the controller that could not be written
to a VD after the power is restored and the Write Cache operation is restarted.

About this task

WARNING: Use this option only if necessary because it may result in data loss. Before discarding the preserved
cache, it is recommended to use all available data recovery techniques and correct the issue.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Properties.
3. Click Cache and Memory > Discard Preserved Cache.
The preserved cache is cleared successfully.

Virtual disk management

Virtual disk numbering
Virtual disks are numbered in ascending order beginning from the lowest, which is ID 1.

View virtual disk properties

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
All the virtual disks that are associated with the RAID controller are displayed.
3. To view the properties, click the virtual disk. You can view the following properties of the virtual disk:

Table 11. Virtual disk properties

Option Description
Operation Select one of the following:
● Blink: Starts blinking the LED of the PD on which the VD is created.
● Unblink: Stops blinking the LED of the PD on which the VD is created.
● Delete Virtual Disk: Deletes the selected VDs.
● Fast Initialization
● Full Initialization: See Full initialization.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 59

 Table 11. Virtual disk properties (continued)
Option Description
● Consistency Check (available for all RAID levels except for RAID 0 VD). See Check
consistency of VDs.
● Expand Virtual Disk
Name Indicates the name of the virtual disk.
RAID level Indicates the RAID level of the virtual disk.
Status Indicates the status of the virtual disk. The possible options are:
● Ready
● Degraded
● Offline
● Failed
Size Indicates the size of the virtual disk.
Disk Group Indicates the disk group of the virtual drive.

View physical disks associated with a virtual disk

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
All the virtual disks associated with the RAID controller are displayed.
3. Click on a virtual disk.
The properties of the virtual disk are displayed.
4. Click View Associated Physical Disks.
All the physical disks that are associated with the virtual disk are displayed.
5. From the Associated Physical Disks section, select the physical disk.
6. Click View Physical Disk Properties to view the physical disk properties.

View advanced properties of a virtual disk

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
All the virtual disks that are associated with the RAID controller are displayed.
3. Click the virtual disk.
The properties of the virtual disk are displayed.
4. Click Advanced.
You can view the following additional properties of the virtual disk:

Table 12. Advanced properties of the virtual disk

Option Description
Strip element size Indicates the strip element size for the virtual disk.
Secured Indicates whether the virtual disk is secured or not.
Bad blocks Indicates whether the virtual disk has corrupted blocks.
Data format for I/O Indicates the data format for I/O operations (only available for NVMe drives)

60 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

Configure virtual disk policies

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
All the virtual disks associated with the RAID controller are displayed.
3. Select the virtual disk.
4. Click Advanced.
You can view the following virtual disk policies:

Table 13. Virtual disk policies

Option Description
Current Cache Status Indicates the current read and write cache policies for the virtual disk.
Access Policy Indicates the current access policy for the virtual disk.
Default Read Cache Policy Allows selection of the read cache policy for the virtual disk. The
available option is No Read Ahead.
Current Power Save Policy Indicates the current power saving policy of the VD.
Default Write Cache Policy Allows selection of the write cache policy for the virtual disk. The
available options are: Write Through, Write Back, and Force Write
Back.
Disk Write Cache Policy Allows selection of the Disk Write Cache Policy for the virtual disk.
The possible options are:
● Default (Disk Default)
● Enable
● Disable
5. Click Apply Changes.
The changes made are saved successfully.

Configure Virtual Disks

When configuring the virtual disks, you should consider the workload intended. For example, RAID 1 for a simple boot disk;
RAID 5 or RAID 6 for file or web servers (sequential reads/writes of files); or RAID 10 for transactional database (small
random-read and random-write operations). Virtual disks configured on hard drives should use the controller default cache
setting of write-back and no-read-ahead.
Virtual disks configured on SSDs can use the same controller default settings as used by hard drives. Most users copy data of
OS files or database to the new array. Using such default settings provide optimum performance in this configuration. After
copying, the array can be used as-is based on the number and type of SSDs.

Perform Online capacity expansion—Expand a VD within a disk

group
About this task
Expand a VD within a disk group

NOTE: This feature is available only if there is sufficient free disk space available in the associated disk group.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
3. Select the virtual disk.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 61

4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Expand Virtual Disk.
NOTE: The expand virtual disk feature is available only if there is free space available in the associated disk group
5. Click Go.
6. To expand a VD, enter the percentage of available capacity and click Expand. The VD is successfully expanded.

Perform Online capacity expansion—Expand a VD by adding a PD

to a disk group
About this task
Expand a VD by adding physical drive to a disk group

NOTE: This feature is available only if there is no sufficient free disk space available in the associated disk group.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
3. Select the virtual disk.
4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Expand Virtual Disk.
5. Click Go.
6. Click Add Physical Disks.
7. To expand a VD, select physical disk(s) that you want to add to the VD.
8. Click OK. The VD is successfully expanded.

Check consistency of VDs

Prerequisites
To enable consistency check from the HII Configuration Utility, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
The list of virtual disks is displayed.
3. Select the virtual disk.
NOTE: Consistency check cannot be run on RAID 0 virtual disks.

4. From the Operations list, select Check Consistency.

5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to start the checking operation, select the Confirm check box, and then click Yes.

Device management
View enclosure or backplane properties
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.

62 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

 NOTE: Fields associated with properties that are not applicable are hidden.

Table 14. Enclosure or backplane properties

Option Description
Enclosure ID Displays the persistent ID of the enclosure.
Bay ID Displays the Bay ID of the enclosure.
Name Displays the name of the enclosure.
Connector name Indicates the type of physical connection to the enclosure.
All connectors for internal controllers are identified by "00".
Position Position of an enclosure in the enclosure stack.
State Displays the state of the enclosure.
Vendor ID Displays the vendor ID of the enclosure.
Product ID Displays the product ID of the enclosure.
Location Displays the location of the enclosure. Location is either
internal or external.
Type Displays the type of the enclosure. The types of enclosures
are Virtual SES, SAS Expander, and Managed PCIe
Switch.
Product Revision Level Displays the product revision level of the enclosure.
Number of Slots Displays the number of slots in the enclosure.
Number of Physical Disks Indicates the number of PDs installed on the enclosure.
Partner Connector Name Indicates the connector name of the partner device.
Partner Position Indicates the position of the partner device.
Partner Enclosure ID Indicates the enclosure ID of the partner.

NOTE: "Partner" refers to the devices that have multiple paths to communicate for redundancy and load balancing.

NOTE: The Partner entries are displayed only for backplane devices in multipath. Else, it will not be displayed.

View physical disk properties

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
The enclosure properties and all the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. To view the properties of a PD, click the corresponding PD link.
NOTE: Fields associated with features that are not applicable are hidden.

Table 15. Physical disk Dashboard View

Option Description
Operation The list of operations you can perform on the selected physical disk. The
options are:
● Blink
● Unblink

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 63

 Table 15. Physical disk Dashboard View (continued)
Option Description
● Assign global hot spare
● Cryptographic erase
● Convert to non–RAID disk
● Make Offline
● Replace Member
Slot number The PD slot to which the controller is connected.
Persistent ID Persistent ID of the physical drive.
Status Status of the physical disk.
Size Size of the physical disk.
Type Type of the physical disk.
Model Model of the physical disk.
Part Number Part number of the physical drive.
Serial Number Serial of the physical disk.
Vendor Name of the PD manufacturer.
Firmware Revision Level Indicates the version of the firmware installed on the PD.
Manufacturing Date Date of manufacture of the PD.
Associated Virtual Disk Indicates the VD that is associated with this PD.
4. To view additional properties of the physical disk, click Advanced.

Table 16. Advanced physical disk properties

Option Description
SMART status SMART status of a physical disk
SAS Address/WWID WWN number of the device.
Disk Power Status Power condition (On or Power Save) of the physical disk
Interface Indicates the type of device used as an interface. For example, SAS or parallel
SCSI.
Capable Speed Indicates the read-write speed capability of PD in Gbps.
Negotiated Speed Negotiated link speed of the device.
Capable Link Width Capable link width of the device.
Negotiated Link Width Negotiated link width of the device.
Number of Connections Indicates the number of paths do the PD.
Cryptographic erase capable Cryptographic erase capability of the physical disk
Encryption Capable Indicates whether or not the drive can be encrypted.
Supported Data Format Indicated for NVMe drives only.
Temperature (C) Indicates the current temperature of the PD.
5. To view information about the Logical Unit Number (LUN) and NVMe Namespace properties of a PD, click Logical Unit/
Namespace Information.

Table 17. LUN/Namespace data of a physical disk

Option Description
NVMe Namespace ID Indicates LUN and Namespace properties

64 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

 Table 17. LUN/Namespace data of a physical disk (continued)
Option Description
Status Indicates the working status of a LUN.
Size Indicates the maximum storage size of the LUN.
Total Unconfigured Space Total free space available for RAID array.
Total Configured Space Total used drive space for RAID array.
Logical Sector Size Supports either 512B or 4KiB types.
Physical Sector Size Supports either 512B or 4KiB types.
Media Error Count Number of physical errors detected on the PD.
Other Error Count Other errors detected on the PD.
Predictive Failure Count Predictive errors detected on the PD.
Firmware Managed Security Indicates whether or not the PD security is managed by the controller firmware.
Current Write-Cache Indicates whether or not the current write-cache mode of the PD is enabled.
Default Write-Cache The default write-cache mode of the PD.
Secured Indicates whether or not the PD is secured.
Locked Indicates whether or not the PD is locked.

To view information about the next PD associated with the enclosure, click New Physical Disk.

Cryptographic erase
Cryptographic erase is a process to erase all data permanently on an encryption-capable and unconfigured physical disk, and
reset the security attributes. Cryptographic erase on an Self Encrypting Drives (SED) will unsecure the disk.

Prerequisites
● The non-RAID and virtual disks associated with the drive are deleted.
● The disks are not dedicated as hot-spares.

About this task

The Cryptographic erase feature is supported only on Instant Secure Erase (ISE) and SEDs.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select a physical disk.
4. From the Operations list, select Cryptographic Erase.
NOTE: The Cryptographic Erase option is displayed only if the drive installed is ISE or SED capable.

5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to start the cryptographic erase operation, select the Confirm check box, and then
click Yes.
The cryptographic erase operation is successfully completed.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 65

Physical disk erase
Prerequisites
To use the Physical Disk Erase feature from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select a physical disk.
4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Physical Disk Erase.
NOTE: The Cryptographic Erase option is displayed only if the drive is of either ISE or SED type.

5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to start erasing data on the physical disk, select the Confirm check box, and then
click Yes.
Data on the physical disk is successfully erased.

Sanitize Block or Overwrite Erase operation

Sanitize secure erase is a process that a drive performs to erase all data permanently by modifying physical block to a user
or vendor-specific value. Sanitize can be managed by the PERC or by an application running on the OS. See the Physical Disk
Erase section in this guide.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select a physical disk. Ensure that the drive is not configured.
4. From the Operations list, select the required Sanitize Erase operation.
NOTE: The Cryptographic Erase option is displayed only if the drive installed is ISE or SED capable.

5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to start the sanitize erase operation, select the Confirm check box, and then click
Yes.
The sanitize erase operation is successfully completed.

Assigning a global hot-spare

To assign a global hot spare from the HII Configuration Utility, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select the physical disk.
4. From the Operations list, select Assign Global Hot Spare.
5. Click Go.

66 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

6. When prompted to indicate if you want to assign the selected PDs as hot-spares, select the Confirm check box, and then
click Yes.
The PDs are assigned as global hot-spare devices.

Assign a dedicated hot-spare

Prerequisites
To assign a dedicated hot spare from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the Dell PERC 12 configuration utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select the physical disk.
4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Assign Dedicated Hot Spare.
5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to assign the selected PDs as dedicated hot-spare devices, select the Confirm
check box, and then click Yes.
NOTE: When all drives associated with a VD (including the dedicated hot-spare assigned to that VD) are removed
from the server and reinserted, the dedicated hot-spare will be converted to a global hot-spare if there are other VDs
available in the server. If there are no VDs left in the server then the dedicated hot-spare will be marked as foreign
drives.

