WebBIOS Configuration Utility

Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 4/Di User's Guide

Features

Starting the WebBIOS Utility

Displaying Adapter Properties

Scanning Devices

Initializing Logical Drives

Checking Data Consistency

Displaying Logical Drive Properties

Displaying and Rebuilding Physical Drives

Configuring Arrays and Logical Drives

Selecting a Controller

Viewing Physical and Logical Configurations

Resolving a Configuration Mismatch

Reconstructing a Logical Drive

Deleting Logical Drives

Features

The WebBIOS Configuration Utility allows you to configure and manage RAID arrays and logical drives. You can press <Ctrl><H> to use this utility in place of or in conjunction with the RAID BIOS Configuration Utility.

NOTE: The RAID BIOS Configuration Utility is independent of any operating system. Refer to the "RAID BIOS Configuration Utility" for more information about the utility. The WebBIOS Adapter Selection screen has a button you can click to go to the BIOS Configuration Utility. One difference between the programs is that you can use WebBIOS to perform reconstructions, but not the RAID BIOS Configuration Utility.

Because the WebBIOS utility resides in the RAID controller BIOS, its operation is independent of the operating systems on your computer. The utility can be used to:

Display adapter properties
Scan devices
Define logical drives
Display logical drive properties
Initialize logical drives
Check data for consistency
Configure physical arrays
Make hotspares
Select adapters
Display the physical properties

You can use the Configuration Wizard to guide you through the steps required for configuration of the logical drives and physical arrays.

Starting the WebBIOS Utility

When the system boots, hold the <Ctrl> key and press the <H> key when the following appears:

Perform the following steps to launch the utility:

Press <Ctrl><H>.

The Adapter Selection screen displays. This screen is used to select the controller on which you want to configure RAID arrays and logical drives.

Click a controller under the Adapter No. field to select it.
Press Start to begin the configuration.

NOTE: If there is a mismatch between the configuration information on the hard drives and the non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) on the controller, the Select Configuration screen displays. See "Configuring Arrays and Logical Drives" for information about selecting configurations, and "Resolving a Configuration Mismatch" for information about configuration mismatches.

Main Screen

The main menu screen displays a menu to display information and make changes to the RAID arrays and logical drives. The screen also displays the current configuration of the physical and logical drives. From this screen, you can configure and manage the RAID arrays on the server.

NOTE: Pressing <Pause> once pauses the screen and mouse click operation. After you press <Pause>, press any other key to resume screen and mouse operation.

Selecting a Controller from the Main Menu

Click Adapter Selection on the WebBIOS main menu screen to display a list of the RAID controllers in the system. (This screen also appears when you first start the WebBIOS utility). On the Adapter Selection screen, you can select an adapter and click Start to begin configuration of arrays and logical drives.

WebBIOS Toolbar Icons

Table 6-1 describes the WebBIOS toolbar icons.

Table 6-1. WebBIOS Toolbar Icons

Icon	Description
	Returns to the WebBIOS main menu screen.
	Returns to the page you accessed immediately before the current page.
	Exits the WebBIOS utility.
	Displays the adapters.
	Scans for adapters connected to the system.
	Displays the adapter properties, such as the firmware version, BIOS version, and RAM size.
	Enters the Configuration Wizard to configure arrays and logical drives.
	Switches from the WebBIOS Configuration Utility to the RAID BIOS Configuration Utility.

Displaying Adapter Properties

Select Adapter Properties from the WebBIOS main menu screen to display the Adapter Properties screen.

Table 6-2 describes the Adapter Properties menu options.

Table 6-2. Adapter Properties Menu Options

Option	Description
Firmware Version	Firmware version number
BIOS Version	BIOS version number
Battery Backup	Indicates whether the battery backup is present.
RAM Size	Size of the random access memory
Cluster Mode	N/A
Initiator ID	N/A
Rebuild Rate	Use this option to select the rebuild rate for drives attached to the selected adapter. The default is 30 percent. The rebuild rate is the percentage of the system resources dedicated to rebuilding a failed drive. A rebuild rate of 100 percent means the system is totally dedicated to rebuilding the failed drive.
Flex RAID PowerFail	Select this option to enable or disable the FlexRAID PowerFail feature. The default is Enabled. This option allows drive reconstruction, rebuild, and check consistency to continue when the system restarts because of a power failure, reset, or hard boot.
Alarm Control	N/A
Adapter BIOS	Select this option to enable or disable the BIOS on the adapter. The default is Enabled. If the boot device is on the RAID controller, the BIOS must be enabled; otherwise, the BIOS should be disabled.
Set Factory Defaults	Select Yes to load the default WebBIOS Configuration Utility settings.
NAS Enabled	Indicates that the system is enabled for network attached storage.
BIOS Stops on Error	When set to On (the default), the BIOS stops in case of a problem with the configuration. This gives you the option to enter the configuration utility to resolve the problem.
BIOS Echoes Messages	When set to On (the default), all controller BIOS messages display.
BIOS Config Auto Selection	Use this option so that if there is a mismatch between the drives and the NVRAM during the boot process, you can select a method to resolve it. The options are NVRAM, Disk, or User (the default).
Spin up Parameters	Sets the timing for spinning up the hard drives in the system. The options are Automatic (the default), 2 per sec, 4 per sec, and 6 per sec.
Fast Initialization	When enabled, zeros are written to the first sector of the logical drive so that initialization occurs in two to three seconds. When disabled, a full initialization takes place on the entire logical drive. The default is Enabled.
Cache Flush Timings	Specifies the amount of time between cache flushes. The default is 4 sec. The contents of the cache are flushed to maintain data integrity.
Auto Rebuild	When set to Enabled (the default), failed drives are automatically rebuilt.
Emulation Mode	Use this option to operate in I2O or Mass Storage mode. The default is Mass Storage.