Convert a non-RAID disk to RAID-capable

To convert a non–RAID disk to RAID capable disk from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Navigate to the PERC 12 Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select the physical disk.
4. From the Operations list, select Convert to RAID capable.
5. Click Go.
A screen appears asking if you are sure you want to perform the operation.
6. Select the Confirm option.
7. Click Yes.
The operation is successful.

Convert a physical disk to a non–RAID disk

To convert a physical disk to non–RAID disk from the HII Configuration Utility, perform the following steps:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select the physical disk.
4. From the Operations list, select Convert to non-RAID Capable.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 67

5. Click Go.
6. When prompted to indicate if you want to covert the selected PDs to non-RAID types, select the Confirm check box, and
then click Yes.
The PDs are converted to non-RAID PDs.

Hardware components
View battery (Energy Pack) properties
Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Energy Pack Management.
The battery (Energy Pack) and capacity information are displayed.
3. You can view the following properties of the battery (Energy Pack):

Table 18. Battery (Energy Pack) properties

Field Description
Type Displays the type of battery.
Status Displays the current status of the battery.
Manufacturer Displays the manufacturer of the battery.
Module Version Displays the version of the module.
Design Capacity (mAh) Displays the size of the battery.
Temperature (C) Displays the current temperature of the battery and also indicates whether the
temperature is normal or high.
Voltage (mV) Displays whether the voltage status of the battery is normal or high.

4. To set advanced properties click Advanced.

Table 19. Advanced battery (Energy Pack) properties

Field Description
Full capacity Displays the maximum charge capacity of the battery.
Remaining capacity Displays the current charge capacity of the battery.
Charge % Displays the available charge of the battery in percentage.
Current (mA) Displays power consumption of the battery in milliamps (mA).
Charge Cycle Count Displays the number of times the battery is charged or discharged.
Auto-learn mode Displays the condition of the battery.
Next Learn Cycle Time Displays the next schedule of the auto learn cycle time.

5. To start a manual learning process, click Start Manual Learn Cycle.

Security key management in HII configuration utility

The Dell OpenManage storage management application and the HII Configuration Utility of the controller allow security keys
to be created and managed as well as create secured virtual disks. The following section describes the menu options specific
to security key management and provides instructions to perform the configuration tasks. The contents in the following section
apply to the HII Configuration Utility.

68 Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility

● The Controller Management screen displays controller information and action menus. You can perform the following
security-related actions through the controller management menu:
○ Security Key Management—Create, update, or delete a Local Key Management (LKM) security key.
● The Virtual Disk Management screen displays physical disk information and action menus. You can perform the following
security related actions through the virtual disk management menu:
○ Secure Disk Group—Secures all virtual disks in disk group.
○ Create secure virtual disk—Creates a new virtual disk that is secured with the security key on the controller.
● The Device Management > Enclosure X screen displays physical disk information and action menus. You can perform the
following security-related actions through the physical disk management menu:
○ Secure non–RAID disk—Secures the non–RAID disk with the controller security key.
○ Cryptographic Erase—Permanently erases all data on the physical disk and resets the security attributes.
For more information on the Device Management screen and the Virtual Disk Management screen, see Device management and
Virtual disk management.

Manage PERC 12 controllers using HII Configuration Utility 69

 8
Security key and RAID management
Topics:
• Security key implementation
• Local Key Management
• Create a security key
• Change security settings
• Disable security key
• Create a secured virtual disk
• Secure a non-RAID disk
• Secure a pre-existing virtual disk
• Import a secured non-RAID disk
• Import a secured virtual disk
• Dell Technologies OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM)

Security key implementation

The PERC 12 series of cards support Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs) for protection of data against loss or theft of SEDs.
Protection is achieved by the use of encryption technology on the drives. There is one security key per controller. You can
manage the security key using Local Key Management (LKM) or OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager, also referred
to as Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM). The LKM key can be escrowed into a file using Dell OpenManage Storage
Management application. The security key is used by the controller to lock and unlock access to encryption-capable physical
disks. To use this feature, you must:
1. Have SEDs in your server.
2. Have created a security key.
NOTE: In external enclosures and a C6600 PowerEdge server, if the main system is shutdown, drives will remained in
unlocked state until the drives are power cycled.

Local Key Management

You can use Local Key Management (LKM) to generate the key ID and the Security Key that is required to secure the physical
disks. You can secure physical disks, change security keys, and manage secured foreign configurations using this security mode.

Create a security key

About this task

NOTE: There is no security key backup option when you create a security key; you need to remember your security key.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Enable Security.
3. Select the Security Key Management mode as as the local key management type.
4. Click Ok.
5. In the Security Key Identifier box, enter an identifier for your security key.

70 Security key and RAID management

 NOTE: The Security Key Identifier is a clear-text label that enables you to associate the correct security key with the
controller.

6. If you want to use the security key generated by the controller, click Suggest Security Key.
Assigns a security key suggested by the controller automatically.
7. In the Security Key box, enter the security key.
NOTE: Security key is case-sensitive. You must enter a minimum of 8 or a maximum of 32 characters. Ensure that
the characters contain at least one number, one lower case letter, one upper case letter, and one non-alphanumeric
character.

8. In the Confirm box, re-enter the security key.

NOTE: If the security key entered in the Security Key and Confirm boxes do not match, then you are prompted with a
message to reenter the security key.

9. Select the I Recorded the Security Settings for Future Reference check box.
10. Click Enable Security.
The Security Key is created successfully.

Change security settings

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Change Security Settings.
3. Do the following:
a. To change the security key identifer, enter a new key identifier in the Enter a New Security Key identifier box.
b. To keep existing key identifier, select the Use the existing Security Key Identifier check box.
4. Enter the existing security key.
5. Set security key:
a. To change the security key, enter a new security key in the Enter a New Security Key box. Re-enter the new security
key to confirm.
b. To keep the existing security key, select the Use the Existing Security Key check box.
6. Select the I recorded the Security Settings for Future Reference check box.
7. Click Save Security Settings.
8. Click Confirm, and then click Yes.
The security settings of the controller are saved.

Disable security key

Prerequisites
● All secured virtual disks and non-RAID disks must be deleted or removed to disable security.
● All secured disks must be cryptographically erased.
● Any Auto Secure non-RAID options must be disabled.

About this task

The Disable Security Key feature is available only if a security key present on the controller.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Controller Management > Advanced Controller Management > Disable Security.
You are prompted to confirm whether you want to continue.
3. Click Confirm.

Security key and RAID management 71

4. Click Yes.
The security key is disabled successfully.
NOTE: All secured disks must be erased or removed to disable security.

Create a secured virtual disk

About this task
To create a secured virtual disk, you must first create security key for the controller.
NOTE: Do not mix the following when creating a secured VD:
● SAS and SATA drives
● HDDs and SSDs
● NVMe drives with HDDs and SSDs
● TCG Enterprise and TCG Opal SED protocols

NOTE: To disable the security features, you must disable the Auto Secure Configuration settings.

After creating the security key, do the following:

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Create Virtual Disk.
3. Select the Secure Virtual Disk option.
4. Click Create Virtual Disk.
The secure virtual disk is created successfully.

Secure a non-RAID disk

In HII, secure a non-RAID disk by using the security key of the controller.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Device Management > Logical Enclosure <enclosure Number>. An enclosure number can be 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, and so on.
All the physical disks associated with the selected enclosure are listed.
3. Select a non-RAID disk.
4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Secure Non-RAID Disk.

Secure a pre-existing virtual disk

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Virtual Disk Management.
The list of virtual disks is displayed.
3. Select a virtual disk.
4. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Secure Virtual Disk.
NOTE: The virtual disks can be secured only when the virtual disks are in Optimal state.

72 Security key and RAID management

Import a secured non-RAID disk
If you are inserting a non-RAID disk into a system that has a controller key different from the security key on the drive, the
security key from the system in which it was initially secured must be provided in HII.

Prerequisites

NOTE: The controller must have an existing security key before importing a secured non-RAID disk.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Manage Foreign Configurations.
3. Select Enter Security Key For Locked Drives and enter the security key if you are importing drives with a different
security key.
The drive's key will be changed to the controller key.
4. If required, convert the drive to a non-RAID drive. See Convert a physical disk to a non–RAID disk.

Import a secured virtual disk

Prerequisites

NOTE: The controller must have an existing security key before importing secured foreign virtual disk.

Steps
1. Enter the Dell PERC 12 Configuration Utility. See Enter the PERC 12 HII Configuration Utility.
2. Click Main Menu > Configuration Management > Manage Foreign Configurations.
3. Click Import Foreign Configuration.
4. To import a VD by using a different security key, enter the new security key.
5. When prompted to conform if you want to perform the operation, click Confirm.
6. Click Yes.
The foreign configuration is imported successfully.
NOTE: By using PERC 12, you cannot import foreign configuration data of previous PERC versions.

Dell Technologies OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key

Manager (SEKM)
This feature allows the PERC to receive a security key from a remote server instead of saving the key on a local controller. This
protects data on secured disks under the PERC if the disks or the entire system is stolen. For more information on configuring
OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) and Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) related
configuration, see the iDRAC User's Guide available on the support site. See the Enable OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key
Manager (SEKM) on PowerEdge Servers technical white paper available on the Dell support site.
NOTE: When replacing a controller enabled with enterprise key management, user must re-enable enterprise key
management on the controller from iDRAC.

NOTE: If key exchange fails during boot, view and correct any connection issues with the key server identified in the iDRAC
Lifecycle log, and then cold reboot the server.

Security key and RAID management 73

Supported controllers for OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key
Manager (SEKM)
Enterprise key manager mode is supported on the PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e
Adapter controllers, and allows the creation of secured virtual disks and non–RAID disks. For more information about supported
platforms, see the iDRAC User's Guide available on the support site.

NOTE: The SEKM mode is not supported on PERC H965i MX.

Manage the Server Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) feature

iDRAC manages the SEKM features. For instructions on enabling enterprise key manager mode, see the SEKM section in the
relevant version of the iDRAC User's Guide available on the support site.
NOTE: When the SEKM mode is enabled, the controller waits up to two minutes for iDRAC to send keys, and then the
PERC continues to boot.

NOTE: iDRAC performs rotation of keys. Any attempt to rekey the controller through a different management application is
not supported.

Disable the Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) feature

The SEKM mode can be disabled only by using the iDRAC interfaces such as GUI and RACADM.
For information about disabling SEKM, see the "SEKM Functionalities" section in the releavant iDRAC User's Guide available
on the support site. Also see the Enable OpenManage Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) on Dell PowerEdge Servers
technical white paper available on the support site.

Manage virtual disks in the SEKM mode

The VDs in SEKM mode are managed in the same way as in local key manager mode. SED capable VDs can be secured during or
after creation. See Create a secured virtual disk.

Manage non–RAID disks in the SEKM mode

Non–RAID disks are managed in the same way in enterprise key manager mode as in local key manager mode. SED capable
non–RAID disks can be secured after creation. See Secure a non-RAID disk.

Transition of drives from Local Key Management to Secure

Enterprise Key Management
PERC enables transition from Local Key Management (LKM) mode to Secure Enterprise Key Manager (SEKM) mode without
disabling LKM security first. For instructions on transitioning from LKM mode to SEKM mode, see the iDRAC User's Guide of the
relevant iDRAC version available at https://www.dell.com/idracmanuals.
You cannot transition from LKM to SEKM when:
● The snapdump is present on PERC.
● The Sanitize operation on a physical disk is in progress.
● The LKM key does not match with the current key of PERC.

74 Security key and RAID management

 9
Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series
cards
To get help for resolving issues in your Dell Technologies PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 series cards, you can contact your Dell
Technical Service representative.
Topics:
• Single virtual disk performance or latency in hypervisor configurations
• Unable to discover or detect a PERC card
• Unable to install the Microsoft Windows operating system
• An incorrect firmware state is detected
• Foreign configuration not found in HII
• Degraded state of virtual disks
• Boot-time errors
• Event log errors
• Application issues
• Memory errors
• Preserved Cache state
• Security key errors
• General issues
• Physical disk issues
• SMART errors
• Replace member errors
• Linux operating system errors
• Drive indicator codes
• HII error messages

Single virtual disk performance or latency in

hypervisor configurations
Multi-initiator or hypervisor configurations running multiple I/O workloads to a single RAID array may experience degraded
performance or latency. This is caused by upper layers sending separate I/O workloads for each virtual machine to the storage
subsystem which ends up being a random I/O workload to the underlying RAID array. For I/O workload configurations that
require lower latency restrictions and higher I/O performance it may be beneficial to run fewer I/O workloads to individual RAID
arrays or to use separate RAID arrays and physical disks for each I/O workload. Other considerations are making sure write-back
cache is enabled for rotational disks or using solid state drives (SSDs) to improve random I/O workload performance.
Performance degradation may also be observed when background operations such as initialization, consistency check, or
rebuilds are running on the virtual disk. See your hypervisor storage best practices or performance best practices guides for
additional configuration support.

Unable to discover or detect a PERC card

Error Message: A discovery error has occurred, please power cycle the system and all the
enclosures attached to this system.
Probable Cause: This message indicates that disk topology discovery did not complete within 120 seconds. The cables from
the PERC controller to the backplane might be improperly connected.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 75

Corrective Check the cable connections and fix any problems. Restart the system.
Action:

Unable to install the Microsoft Windows operating

system
Ensure that you perform the following step before installing Windows on 4 KB sector drives:
1. Read and understand the updates to the version of Windows that you have installed. You can find this information in the
Microsoft help. For more information, see Microsoft support policy for 4 K sector hard drives in Windows.

An incorrect firmware state is detected

Error Message: Firmware is in Fault State. Controller: Broadcom MPI3 I/O Controller
(Fault). The controller is in a Fault state: Faultcode <FaultCode>;
Additional code: <Code> : <Code> : <Code>
Corrective Contact your Technical Support team.
Action:

Foreign configuration not found in HII

Error Message: The foreign configuration message is present during POST but no foreign
configurations are present in the foreign view page in HII configuration
utility. All virtual disks are in an optimal state.
Corrective Ensure all your PDs are present and all VDs are in optimal state. Clear the foreign configuration using HII
Action: configuration utility or Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Storage Management.
CAUTION: The physical disk goes to Ready state when you clear the foreign configuration.

If you insert a physical disk that was previously a member of a virtual disk in the system, and that disk’s
previous location has been taken by a replacement disk through a rebuild, you must manually remove the
foreign configuration flag of the newly inserted disk.

Degraded state of virtual disks

A redundant virtual disk is in a degraded state when one or more physical disks have failed or are inaccessible. For example,
if a RAID 1 virtual disk consists of two physical disks and one of them fails or becomes inaccessible, the virtual disk becomes
degraded.
To recover a virtual disk from a degraded state, you must replace the failed physical disk and rebuild it. Once the rebuilding
process is complete, the virtual disk state changes from degraded to optimal.

Boot-time errors
The following table lists error messages, probable causes, and recommended response action to resolve the issue.

Table 20. Boot-time issues and corrective actions

Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Removed or Some configured disks have been Some configured drives are Check the cables and ensure all
Missing Device removed from the system or are no removed. Else, they may not drives are installed in the slots. If
longer accessible. Check the cables be accessible anymore. Or,

76 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 20. Boot-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
and ensure all drives are installed in the the cables from PERC to the there are no cable related issues,
slots. backplane may be improperly restart the server.
connected.
Removed or The following VDs are missing <VD Because some configured drives Check the cables and ensure all
Missing Device Names>. If you proceed or continue are removed. Else, they may drives are installed in the slots. If
to start the Configuration Utility, not be accessible anymore. Or, there are no cable related issues,
these VDs will be removed from the the cables from PERC to the restart the server.
configuration. To use VDs at a later backplane may be improperly
time, you must import them. connected.
Removed or The following VDs are missing <VD Because some configured drives Check the cables and ensure all
Missing Device Names> complete spans. If you are removed. Else, they may drives are installed in the slots. If
proceed or continue to start the not be accessible anymore. Or, there are no cable related issues,
Configuration Utility, these VDs will be the cables from PERC to the restart the server.
removed from the configuration. To backplane may be improperly
use VDs at a later time, you must connected.
import them.
Removed or All drives associated with the previous Because some configured drives Check the cables and ensure all
Missing Device configuration are no longer associated are removed. Else, they may drives are installed in the slots. If
with the configuration. not be accessible anymore. Or, there are no cable related issues,
the cables from PERC to the restart the server.
backplane may be improperly
connected.
Offline VD The following VDs have missing PDs: Some configured drives are Check the cables and ensure all
<VD_Names>. If you continue or start either removed or have stopped drives are installed in the slots. If
the Configuration Utility, these VDs functioning, resulting in the VDs there are no cable related issues,
will be identified as Offline, and may to be identified as Offline. restart the server.
become inaccessible.
VD in write- The write-back VDs are temporarily The controller energy pack may Ensure that the cable connection
through mode running in write-through mode. have low voltage or may not to the energy pack cable is
be functional. It can also be correct. Ensure the battery
because the energy pack or (Energy Pack) health status is
super capacitor being charged good. If you are using an energy
is either missing or not in good pack, please allow the energy
health state. pack to charge for 24 hours
before evaluating the energy
pack for replacement. You can
evaluate the health of the energy
pack or super capacitor by using
the appropriate utility within
the operating system or within
POST.
Preserved Some VDs with preserved cache are VDs had dirty cache during a Insert the missing drives and
Cache either offline or not installed. server boot operation. restart the server. Check the
cables and ensure all drives are
installed in the slots.
The Foreign The Foreign Configuration Import Either the Foreign Configuration Make sure that either the drives
Configuration operations did not import any drives. is incompatible with this necessary for this configuration
Import controller or the Foreign are installed or remove the
operations did Configuration is incomplete. incompatible configuration.
not import any
drives.
Cache Some memory or energy pack issues The battery (Energy Pack) may Contact the Dell Technical
Discarded were detected. An unexpected power be not in good state or has low support team.
loss has occurred. The adapter has voltage during the AC cycle of a
server that has dirty cache.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 77

Table 20. Boot-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
been recovered, but the controller
cache was lost.
Cache The controller cache was discarded The battery (Energy Pack) may Contact the Dell Technical
Discarded because of an unexpected power- be not in good state or has low support team.
off or reboot operation during a voltage during the AC cycle of a
write operation, but the adapter server that has dirty cache. The
has recovered. Or, some memory or DDR4 device on the server may
energy pack issues were detected. An be moving to a nonfunctional
unexpected power loss has occurred. state.
The adapter has been recovered, but
the controller cache was lost.
Cache An issue is observed in restoring the The battery (Energy Pack) may Contact the Dell Technical
Discarded offloaded cache. The data cache is be not in good state or has low support team.
lost. voltage during the AC cycle of a
server that has dirty cache.
Cache After resetting, the Onboard Controller The onboard controller memory Contact the Dell Technical
Discarded Memory (OCM) data restore operation may either have an issue or support team.
is unsuccessful. moved to a bad state.
Cache data lost Cache Offload was not sustainable. Energy pack is not charged fully. Wait for the energy pack to
because of Bad This could be caused by bad or low charge back before enabling
or Low Voltage voltage energy pack or battery. Write the WB/AWB cache. If issue
Energy Pack journals could have been possibly lost persists, replace the energy
with parity-based arrays (RAID 5, 6, pack.
50, or 60).
Multi-Bit ECC Multi-bit ECC errors were detected on The DDR4 device on the The DIMM device on the
errors detected the RAID controller. server may be moving to a controller must be replaced.
nonfunctional state. Contact Dell Technical support
team.
Single-Bit ECC Single-bit ECC errors were detected The DDR4 device on the The DIMM device on the
errors detected during the previous boot operation of server may be moving to a controller must be replaced.
the RAID controller. nonfunctional state. Contact Dell Technical support
team.
Single-Bit ECC Single-bit ECC errors were detected The DDR4 device on the Contact the Dell Technical
errors detected during the previous boot operation of server may be moving to a support team.
the RAID controller. If you continue, nonfunctional state.
data may become corrupted.
Too many bad The Non-Volatile Cache storage The Open NAND Flash Interface Contact the Dell Technical
block to capacity is too low to support data (ONFI) flash used for DDR support team.
support data backup. The write-back VDs will be backup is not functioning.
backup converted to write-through. Or, Non-
Volatile Cache has gone bad.
Non-Volatile The data backup capacity of the Non- The Open NAND Flash Interface Consider replacing the device
Cache Volatile Cache device is degraded. (ONFI) flash used for DDR or contact the Dell Technical
Degraded backup is not functioning. support team.
Factory Setting The non-volatile data validation The factory settings of the Upgrade the firmware by using
Corrupt operation is unsuccessful. controller may have been the correct NV Data. Or, contact
corrupted. the Technical Support team.
Factory Setting Unable to read the MPB file of the The factory settings of the Contact the Dell Technical
Corrupt personality, OEM ID, or Profile ID. The controller may have been support team.
controller is switching to Safe Mode. corrupted.

78 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 20. Boot-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Factory Setting The NVRAM layout is either corrupted The factory settings of the Upgrade the firmware by using
Corrupt or has a mismatch, and therefore, is controller may have been the correct NV Data. Or, contact
reinitialized. corrupted, and therefore, the Technical Support team.
reinitialized.
Enclosure/ The number of enclosures or Backplanes or enclosures Power off the server and remove
Backplane backplanes connected to the connected to the connector are the backplanes or enclosures to
Count connector <connectorName> has more than the maximum allowed. ensure that the number is less
exceeded exceeded the maximum number. than the maximum value.
Physical Disk The number of PDs connected are The installed PDs are more than Power off the server and remove
Count more than the supported value of the maximum allowed. the PDs to ensure that the
exceeded <number> drives. number is less than the maximum
value.
Topology Error An invalid SAS topology is detected in Either a non-functional or Remove any recently inserted
<name>. corrupted PD is inserted in the PDs from the server.
server.
Discovery Error Unable to discover the controller: The controller could not be Check the cable connection
<%s>. discovered within 120 seconds. between PERC and server.
Cables from the PERC to the Power cycle the server and all
backplane might be improperly attached enclosures.
connected.
Unable to Unable to communicate with the SEKM Connection Information between See the iDRAC User's Guide
communicate Server. If you continue, there will iDRAC and the Key Management of the relevant version on
with Key be a drive security key error and Server (KMS) may have the support site, ensure that
management all the secured configurations will be changed. Or, An iDRAC the KMS communication is
server marked as foreign. Please check the controller discovery issue may successful, and then restart the
connection with the SEKM server, have occurred preventing the server.
reboot the machine to retry switching key exchange within the timeout
to EKM. period.
Safe Mode The controller booted in the safe mode. An internal issue forced the View the server screen to
entered controller to boot in the safe get information about why the
mode. controller booted to a safe mode,
and then take the recommended
corrective action.
Safe Mode The controller has exited the safe Not applicable. No response action is required.
Exited mode.

Event log errors

The following table lists error messages, probable causes, and recommended response action to resolve the Event Log errors.
NOTE: Text used in the following messages may vary based on the type of management application.

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions

Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Correctable Error A medium error was corrected The drive had a correctable Verify the SMART status of the
During BGI on the following virtual drive medium error and the data is drive, and if necessary, replace
during background initialization: recovered. The drive may be the drive.
<VD_Name> at <variable Name>, getting corrupted or facing a
<PD_Name>, LUN <Name>, data-rot.
Count <Number>.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 79

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Uncorrectable Error The Background Initialization One or more uncorrectable Verify the SMART status of the
During BGI operation is completed in the errors are detected during the drive and ensure that the data is
virtual drive <VD_Name> with BGI operation. Data may be lost. backed up.
uncorrectable errors.
Uncorrectable Error The Background Initialization An uncorrectable error was Verify the SMART status of the
During BGI operation is completed in the detected during the BGI drive and ensure that the data is
virtual drive <VD_Name> with operation. Data may be lost. backed up.
uncorrectable errors.
BGI Failed Unable to complete A physical drive may have failed Check the health status of
the Background Initialization during the BGI operation which virtual drives and physical drives,
operation on the virtual drive made the virtual drive appear as and then replace corrupted
<VD_Name>. offline. drives if necessary.
Error Corrected The Consistency Check operation The drive had a medium Verify the SMART status of the
during consistency corrected error on the drive: error and corrected during drive and ensure that the data is
check <VD_Name> at <variable Name>, Consistency Check. Data may be backed up.
<PD_Name>, LUN <Name>, lost.
Count <Number>.
Consistency check The Consistency Check operation The drive had a correctable Verify the SMART status of the
completed with was completed on the medium error and the data is drive, and if necessary, replace
corrected errors drive: <VD_Name> Corrections recovered. The drive may be the drive.
<correctionData>. getting corrupted or facing a
data-rot.
Uncorrectable media The Consistency Check operation The drive had a medium Check the health status of
errors detected detected uncorrectable multiple error and corrected during virtual drives and PDs, and
during consistency medium errors on the drive: Consistency Check. Data may be then replace corrupted drives if
check <VD_Name> at <variable Name>, lost. necessary.
<PD_Name>, LUN <Name>,
Count <Number>.
Unable to complete Unable to complete the Consistency Check has failed Check the health status of the
consistency check Consistency Check operation on on virtual drive which could be virtual drives and PDs. Replace
the virtual drive <VD_Name>. because of media errors. any non-functional drives.
Consistency check The Consistency Check (CC) Medium Errors were not Check the health status of
completed with operation is completed with corrected after CC. If virtual virtual drives and physical drives,
uncorrectable errors uncorrectable errors on the virtual drive is not redundant (or is and then replace corrupted
drive <VD_Name>. degraded), then data cannot be drives if necessary.
regenerated and the medium
error cannot be resolved. Data
may be lost.
Inconsistent parity The Consistency Check operation The Consistency Check No response action is required.
data detected during detected inconsistency parity on operation detected an on the
consistency check the virtual drive <VD_Name>, at virtual drive. The inconsistency is
strip <stripName>. corrected.
Consistency check Inconsistency data on the virtual The Consistency Check Check the health status of
logging disabled drive <VD_Name> cannot be operation detected multiple virtual drives and physical drives,
due to too many logged in because too many inconsistencies and disabled data and then replace corrupted
inconsistencies inconsistencies are detected on logging. drives if necessary.
the virtual drive, and the feature
is disabled during the Consistency
Check operation.
Virtual drive Unable to initialize the virtual A disk could have failed during Check the health status of
Initialization failed drive <VD_Name>. initialization causing the virtual virtual drives and physical drives,
drive to go offline. and then replace corrupted
drives if necessary.

80 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Physical drive erase Data on the following physical The drive could have either Check the health and SMART
errors drive cannot be cleared: failed or returned an error during status of physical drives, and
<PD Name>, <Path Name>, the Clear operation. then replace corrupted drives if
<ErrorDescription>. necessary.
Physical drive error An error is detected on An error is detected on the Check the health and SMART
the following physical drive: physical drive. status of physical drives, and
<PD Name>, <Path Name>, then replace corrupted drives if
<ErrorDescription>. necessary.
Physical drive not The physical drive <PD Name> The physical drive is either not Replace the drive or reformat by
supported is either not supported by the supported by the controller or is using a supported file format.
controller or is in an unsupported in an unsupported format.
format.
Physical drive not The physical drive <PD Name> is The physical drive is not Use a physical drive that
certified warning not certified. manufactured as per Dell complies to Dell standards and
technical specifications and retry the operation.
cannot guarantee that the
physical drive will be fully
compliant with Dell standards
and functionalities.
Media error The patrol-read operation The drive had a medium Verify the SMART status of the
corrected during corrected a medium error on the error and corrected during drive and ensure that the data is
patrol-read physical drive <PD Name>, LUN Consistency Check. Data may be backed up.
<LUN Name>. lost.
Uncorrectable media The patrol-read operation An uncorrectable error was Check the health status of
error detected detected an uncorrectable detected during the patrol-read virtual drives and physical drives,
during patrol-read medium error on the physical operation. Data may be lost. and then replace corrupted
drive <PD Name>, LUN <LUN drives if necessary.
Name>.
Physical drive A predictive failure is detected in The SMART data is indicating Replace the drive and ensure the
Predictive Failure the physical drive: <PD Name>. that the drive may fail soon. rebuild or copy-back operation is
successful.
Bad block punctured A bad block is being punctured on LBA on physical drive was Check the health status of
on the physical disk the physical drive: <PD Name>, punctured. Data may be lost. virtual drives and physical drives,
LUN <LUN Name>. and then replace corrupted
drives if necessary.
Unable to rebuild Unable to rebuild the physical Source drive failed because of Replace any bad drives and
array because of an drive <PD Name> because of an which the Rebuild operation recreate virtual drive from
error on the source error in the source drive. cannot proceed. Data may be backup.
disk lost
Unable to rebuild Unable to rebuild the physical Target drive failed due to which Replace any bad drives and
array because of an drive <PD Name> because of an the Rebuild operation cannot be restart the Rebuild operation.
error on the target error in the target drive. continued.
disk
Unrecoverable error An unrecoverable medium error An uncorrectable error was Check the health status of
detected during is detected during the Rebuild detected during the rebuild. Data virtual drives and PDs, and
rebuild operation on the physical drive: may be lost. then replace corrupted drives if
<PD Name>, LUN <LUN Name>. necessary.
Media error A medium error is corrected An medium error was detected Verify the SMART status of the
corrected during during the recovery operation on during the BGI operation. Data drive and ensure that the data is
operation the physical drive: <PD Name>, may be lost. backed up.
LUN <LUN Name>.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 81

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Unrecoverable error An unrecoverable medium error Medium Errors were not Check the health status of
detected during is detected during the recovery corrected after recovery. If a virtual drives and physical drives,
operation operation on the physical drive: virtual drive is not redundant and then replace corrupted
<PD Name>, LUN <LUN Name>. (or is degraded), data cannot be drives if necessary.
regenerated and medium error
cannot be resolved. Data may be
lost.
SCSI Sense Data An unexpected Sense error is on Drive returned sense data for If the event is seen consistently
the physical drive: <PD Name>, the SCSI CDB. This can include in logs, contact the Technical
Patj <Path Name>, CDB <CDB info during drive power-on, Support team.
Name>, Sense <Sense Name>. firmware update, or errors.
Physical drive is not Unable to access the PD: <PD An error occurred during the Remove or reinstall the drive.
accessible Name>. discovery or initialization of Check the health or SMART
the drive. The drive may be status of the physical drive. For
corrupted. NVMe drives, run the Recovery
operation of the supported
format.
The hot-spare is no The dedicated hot-spare <PD The dedicated hot-spare cannot Check if the assigned dedicated
longer useful Name> is no longer useful for all cover all the arrays and this hot-spare physical drive is
the arrays. could be because of a change compatible with the virtual drive
in the virtual drive size or other it covers. If not, assign a hot-
parameters. spare physical drive which is
compatible.
Hot-Spare no longer The global hot-spare <PD Name> The assigned global hot-spare Ensure to assign a global hot-
covers all arrays no longer covers all the arrays. physical drive is not of the same spare physical drive which is of
type to cover all the virtual the same type of the other VD.
drives in the system. Else, use dedicated hot-spare
for virtual drives that are not
covered.
Energy Pack is not The Energy Pack is not installed. Energy pack may be either Ensure that the Energy Pack is
installed missing, or have a disconnected installed, connected through a
or damaged cable. cable. Else, replace the Energy
Pack.
Energy Pack The Energy Pack temperature is Energy pack temperature Verify system environment is
temperature is high high. exceeded the operational limit. within operational limits. Check
for fan failure, or air flow
blockage. In the absence of
any other temperature condition,
replace energy pack.
Energy Pack The Energy Pack temperature is Energy pack may self-discharge Persistent condition may require
temperature is low low. in storage, which should self- energy pack or controller
correct in operation within a replacement. Contact support.
few minutes. Virtual drives may
transition from write-back to
write-thru until condition is
resolved.
Energy Pack The Energy Pack is not Energy pack has failed. Replace the Energy Pack.
temperature is not functioning and cannot support Virtual drives will transition to
functional data retention. the write-through mode until
corrected.
Energy pack below The current capacity of the May result from energy pack Replace the Energy Pack.
charge threshold Energy Pack is less than the learning cycle indicating it
threshold value. is approaching end of life.
Virtual drives will transition to

82 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
the write-through mode until
corrected.
Energy pack above The current capacity of the May result from energy pack No response action is required.
charge threshold Energy Pack is more than the learning cycle.
threshold value.
Unable to The controller is unable to The cable may be loose or Ensure that the cables are
communicate with communicate with the enclosure damaged. connected and not damaged.
backplane or <enclosure Name>. Restart the server if necessary.
enclosure
Backplane or Discovery error detected for Error is probably caused by Check all cables and drives and
enclosure discovery enclosure <enclosure name> cables, backplane firmware, or ensure they are properly seated.
error (receptacle <receptacle #>) - < slot connections. AC power-cycle the system. If
error code>. the issue persists, contact your
Technical Support team.
PHY/Slot bad The enclosure with physical drive The physical drive is inserted in Ensure that the cables are
<PD Name> is not detected by the slot but not detected by connected and not damaged.
controller in the slot <slotName>. the controller. The physical drive Restart the server if necessary.
may be corrupted.
The backplane The enclosure <enclosure Name> The backplane or enclosure has Ensure that the cables are
or enclosure is is unstable. detected an error. connected and not damaged.
unstable. Upgrade the enclosure firmware
and restart the server.
Hardware issues The enclosure <enclosure Name> The backplane or enclosure Ensure that the cables are
detected on is has hardware issue. has indicated that there is a connected and not damaged.
backplane or hardware failure or issue. Upgrade the enclosure or
enclosure backplane firmware and restart
the server. If the issue persists,
contact your Technical Support
team.
Enclosure is not The enclosure with physical The backplane is not responding Ensure that the cables are
responding drive <enclosure Name> is not to the controller. connected and not damaged.
responding. Upgrade the enclosure or
backplane firmware and restart
the server. If the issue persists,
contact your Technical Support
team.
Virtual drives The Energy pack charger The energy pack is not Verify the energy pack
transitioned to write- has been disabled because functional or defective. connection, check for cable
through because of of hardware issues. Currently Therefore, the virtual drive damage, replace the energy
issues in the energy changing the write-back virtual cache policy is configured for pack. If the issue persists,
pack hardware drives to write-through. However, forced write-back. contact the Technical Support
the forced write-back virtual team.
drives are not affected.
Issues detected with Issues are detected in either the The State of Health (SoH) of Verify the energy pack
energy pack or Energy Pack or Energy Pack the Energy Pack is not good. connection, check for cable
charger Charger. Energy pack is bad, defective, damage, replace the energy
missing, or there is a fault in the pack. If the issue persists,
energy pack charging system. contact the Technical Support
Virtual drives in the write-back team.
mode will transition to write-
through.
Disk missing The following physical drive is A configured physical drive is If this issue is unexpected,
missing: <PD Name>. not detected after resetting or ensure that the cables are
restarting the controller. properly connected and physical

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 83

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
drives are seated, and then
restart the server.
Virtual disk offline The following virtual drives are One or more of the physical Check the health status of the
because of missing not detected, and therefore, the drives is bad and has gone physical disks and replace any
disks physical drives will go offline: <VD offline. bad drives.
Names>.
Virtual drive is The virtual drive <VD Name> is One or more of the physical Check the health status of the
partially degraded partially degraded. drives is bad and has gone physical disks and replace any
offline. bad drives.
Virtual drive is The VD <VD Name> is now fully One or more of the physical Check the health status of the
degraded degraded. drives is bad and has gone physical disks and replace any
offline. bad drives.
Virtual drive is The virtual drive <VD Name> is One or more of the physical Check the health status of the
offline. now offline. drives is bad and has gone physical disks and replace any
offline. bad drives.
Physical drive The command timed out waiting The drive Command timed out Check the health or SMART
command timeout for response: <PD Name>, waiting for response. This may status of the drive and replace
Patj <Path Name>, CDB <CDB occur due to an error or in cases any failing drives. Try restarting
Name>, Sense <Sense Name>. where the device is reset such the server or controller. If
as a firmware update. Command the issue persists, contact the
may have been retried. Technical Support team.
Disk Reset The physical drive <PD Name>, Drive was reset. This can happen If the issue is persistently seen
Path <pathname> is reset. in an attempt to recover from an in logs, contact the Technical
error during device discovery. Support team.
Bad Block table for The bad block table on the virtual Multiple uncorrectable medium Check the health status of the
virtual drive 80% full drive <VD Name> is 80% full. errors were found on the drive physical disks and replace any
and added to LDBBM table. bad drives.
Bad block logging for Unable to log the block Multiple uncorrectable medium Check the health status of the
virtual drive disabled <blockName> on the physical errors were found on the drive physical disks and replace any
because of too many drive <PD Name>, LUN <LUN and added to LDBBM table. bad drives.
bad blocks Name> at <Count> because of a
block table on the virtual drive
<VD Name>l.
Uncorrectable media An uncorrectable medium error Uncorrectable multiple medium Check the health status of the
error is detected on was logged for virtual drive errors were found on the disk. physical disks and replace any
virtual drive <VD Name>: physical drive <PD Data may be lost. bad drives.
Name>, LUN <LUN Name> at
<Count> because of a block table
on the virtual drive <VD Name>.
Media error A medium error was corrected on Medium Error was found on the Verify the SMART status of the
corrected on virtual the virtual drive <VD Name> at disk and corrected. Data may be drive and ensure that the data is
drive <name>. lost. backed up.
Bad block table for The bad block table on the virtual Multiple uncorrectable medium Check the health status of the
virtual disk is 100% drive <VD Name> is 100% full. errors were found on the drive physical disks and replace any
full and added to LDBBM table. bad drives.
Preserved Cache The controller cache is discarded A state of a virtual drive has Check the state of the
Discarded for either the deleted, missing, or changed because drives are virtual drive and all associated
offline virtual drive <VD Name>. missing, failed, or deleted. Either physical drives. Replace any non-
the user has discarded the functional drives.
controller cache or the virtual
drive was deleted.

84 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Physical drives The Microcode Update operation The drive firmware update Verify if the drive firmware is
update timeout timed out on the physical drives operation did not complete fully updated. Else, retry the
<PD Name>. within the specified time limit. operation. If the firmware cannot
The firmware may still have be upgraded, then contact your
updated successfully. Technical Support team.
Security key entered Unable to unlock the drive An incorrect security key ID is Enter a valid security key ID and
is invalid because an invalid security key is used to unlock the drive or retry the operation. If multiple
entered. controller. drives use the same key ID
and different security keys then
remove the extra drives and
separately import the drives.
Unable to unlock Unable to unlock the drive The security key ID provided by If multiple drives use the same
drives because of because the security key provided Escrow is invalid. key ID and different security
invalid security key by Escrow is invalid. keys then remove the extra
drives and import the disks
separately.
A Drive Security Security subsystem issues are There is an issue when managing Remove, reinstall the drive, and
Error is detected detected on the physical drive the security of the drive. then retry the operation. If
<PD Name>. the issue persist, contact your
Technical Support team.
Controller cache The controller cache data was The state of a virtual drive has Check the state of the
preserved for VD preserved for the missing of changed because either drives virtual drive and all associated
offline virtual drive: <VD Name>. are missing or failed. physical drives. Replace any non-
functional drives.
Locked drives are Unable to access the secured Either an incorrect security key Using iDRAC, verify the SEKM
not accessible configuration because an is entered or a key is not entered status of the server. Resolve any
because of a key incorrect security key is entered. at all. Locked drives will remain network communication issues
exchange error locked and cannot be accessed. with the KMS server. To retry
exchanging the security key,
restart the server.
Invalid security key An invalid security key of the The security key or key ID of the Ensure that correct security key
or key id entered drive is entered. drive does not match the drive and key ID are entered to unlock
information. the drive.
Unable to Unable to communicate with the Either an incorrect security key Using iDRAC, verify the SEKM
communicate with external key manager. is entered or a key is not entered status of the server. Resolve any
the external key at all. Locked drives will remain network communication issues
manager locked and cannot be accessed. with the KMS server. To retry
exchanging the security key,
restart the server.
Physical drive Erase Unable to erase data on the The drive may have an internal Retry the operation. If the issue
Error physical drive: <PD Name>, Path error or failed during the Erase persist, contact your Technical
<pathname>, Error Data <error operation. Support team. If the data must
Info>. be erased, then follow the DoD
5220.22-M Standard for Drive
Erasure to physically destroy the
storage device.
Energy pack The Energy Pack charging System environment is not Ensure that system environment
charging disabled operation is abruptly stopped within operational specifications, is within operational limits.
due to high because the Energy Pack or energy pack is damaged. Check for fan failure, or air flow
temperature temperature is too high. blockage around controller. In
the absence of an environmental
cause, disconnect energy pack
and contact support.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 85

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Too many bad blocks The non-volatile cache capacity is Controller has run out of enough Check the state of all virtual
to support cache too less to support data backup. good cache buffer space to drives and all associated physical
backup The write-back virtual drives will currently support caching. drives. Discard any preserved
be converted to write-through. cache if necessary.
Non-Volatile cache The non-volatile cache device Controller cache support may Contact your Technical Support
has failed and failed and cannot support the not be functioning properly. team.
backup cannot be data retention feature.
supported
Controller The controller temperature The server fans may not Check the health of server
temperature exceeded the threshold value. functioning properly. fans and replace if necessary.
exceeded warning This may indicate inadequate To improve cooling, increase or
threshold server cooling. Currently offset the fan speed.
switching to a low-performance
mode.
Controller The controller has been The server cooling fans may not Increase or offset the fan speed
temperature shut down because the be functioning properly. to improve cooling.
exceeded critical server temperature reached the
threshold threshold value. This indicates
that the server cooling is
inadequate.
Unable to secure Unable to secure the virtual drive One of the physical drives Replace the non-SED with an
virtual drive in future <VD Name> in future because it is hosting the virtual drive is not SED-capable one.
a non-SED. SED-capable.
Discovery error The drive cannot be discovered An error occurred during device Remove all the newly added
because of an SAS topology error: discovery. or non-functioning hardware. If
<Error Description>. the issue persists, contact your
Technical Support team.
Energy pack The Energy Pack is either Energy pack is bad or defective, Verify energy pack connection,
unavailable or not unavailable or not functioning. and the virtual drive cache policy check for cable damage, replace
functioning Incomplete write operations is configured for forced write energy pack. Disable forced
because of power loss may cause back. write back until resolved.
data integrity issues on the parity
virtual drive: <VD Name>.
Safe Mode Error The controller booted to the Safe Controller has an error during Correct the errors reported by
mode because of critical issues. boot that requires user the controller.
attention.
Firmware Update A validation issue occurred during Failed to validate the incoming Ensure that the firmware image
Failure the firmware update operation: firmware image file. used is correct and retry the
<Issue Description>. operation. If the issue persists,
contact your Technical Support
team.
Firmware Update A programming issue occurred Programming of incoming Ensure that the firmware image
Failure during the firmware update firmware image to the flash used is correct and retry the
operation: <Issue Description>. failed. operation. If the issue persists,
contact your Technical Support
team.
Firmware Update Unable to complete the Online The new firmware may require Perform system reset to activate
Failure activate operation while preparing offline activation. the firmware offline.
the controller.
Security Key cleaned The Escrow key ID <key ID> is The security key that was saved No action is required. If disks
up cleaned up. in the memory for unlocking and need to be imported then
importing the drive is erased. remove the disks, wait 10
Any drive that uses this key seconds, and reinsert the disks.

86 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
which is not imported or rekeyed If using LKM then provide the
will be locked. key to unlock the disks. If using
SEKM then wait for the key
exchange to occur. Import the
configuration after the disks are
unlocked.
Error detected in the An error is detected in the The controller hardware is not Contact your Technical Support
controller Level 2 Level-2 (L2) cache. functioning or is going to stop team.
cache functioning.
Controller flash A transient error has occurred The controller flash device is not Contact your Technical Support
access error while accessing the flash device. functioning or is going to stop team.
functioning.
Controller flash The flash device has stopped The controller flash device is Contact your Technical Support
stopped functioning functioning. not functioning and must be team.
replaced.
Multi-bit ECC error A multi-bit ECC error is detected A Multi-bit ECC error is detected Contact your Tech Support team
detected on the in the OCM. This is a high- on the controller. Controller to replace the controller.
onboard controller severity issue. must be replaced.
memory
Single-bit ECC error A single-bit ECC error is detected A Single-bit ECC error is No response action is required.
detected on the in the OCM. This is not a high- detected.
onboard controller severity issue.
memory
Multi-bit ECC error A number of single-bit ECC errors A Single-bit ECC error is Continue to monitor the ECC
detection crossed in the OCM has crossed the detected multiple times. errors. If ECC errors persists,
warning threshold Warning threshold. contact your Tech Support team
to replace the controller.
ECC error logging The detection of single-bit ECC Additional ECC errors will not be Contact your Technical Support
stopped errors in the OCM has been logged because too many errors team to get the controller
disabled. are occurring and the controller replaced.
does not have room to record
anymore.
Controller fan The fan stopped functioning The fan on the adapter Check the controller and system
stopped functioning because <reason>. controller may not be health and replace the controller,
functioning properly. if necessary.
Drive Initialization An initialization issue is detected An initialization issue is detected Remove or reinstall the drive.
Error in the physical drive <PD Name>. in the physical drive during the Check the health or SMART
initialization or discovery of the status of the physical drive. For
drive. The drive may not be in NVMe drives, run the Recovery
good state. operation of the supported
format.
Command timed out During backplane firmware update The backplane may have No response action is required.
on physical drive operation, the Command Timeout been reset after updating the
event is displayed in PERC. firmware, and therefore the
commands sent by PERC to
backplane could be timed out.
An I/O delay is An I/O delay is observed when a The controller has a delay time No response action is required.
observed when a virtual drive state changes. of 4 seconds for SAS/SATA
virtual drive state and 8 seconds for NVMe drive
changes removal processing to prevent
unnecessary rebuild operations.
This delay can introduce short

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 87

Table 21. Run-time issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
pause in IO when the virtual
drive state changes.

Application issues
The following table lists error messages, probable causes, and recommended response action to resolve the issues in general
applications.

Table 22. General application issues and corrective actions

Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Reboot Required Restart the server to complete the The operation was successful Restart the server to make the
requested operation. but requires a system restart to changes effective.
make the changes effective.
Reset Required The operation is successful but reset The operation was successful Reset the controller to make the
the controller settings to make the but requires a controller reset to changes effective.
changes effective. finish.
Locked Disks Unable to complete the The operation cannot be Remove the locked disks or
Present operation because locked foreign completed because some locked cryptographically erase the
configuration(s) is present. disks are present. locked disks to clear the security
status, and then retry the
operation.
Foreign No foreign configuration is detected. A foreign scan was run but no Ensure all foreign disks are
Configuration foreign configuration is present. present and drives are detected,
then run the scan again
Low Memory Insufficient controller memory to Controller or system memory is Close open applications and
process the operation. Try again later. low. retry the operation. Contact Dell
Support if the issue persists.
Application The command is unknown and not The application may not be Update application and controller
Compatibility supported at this time. The command: compatible with the controller firmware to the latest version.
<commandName>. firmware.
Controller Busy The requested command is not The controller is still initializing Wait some time for the controller
supported because the controller from boot or reset. to boot then retry the operation.
firmware initialization is not complete.
Foreign The foreign configuration cannot be Some disks are missing from the Ensure all foreign disks are
Configuration imported because the configuration is foreign configuration. present and drives are detected,
not complete. then run the scan again.
Drive Security The requested operation cannot be The operation is not supported Disable the drive security mode
completed because the controller when the controller is in either on the controller and retry the
already has the security key. the LKM or EKM mode. operation.
Drive Security The requested operation cannot be Operation is not supported when Disable the drive security mode
completed because the security key is the controller is not in the LKM on the controller and retry the
not present. or EKM mode. operation.
Drive Security The requested operation cannot be An incorrect Security Key or Key Enter the correct key and retry
completed because the security key is ID was entered when changing the operation.
invalid. the key.
Application The requested operation cannot be The application may not be Update application and controller
Compatibility performed because of an internal compatible with the controller firmware to the latest version.
error. firmware.

88 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 22. General application issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Snapdump Error The requested operation cannot be Some operations cannot be Download all snapdumps from
performed because of the existing performed when there are debug the controller then clear the
snapdump. Clear all the snapdump and log snapdumps present on the snapdumps and retry the
reinitiate the operation. controller. operation.
Snapdump Error The requested operation cannot be No snapdumps are present when Generate a new on-demand
performed because no snapdump is trying to download debug log. snapdump.
present.
Snapdump Error The requested operation cannot be The controller does not support Ensure the controller supports
performed because the on-demand snapdump generation or is in a snapdump functionality. Check
snapdump is not allowed. state where a snapdump cannot the controller's DDR is healthy
be generated such as bad DDR and that the controller is not in
or is in a fault condition. a fault state.
Snapdump Error The requested operation cannot be There is an ongoing snapdump Retry the operation after some
performed because there is an being collected. Note that On- time.
ongoing on-demand snapdump. demand snapdump can only be
collected once every 10 minutes.
Hardware Error The requested operation cannot be The controller may be in a faulty Retry the operation after some
completed because of a hardware state or the hardware may not time. If the issue persists,
error. The extended Status code: be fully functional. contact the Dell Technical
<statusCode>. Support team.
Firmware Error The requested operation cannot be The controller may be in a faulty Retry the operation after some
completed because of a controller state or the has an internal error. time. If the issue persists,
firmware error. The extended Status contact the Dell Technical
code: <statusCode>. Support team.
Invalid ID The requested operation cannot The application is no longer in Retry the operation after some
be completed because the ID is sync with the firmware or the time. If the issue persists,
invalid. The extended Status code: device is unavailable. contact the Dell Technical
<statusCode>. Support team.
Device not The requested operation cannot be The requested device is not Ensure that the correct device
Found completed because the device is not available. ID is selected when running the
detected. The extended Status code: commands. If the issue persists,
<statusCode>. contact the Dell Technical
Support team.
Invalid Sequence Check the configuration and retry the The application is no longer in Retry the operation after some
Number operation. The extended Status code: sync with the firmware. time. If the issue persists,
<statusCode>. contact the Dell Technical
Support team.
Invalid Argument The requested command has invalid The application is no longer Update the application and
arguments. The extended Status compatible with the controller controller firmware to the
code: <statusCode>. firmware or no longer in sycn latest version and retry the
with the firmware. operation after some time. If the
issue persists, contact the Dell
Technical Support team.
Command Not The requested command is not The VD may be in a state where Ensure that the controller and
supported for supported for the drive. The extended the specific operation is not drive support the feature. For
drive Status code: <statusCode>. supported or the command is performing erase operations on
not supported at all. PDs, the drives must be in
Unconfigured state.
Command Not The requested command is not The VD may be in a state where Ensure that the controller and
supported for supported for the virtual drive. The the specific operation is not VD support the feature.
VD extended Status code: <statusCode>. supported or the command is
not supported at all.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 89

Table 22. General application issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Command Not The requested command is not The Controller or Configuration Confirm Controller supports
supported for supported. The extended Status code: may be in a state where the feature. Ensure that the
Controller <statusCode>. the specific operation is not controller and VDs are healthy
supported or the command is state.
not supported at all.
Controller Busy The requested command cannot be Too many commands are run on Wait some time for some
completed because the maximum limit the controller. commands to complete then
is exceeded. The extended Status retry the operation.
code: <statusCode>.
Drive Mixing Mixing of the drive type is not Mixing of some physical disk Ensure the same type of drives
Violation supported. Add the same type of properties are not supported are being used for the operation.
drives to perform the operation. The (Sector Size, Media Type, or
extended Status code: <statusCode>. Protocol).
Force Option This command can be processed only The command may be erasing The Force parameter is required
Required with the Force option. data or causing a short for any operation that may
performance degradation. erase data or cause performance
degradation. Select or add the
option and retry running the
command.
Configuration This command can be processed only The operation cannot be run Clear the configuration from
Present when no configuration is present. while a configuration is present. the controller or remove all
the configured devices from the
system.
Controller not The controller firmware is not The controller may be busy Wait some time and try the
responding responding. processing other commands or operation again. If the issue
has an issue. persists then try restarting the
server.
PCI Error The requested operation cannot be A PCIe error has occurred. N/A
performed because of a PCI error.
Flash error The requested operation cannot be An error occurred on the Wait some time then retry the
performed because of a flash error. hardware flash. operation. If the issue persists,
contact the Dell Technical
Support team.
Drive Error The requested operation cannot be An error occurred on the drive. Wait some time then retry the
performed because of an error is operation. If the issue persists,
detected on the drive. contact the Dell Technical
Support team.
Storage space The requested operation cannot be The replaced drive has too less Replace the drive with a drive
on the drive is performed because storage space of storage capacity for the array. that has high storage capacity.
too less the drive is too less.
Drive does not The requested operation cannot be The selected or replaced drive is Replace the drive with a
support security performed because the drive is not not security-capable. security-capable drive.
security-capable.
Drive security The requested operation cannot be The selected or replaced drive Replace the drive with a drive
protocol performed because the security type does not support the compatible that is compatible with the
mismatch of the drive is inappropriate. security protocol. security protocol.
Drive Type The requested operation cannot be The selected or replaced drive Ensure that the drive type
Mismatch performed because the drive type is does not match with the drives matches either SAS, SATA, or
incorrect. already in the array. NVMe; 512n or 4kn; or HDD or
SSD.
Drive Sector The requested operation cannot be The block size of the selected Ensure that the sector size of
Type mismatch performed because the block size of or replaced drive does not match the drive matches 512n or 4kn.

90 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Table 22. General application issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
the drive does not match with other with the drives already in the
drives in the array. array
Security not The requested operation cannot The security mode of the Enable security on the controller
enabled be performed because the security controller is not enabled. and retry the operation.
feature of the drive is not enabled.
Wrong The command cannot be run because An incorrect enclosure ID is Enter a correct enclosure ID
Enclosure the drive is not a part of this entered. in the command and retry the
enclosure. operation.
No SEKM The requested operation cannot be iDRAC may not be compatible Update iDRAC and ensure that
capable Agent performed because the Security with SEKM or does not support SEKM features are supported.
Detected External Key Management (SEKM) the SEKM feature.
server is not detected.
Command Not The requested operation cannot be The operation may not be Ensure that the operation is
supported for performed for the current RAID level. supported for RAID levels such supported for the RAID array.
Raid Level as running BGI or CC on a RAID
0 array.
VD Wrong state The requested operation cannot be The VD may be in a degraded or Ensure the VD is in a healthy
performed because the VD is in a offline state where the operation state.
wrong state. is unsupported.
Too many retries Unable to run the command because The command is run for more Wait for some time and retry the
the maximum number of retries is than the maximum stipulated operation. If the issue persists,
exceeded. number of attempts. contact the Dell Technical
Support team.
Preserved The requested operation cannot be The operation cannot be Ensure all drives are detected,
Cache Present performed because the controller has performed because there is and then import any foreign
data in cache for offline or missing preserved cache present on the drives. Also, clear the preserved
virtual drive(s). controller. cache.
Feature Not The requested operation cannot be The feature is not supported on No response action is required
Supported performed because the feature is not the controller. because the feature is not
supported. supported.
Secure Devices The requested operation cannot be The operation cannot be By using the cryptographic erase
Present completed because there are one or performed because there are operation erase the secured
more secure drives present on this secured drives present on the drives or remove the drives from
controller. controller. the server, and then retry the
operation.
Operation The requested operation cannot be The operation cannot be Re-enable the feature and retry
disabled performed because the operation is performed because the feature the operation.
currently disabled. is disabled or turned off.
Operation in The requested operation cannot be The operation cannot be Wait for the current operation
Progress performed because some operation is performed because there is to complete or stop the current
currently in progress. already another operation in operation.
progress.
Controller in The requested command is not The controller is running in safe Check the health of the
SafeMode supported because the controller is mode because of some internal controller and configuration and
running in safe mode. issues. correct any errors
Controller An issue is detected with the An issue is detected in the Save the snapdump generated
Faulted controller firmware. controller which can result by the controller and Contact
in a auto-reset or snapdump the Dell Technical Support team.
operation.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 91

Table 22. General application issues and corrective actions (continued)
Description Error Message Probable Cause Recommended Corrective
Action
Drive Security The requested operation cannot be The operation is not supported Check the security state of
State error performed because of the current because the drive is in an the drive. Perform cryptographic
SED state of the drive. unsupported security state. erase or secure operation as
Drive may be secured when it needed.
should be unsecured.
Auto- The requested operation cannot be The auto-configuration option is Change the auto-configuration
Configuration completed because of a secured auto- enabled. setting to the default
Enabled configure setting. (Unconfigured) setting then
retry the operation.

Memory errors
Memory errors can corrupt cached data, so the controllers are designed to detect and attempt to recover from the memory
errors. Single-bit memory errors can be handled by the controller and do not disrupt normal operation. A notification is sent if
the number of single-bit errors exceeds a threshold value.
Multi-bit errors are more serious because the effected memory data cannot be automatically recovered. The following are the
actions that occur in the case of multi-bit errors:
● When a multi-bit error is detected, the controller stops responding and becomes inoperative. You must restart the controller.
● If a multi-bit error occurs while accessing data in the cache when the controller is started with dirty cache, the controller
discards the cache contents. The controller generates a Warning message to the system console to indicate that the cache
was discarded, and then generates an event.
● In all cases, the controller logs an event to the controller’s internal event log and a message is displayed during POST
indicating that a multi-bit error has occurred.
NOTE: In case of a multi-bit error, contact Contact Technical Support.

Preserved Cache state

The controller preserves the dirty cache from a virtual disk if the virtual disk goes offline or is deleted because of missing
physical disks. This preserved dirty cache is called preserved cache and is preserved until you import the virtual disk or discard
the cache.
1. Import the virtual disk—Power off the system, re-insert the virtual disk and restore the system power. Use the HII
Configuration Utility to import the foreign configuration.
2. Discard the preserved cache—See Discard preserved cache.
NOTE: It is recommended to clear the preserved cache before reboot using any of the virtual disks present on the
controller.

Security key errors

Secured foreign import errors
A foreign configuration is a RAID configuration that already exists on a replacement physical disk that you install in a system. A
secured foreign configuration is a RAID configuration that was created under a different security key.
There are two scenarios in which a secured foreign import fails:
● The security key authentication fails—A virtual disk secured with a security key different from the current controller
security key cannot be imported without authentication of the original security key used to secure them. Supply the correct
security key to import the secured foreign configuration. If you have lost or forgotten the security key, the secured foreign
disks remain locked (inaccessible) until the appropriate security key is entered or disks are erased.
● The secured virtual disk is in an offline state after supplying the correct security key—You must check to
determine why the virtual disk failed and correct the problem.

92 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

Failure to select or configure non Self-Encrypting Disks non-SED
A virtual disk can be either secured or unsecured depending on how it was configured when created. In order to create a
secured virtual disk, the controller must have a security key present and must contain SEDs only. In order to select/configure
non-SED, you must create an unsecured virtual disk. You can create an unsecured virtual disk even if there is a security key.
Select the Secure VD option as No in the Create New VD menu. For steps on how to create an unsecured virtual disk, see
Create virtual disk and configure virtual disk parameters.

Failure to delete security key

A security key is used to lock or unlock access to a security-enabled component. This key is not utilized in the actual encryption
of data. If a security key is present, both secured and unsecured virtual disks may exist.
To delete the security key, you must have a previously established security key present on the controller and there cannot be
any configured secured disks. If there are configured secured virtual disks, remove or delete them.

Failure of Cryptographic Erase on encryption-capable physical

disks
Cryptographic Erase is the process of securely erasing all data permanently on an encryption-capable physical disk and resetting
the security attributes. It is used in scenarios such as deleting a foreign configuration in the event of a forgotten or lost security
key, or unlocking a disk that had been previously locked.
NOTE: PERC12 does not support unlocking disks from past generations or from third-party secured configurations.

You can perform Cryptographic Erase only on encryption-capable disks that are not hot spares and not configured as non-RAID
or virtual disks. Ensure that the conditions are met. See Cryptographic erase.

General issues
PERC card has yellow bang in Windows operating system device
manager
Issue: The device is displayed in Device Manager but has a yellow exclamation mark.
Corrective Reinstall the driver. For more information on reinstalling drivers, see Driver support for PERC H965i
Action: Adapter, PERC H965i Front, PERC H965i MX, and PERC H965e Adapter.

PERC card not seen in operating systems

Issue: The device does not appear in the Device Manager.
Corrective Turn off the system and reseat the controller.
Action:
For more information, see Install and remove a PERC 12 card.

Unlocked drives if not imported appear as locked

Issue: If drives are unlocked but not imported, the drives appear as locked even after the controller is reset.
Corrective Remove the drives from the system.
Action:

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 93

Physical disk issues
Physical disk in failed state
Issue: One of the physical disks in the disk array is in the failed state.
Corrective Update the PERC cards to the latest firmware available on https://www.dell.com/support and replace
Action: the drive.

Unable to rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk

Issue: Cannot rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk. For more information, see the alert log for virtual disks.
Probable Cause: The replacement disk is too small or not compatible with the virtual disk.
Corrective Replace the failed disk with a compatible good physical disk with equal or greater capacity.
Action:

An NVMe drive is indicated as faulty when moving the drive to new

backplane using hot-insertion
Issue: When moving an NMVe drive to a different backplane slot, if the NVMe drive is hot-removed and
hot-inserted in a different slot too quickly, then the drive may be indicated as faulty.
Probable Cause: NVMe drive is moved between slots too quickly.
Corrective Wait at least 8 seconds after a hot-pull event before re-inserting the drive in an alternate slot.
Action:

Fatal error or data corruption reported

Issue: Fatal error(s) or data corruption(s) are reported when accessing virtual disks.
Corrective Contact your Technical Support team.
Action:

Multiple disks are inaccessible

Issue: Multiple disks are simultaneously inaccessible.
Probable Cause: Multiple physical disk errors in a single array typically indicate a failure in cabling or connection and could
involve the loss of data.
Corrective You can recover the virtual disk after multiple physical disks become simultaneously inaccessible. Perform
Action: the following steps to recover the virtual disk:

CAUTION: Follow the safety precautions to prevent electrostatic discharge.

1. Turn off the system, check cable connections, and reseat physical disks.
2. Ensure that all the disks are present in the enclosure.
3. Turn on the system and enter the HII Configuration Utility.
4. Import the foreign configuration.
5. Press <F> at the prompt to import the configuration, or press <C> to enter the HII Configuration Utility and either import
or clear the foreign configuration.

94 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

If the virtual disk is redundant and transitioned to Degraded state before going Offline, a rebuild operation starts automatically
after the configuration is imported. If the virtual disk has gone directly to the Offline state due to a cable pull or power loss
situation, the virtual disk is imported in its Optimal state without a rebuild occurring.
NOTE: You can use the HII Configuration Utility or Dell OpenManage storage management application to perform a
manual rebuild of multiple physical disks.

Rebuilding data for a failed physical disk

Issue: Rebuilding data for a physical disk that is in a failed state.
Probable Cause: Physical disk is failed or removed.
Corrective If you have configured hot-spares, the PERC card automatically tries to use one of the hot-spares to
Action: rebuild a physical disk that is in a failed state. Manual rebuild is necessary if no hot-spares with enough
capacity to rebuild the failed physical disks are available. You must insert a physical disk with enough
storage in the subsystem before rebuilding the physical disk.

NOTE: You can use the HII Configuration Utility or Dell OpenManage storage management application to perform a
manual rebuild of an individual physical disk.

Virtual disk fails during rebuild using a global hot-spare

Issue: A virtual disk fails during rebuild while using a global hot spare.
Probable Cause: One or more disks in the virtual disks fails or is disconnected while the rebuild is in progress.
Corrective No action is required. The global hot spare reverts to Hot spare state and the virtual disk is in Failed
Action: state.

Dedicated hot-spare disk fails during rebuild

Issue: A hot-spare disk fails during rebuild while using a dedicated hot spare.
Probable Cause: The dedicated hot-spare assigned to the virtual disk fails or is disconnected while the rebuild is in
progress.
Corrective If there is a global hot spare available with enough capacity, rebuild will automatically start on the global
Action: hot spare. Where there is no hot spare present, you must insert a physical disk with enough capacity into
the system before performing a rebuild.

Virtual disk fails rebuild using a dedicated hot spare

Issue: A virtual disk fails during rebuild while using a dedicated hot spare.
Probable Cause: One or more disks in the virtual disks fails or is disconnected while the rebuild is in progress.
Corrective No action is required. The dedicated hot spare is in hot spare state and converted to global hot spare if
Action: there is any other virtual disk that is supported, otherwise the dedicated hot spare reverts to Ready state
and the virtual drive is in Failed state.

Physical disk takes a long time to rebuild

Issue: A physical disk is taking longer than expected to rebuild.
Description: A physical disk takes longer to rebuild when under high I/O stress. There is only one rebuild I/O operation
for every five host I/O operations.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 95

Corrective If possible, reduce I/O stress on the physical disk or increase the value of rebuild rate controller
Action: parameter.

Drive removal and insertion in the same slot generates a foreign

configuration event
Issue: When a drive which is part of a virtual disk is removed and reinserted into the same slot the drive goes
through a transient state of being foreign for a short period of time before rebuilding.
Description: This transient state could be reported as an event in management applications as A foreign
configuration was detected on RAID Controller is SL x, where x is the slot of the RAID controller.
Corrective No action is required on the foreign configuration state of the drive as it is transient and the controller
Action: handles the event automatically.

SMART errors
SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and physical disk electronics and detects predictable physical
disk failures.
NOTE: For information about SMART errors' reports that could indicate hardware failure, see the Dell OpenManage
Storage Management documentation at www.dell.com/openmanagemanuals.

SMART error detected on a non–RAID disk

Issue: A SMART error is detected on a non–RAID disk.
Corrective Perform the following steps:
Action: 1. Back up your data.
2. Replace the affected physical disk with a new physical disk of equal or higher capacity.
3. Restore from the backup.

SMART error detected on a physical disk in a non–redundant

virtual disk
Issue: A SMART error is detected on a physical disk in a non–redundant virtual disk.
Corrective Perform the following steps:
Action: 1. Back up your data.
2. Use Replace Member to replace the disk manually.
NOTE: For more information about the Replace Member feature, see Configure hot-spare
drives.
3. Replace the affected physical disk with a new physical disk of equal or higher capacity.
4. Restore from the backup.

SMART error detected on a physical disk in a redundant virtual disk

Issue: A SMART error is detected on a physical disk in a redundant virtual disk.
Corrective Perform the following steps:
Action: 1. Back up your data.
2. Force the physical disk offline.

96 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

 NOTE: If a hot-spare is present, the rebuild starts with the hot-spare after the disk is forced
offline.
3. Replace the disk with a new physical disk of equal or higher capacity.
4. Perform the Replace Member operation.
NOTE: The Replace Member operation allows you to copy data from a source physical disk of
a virtual disk to a target physical disk that is not a part of the virtual disk. For more information
about the Replace Member feature, see Configure hot-spare drives.

Replace member errors

NOTE: For more information about the Replace Member features, see Configure hot-spare drives.

Source disk fails during replace member operation

Issue: The source disk fails during the Replace Member operation and the Replace Member operation stops
due to the source physical disk error.
Probable Cause: Physical disk failure or physical disk is removed or disconnected.
Corrective No action required. If the virtual disk can tolerate disk failure, and the source data is available from other
Action: disks in the virtual disk, the rebuild begins automatically on the target disk, using the data from the other
disks, if the virtual disk cannot tolerate the failure, the virtual disk goes to offline state and the replace
member operation is stopped.

Target disk fails during replace member operation

Issue: The target disk failure reported during the Replace Member operation, and the Replace Member
operation stops.
Probable Cause: Physical disk failure or physical disk is removed or disconnected.
Corrective It is recommended that you replace or check the target drive, and restart the Replace Member
Action: operation or perform the operation on a different target drive.

A member disk failure is reported in the virtual disk which

undergoes replace member operation
Issue: The source and the target drive which is part of Replace Member operation are online, while a different
drive which is a member of the virtual drive reports a failure.
Probable Cause: Physical disk failure or physical disk is removed or disconnected.
Corrective A rebuild starts if there any hot-spares configured or you may replace the failed drive. The Replace
Action: Member operation continues as far as the source virtual disk can tolerate the drive failure. If the source
virtual disk fails, the Replace Member is stopped, otherwise the virtual disk continues to be in degraded
state.

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 97

Linux operating system errors
Virtual disk policy is assumed as write-through
Error: <Date:Time> <HostName> kernel: sdb: asking for cache data failed<Date:Time>
<HostName> kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
Corrective The error message is displayed when the Linux Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) mid-layer asks
Action: for physical disk cache settings. The controller firmware manages the virtual disk cache settings on a per
controller and a per virtual disk basis, so the firmware does not respond to this command. The Linux SCSI
mid-layer assumes that the virtual disk's cache policy is Write-Through. SDB is the device node for a
virtual disk. This value changes for each virtual disk.
For more information about Write-Through cache, see Virtual disk write cache policy.
Except for this message, there is no effect of this behavior on normal operation. The cache policy of the
virtual disk and the I/O throughput are not affected by this message. The cache policy settings for the
PERC SAS RAID system remain unchanged.

Unable to register SCSI device

Error: smartd[smartd[2338] Device: /dev/sda, Bad IEC (SMART) mode page, err=-5,
skip device smartd[2338] Unable to register SCSI device /dev/sda at line 1
of file /etc/smartd.conf.
Corrective This is a known issue. An unsupported command is entered through the user application. User applications
Action: attempt to direct Command Descriptor Blocks to RAID volumes. The error message does not affect the
feature functionality. The Mode Sense/Select command is supported by firmware on the controller.
However, the Linux kernel daemon issues the command to the virtual disk instead of to the driver IOCTL
node. This action is not supported.

Drive indicator codes

The LEDs on the drive carrier indicates the state of each drive. Each drive carrier has two LEDs: an activity LED (green) and a
status LED (bicolor, green/amber). The activity LED blinks whenever the drive is accessed.

Figure 16. Drive indicators

1. Drive activity LED indicator
2. Drive status LED indicator
3. Drive capacity label

98 Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards

If the drive is in the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) mode, the status LED indicator does not power on. Drive status
indicator behavior is managed by Storage Spaces Direct. Not all drive status indicators may be used.
NOTE: For information about the Drive LED indicator codes in an MD24XX series enclosure, see the Dell PowerVault
MD24XX Direct-Attach Storage for PowerEdge Servers Owner's Manual available on the support site.

Table 23. Drive indicator codes

Drive status indicator code Condition
Blinks green twice per second The drive is being identified or preparing for removal
Off The drive is ready for removal
NOTE: The drive status indicator remains off until all
drives are initialized after the system is powered on.
Drives are not ready for removal during this time.

Blinks green, amber, and then powers off There is an expected drive failure
Blinks amber four times per second The drive has failed or faulted or not detected.
Blinks green slowly The drive is rebuilding
Solid green The drive is online
Blinks green for three seconds, amber for three seconds, and The rebuild has stopped
then powers off after six seconds

HII error messages

Unhealthy Status of the drivers
Error: One or more boot driver(s) have reported issues. Check the Driver Health
Menu in Boot Manager for details.
Probable Cause: This message might indicate that the cables are not connected, the disks might be missing, or the UEFI
driver might require configuration changes.
Corrective 1. Check if the cables are connected properly, or replace missing hard drives, if any and then restart the
Action: system.
2. Press any key to load the driver health manager to display the configurations. The Driver Health
Manager displays the driver(s), which requires configuration.
3. Alternately, if the UEFI driver requires configuration, press any key to load the Configuration Utility.

Rebuilding a drive during full initialization

Issue: Automatic rebuild of drives is disabled for virtual disk during full initialization.
Corrective After full initialization the drive will automatically start its rebuild on its corresponding virtual disk.
Action:

Troubleshooting issues in PERC 12 series cards 99

 10
Appendix—RAID description
RAID is a group of independent physical disks that provides high performance by increasing the number of disks used for saving
and accessing data.

CAUTION: In the event of a physical disk failure, a RAID 0 virtual disk fails, resulting in data loss.

A RAID disk subsystem offers the following benefits:

● Improved I/O performance and data availability.
● Improved data throughput because several disks are accessed simultaneously. The physical disk group appears either as a
single storage unit or multiple logical units to the host system.
● Improved data storage availability and fault tolerance. Data loss caused by a physical disk failure can be recovered by
rebuilding missing data from the remaining physical disks containing data or parity.
Topics:
• Summary of RAID levels
• RAID 10 configuration
• RAID terminology

Summary of RAID levels

Following is a list of the RAID levels supported by the PERC 12 series of cards:
● RAID 0 uses disk striping to provide high data throughput, especially for large files in an environment that requires no data
redundancy.
● RAID 1 uses disk mirroring so that data written to one physical disk is simultaneously written to another physical disk. RAID 1
is good for small databases or other applications that require small capacity and complete data redundancy.
● RAID 5 uses disk striping and parity data across all physical disks (distributed parity) to provide high data throughput and
data redundancy, especially for small random access.
● RAID 6 is an extension of RAID 5 and uses an additional parity block. RAID 6 uses block-level striping with two parity blocks
distributed across all member disks. RAID 6 provides protection against double disk failures, and failures while a single disk is
rebuilding. If you are using only one array, deploying RAID 6 is more effective than deploying a hot spare disk.
● RAID 10 is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1, uses disk striping across mirrored disks. It provides high data throughput and
complete data redundancy.
● RAID 50 is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 5 where a RAID 0 array is striped across RAID 5 elements. RAID 50 requires at
least six disks.
● RAID 60 is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 6 where a RAID 0 array is striped across RAID 6 elements. RAID 60 requires at
least eight disks.
The following table lists the minimum and maximum disks supported on each RAID levels.

Table 24. Minimum and maximum disks supported on each RAID levels
RAID Level Minimum disk Maximum disk
0 1 32
1 2 2
5 3 32
6 4 32
10 4 240
50 6 240
60 8 240

100 Appendix—RAID description

RAID 10 configuration
Any RAID 10 volume that has more than 32 drives require spanning. Each span can contain up to 32 drives. Drives must be
distributed evenly across all the spans with each span containing an even number of drives.
NOTE: Spans in a RAID 10 volume are only supported if spans are even. Uneven spanned RAID 10 cannot be imported from
previous controller generations.
The following table shows the RAID 10 configurations.

Table 25. RAID 10 configurations

Disk or span count RAID 10 capable
4 (1) Yes
6 (1) Yes
8 (1) Yes
10 (1) Yes
12 (1) Yes
14 (1) Yes
16 (1) Yes
18 (1) Yes
20 (1) Yes
22 (1) Yes
24 (1) Yes
26 (1) Yes
28 (1) Yes
30 (1) Yes
32 (1) Yes
34 No
36 (2) Yes
38 No
40 (2) Yes
42 (2) Yes
44 (2) Yes
46 No
48 (2) Yes
50 (2) Yes
52 (2) Yes
54 (2) Yes
56 (2) Yes
58 No
60 (2) Yes
62 No
64 (2) Yes

Appendix—RAID description 101

Table 25. RAID 10 configurations (continued)
Disk or span count RAID 10 capable
240 (8) Yes

RAID terminology
Disk striping
Disk striping allows you to write data across multiple physical disks instead of just one physical disk. Disk striping involves
partitioning each physical disk storage space in stripes of the following sizes: 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1 MB. The
stripes are interleaved in a repeated sequential manner. The part of the stripe on a single physical disk is called a stripe element.
For example, in a four-disk system using only disk striping (used in RAID 0), segment 1 is written to disk 1, segment 2 is written
to disk 2, and so on. Disk striping enhances performance because multiple physical disks are accessed simultaneously, but disk
striping does not provide data redundancy.

Figure 17. Example of disk striping (RAID 0)

Disk mirroring
With mirroring (used in RAID 1), data written to one disk is simultaneously written to another disk. If one disk fails, the contents
of the other disk can be used to run the system and rebuild the failed physical disk. The primary advantage of disk mirroring is
that it provides complete data redundancy. Both disks contain the same data at all times. Either of the physical disks can act as
the operational physical disk.
Disk mirroring provides complete redundancy, but is an expensive option because each physical disk in the system must be
duplicated.

NOTE: Mirrored physical disks improve read performance by read load balance.

Figure 18. Example of Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)

Spanned RAID levels

Spanning is a term used to describe the way in which RAID levels 10, 50, and 60 are constructed from multiple sets of basic, or
simple RAID levels. For example, a RAID 10 has multiple sets of RAID 1 arrays where each RAID 1 set is considered a span. Data is

102 Appendix—RAID description

then striped (RAID 0) across the RAID 1 spans to create a RAID 10 virtual disk. Similarly, RAID 50 and RAID 60 combine multiple
sets of RAID 5 or RAID 6 respectively with striping.

Parity data
Parity data is redundant data that is generated to provide fault tolerance within certain RAID levels. In the event of a disk failure,
the parity data can be used by the controller to regenerate user data. Parity data is present for RAID 5, 6, 50, and 60.
The parity data is distributed across all the physical disks in the system. If a single physical disk fails, it can be rebuilt from the
parity and the data on the remaining physical disks. RAID level 5 combines distributed parity with disk striping. Parity provides
redundancy for one physical disk failure without duplicating the contents of the entire physical disks.
RAID 6 combines dual distributed parity with disk striping. This level of parity allows for two disk failures without duplicating the
contents of entire physical disks.

Figure 19. Example of Distributed Parity (RAID 5)

NOTE: Parity is distributed across multiple physical disks in the disk group.

Figure 20. Example of Dual Distributed Parity (RAID 6)

NOTE: Parity is distributed across all disks in the array.

Appendix—RAID description 103

 11
Getting help
Topics:
• Recycling or End-of-Life service information
• Contacting Dell
• Locating the Express Service Code and Service Tag
• Receiving automated support with SupportAssist

Recycling or End-of-Life service information

Take back and recycling services are offered for this product in certain countries. If you want to dispose of system components,
visit www.dell.com/recyclingworldwide and select the relevant country.

Contacting Dell
Dell provides online and telephone based support and service options. If you do not have an active internet connection, you can
find Dell contact information on your purchase invoice, packing slip, bill or Dell product catalog. The availability of services varies
depending on the country and product, and some services may not be available in your area. To contact Dell for sales, technical
assistance, or customer service issues:

Steps
1. Go to www.dell.com/support/home.
2. Select your country from the drop-down menu on the lower right corner of the page.
3. For customized support:
a. Enter the system Service Tag in the Enter a Service Tag, Serial Number, Service Request, Model, or Keyword
field.
b. Click Submit.
The support page that lists the various support categories is displayed.
4. For general support:
a. Select your product category.
b. Select your product segment.
c. Select your product.
The support page that lists the various support categories is displayed.
5. For contact details of Dell Global Technical Support:
a. Click Contact Technical Support.
b. The Contact Technical Support page is displayed with details to call, chat, or e-mail the Dell Global Technical Support
team.

Locating the Express Service Code and Service Tag

The unique Express Service Code and Service Tag is used to identify the system.
The information tag is located on the front of the system rear of the system that includes system information such as Service
Tag, Express Service Code, Manufacture date, NIC, MAC address, QRL label, and so on. If you have opted for the secure default
access to iDRAC, the Information tag also contains the iDRAC secure default password. If you have opted for iDRAC Quick Sync
2, the Information tag also contains the OpenManage Mobile (OMM) label, where administrators can configure, monitor, and
troubleshoot the PowerEdge servers.

104 Getting help

Figure 21. Locating the Express Service Code and Service tag
1. Information tag (front view) 2. Information tag (back view)
3. OpenManage Mobile (OMM) label 4. iDRAC MAC address and iDRAC secure password label
5. Service Tag, Express Service Code, QRL label

The Mini Enterprise Service Tag (MEST) label is located on the rear of the system that includes Service Tag (ST), Express
Service Code (Exp Svc Code), and Manufacture Date (Mfg. Date). The Exp Svc Code is used by Dell to route support calls to
the appropriate personnel.
Alternatively, the Service Tag information is located on a label on left wall of the chassis.

Receiving automated support with SupportAssist

Dell SupportAssist is an optional Dell Services offering that automates technical support for your Dell server, storage, and
networking devices. By installing and setting up a SupportAssist application in your IT environment, you can receive the
following benefits:
● Automated issue detection — SupportAssist monitors your Dell devices and automatically detects hardware issues, both
proactively and predictively.
● Automated case creation — When an issue is detected, SupportAssist automatically opens a support case with Dell
Technical Support.
● Automated diagnostic collection — SupportAssist automatically collects system state information from your devices and
uploads it securely to Dell. This information is used by Dell Technical Support to troubleshoot the issue.
● Proactive contact — A Dell Technical Support agent contacts you about the support case and helps you resolve the issue.
The available benefits vary depending on the Dell Service entitlement purchased for your device. For more information about
SupportAssist, go to www.dell.com/supportassist.

Getting help 105

 12
Documentation resources
This section provides information about the documentation resources for your system.
To view the document that is listed in the documentation resources table:
● From the Dell support site:
1. Click the documentation link that is provided in the Location column in the table.
2. Click the required product or product version.
NOTE: To locate the product name and model, see the front of your system.
3. On the Product Support page, click Manuals & documents.
● Using search engines:
○ Type the name and version of the document in the search box.

Table 26. Additional documentation resources for your system

Task Document Location
Setting up your system For more information about installing and www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals
securing the system into a rack, see the
Rail Installation Guide included with your rail
solution.

For information about setting up your system,

see the
Getting Started Guide
document that is shipped with your system.

Configuring your system For information about the iDRAC features, www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals
configuring and logging in to iDRAC, and
managing your system remotely, see the
Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller
User's Guide.

For information about understanding

Remote Access Controller Admin (RACADM)
subcommands and supported RACADM
interfaces, see the RACADM CLI Guide for
iDRAC.

For information about Redfish and its protocol,

supported schema, and Redfish Eventing
implemented in iDRAC, see the Redfish API
Guide.
For information about iDRAC property
database group and object descriptions, see
the Attribute Registry Guide.
For information about Intel QuickAssist
Technology, see the Integrated Dell Remote
Access Controller User's Guide.

For information about earlier versions of the www.dell.com/idracmanuals

iDRAC documents.

To identify the version of iDRAC available on

your system, on the iDRAC web interface, click
?>
About.

106 Documentation resources

Table 26. Additional documentation resources for your system (continued)
Task Document Location
For information about installing the www.dell.com/operatingsystemmanuals
operating system, see the operating system
documentation.
For information about updating drivers and www.dell.com/support/drivers
firmware, see the Methods to download
firmware and drivers section in this document.
Managing your system For information about systems management www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals
software offered by Dell, see the Dell
OpenManage Systems Management Overview
Guide.
For information about setting up, using, www.dell.com/openmanagemanuals >
and troubleshooting OpenManage, see the OpenManage Server Administrator
Dell OpenManage Server Administrator User’s
Guide.
For information about installing, using, and https://www.dell.com/openmanagemanuals
troubleshooting Dell OpenManage Enterprise,
see the Dell OpenManage Enterprise User’s
Guide.
For information about installing and using https://www.dell.com/serviceabilitytools
Dell SupportAssist, see the Dell SupportAssist
Enterprise User’s Guide.
For information about partner programs www.dell.com/openmanagemanuals
enterprise systems management, see the
OpenManage Connections Enterprise Systems
Management documents.
Understanding event and For information about the event and error www.dell.com/qrl
error messages messages generated by the system firmware
and agents that monitor system components,
go to qrl.dell.com > Look Up > Error Code,
type the error code, and then click Look it up.
Troubleshooting your For information about identifying and www.dell.com/poweredgemanuals
system troubleshooting the PowerEdge server issues,
see the Server Troubleshooting Guide.

Documentation resources 107