Scanning Devices

When you select Scan Devices, WebBIOS checks the physical and logical drives to see if there are any changes to the drive status. The results of the scan display on the main screen in the physical and logical drives section.

Initializing Logical Drives

You should initialize each new logical drive that you configure. You can use the Initialize option on the Logical Drives screen to initialize logical drives.

NOTICE: Initializing a logical drive deletes all data on the logical drive.

To initialize a logical drive, perform the following actions:

From the WebBIOS main screen, click Logical Drives.
On the Logical Drives screen, select the logical drive to be initialized.
Click the box next to Initialize, then click Go.

The progress of the initialization appears as a graph on the screen.

When initialization is complete, click the Back button to display the previous menu.

Checking Data Consistency

The Check Consistency verifies the correctness of the redundant data. This option is available when using RAID level 1, 5, 10, or 50. The RAID controller automatically corrects any differences found in the data.

After you click Check Consistency and Go, a progress chart displays on the left side of the screen. There is an option to abort the check for any or all logical drives.

Displaying Logical Drive Properties

Select this option on the Logical Drives screen to:

Display the logical drive properties (such as RAID level, logical drive size and stripe size).
Display or change the logical drive properties, such as Read Policy, Write Policy, Cache Policy, and online volume extension (also known as virtual sizing).
Display or change logical drive operations, such as initializing or deleting logical drives, or starting a consistency check.

NOTE: Online capacity extension, also known as virtual sizing, allows the RAID controller to determine the drive capacity. Set this option to Enabled before adding a physical drive to a logical drive. After you have created a logical drive set, the partition of the drive should be as large as the virtual size of the logical drive.

Selecting a Boot Logical Drive

After you select a logical drive in the Boot Logical Drive Number field, the system boots from that logical drive when you reboot. This field is 0-n, where "n" is equal to the number of logical drives are created on the controller minus one.

NOTE: You can boot from any one of up to eight logical drives.

Click Go to perform the selected action or Reset to delete any changes.

Displaying and Rebuilding Physical Drives

The Physical Drives screen displays the physical drives for each channel.

Displaying Physical Drive Properties

From the Logical Drives screen, click Properties.
Click Go.

The Physical Drive Properties screen displays.

Rebuilding Physical Drives

From the Logical Drives screen, click Properties.

The Physical Drive Properties screen displays.

From the Physical Drives screen, click Rebuild.
Click Go to rebuild the physical arrays.

You can press Reset to return to the previous configuration.

Making a Hot Spare

From the Logical Drives screen, click Properties.
Click Go.

The Physical Drive Properties screen displays.

From the Physical Drive Properties screen, click Make Hotspare.

The selected physical drive becomes a hotspare.

Configuring Arrays and Logical Drives

Select Configuration Wizard on the WebBIOS main menu screen.

The Configuration Wizard screen displays.

Select an option: Clear Configuration, New Configuration, or Add Configuration.
After you select an option, click Next to go to the second configuration screen.

The next configuration screen displays. The step number (2/5) appears in the bottom right corner of the wizard screens.

Select the type of configuration

On this screen, you can select Custom Configuration, Auto Configuration With Redundancy (Recommended), or Auto Configuration Without Redundancy.

After you select a configuration, click Next to go to the Array Selection screen.

The Array Definition screen displays.

To add drives to an array, press <Ctrl> while you select ready drives.
Click Accept Array to add the drives.
To undo the changes, press the Reclaim button.
After you define the array, click Next.

The Logical Drive Definition screen displays.

Perform the following steps to configure a logical drive.
1. Click a logical drive.
1. Click the down arrow in the box to the right of RAID Level to display the possible RAID levels for the logical drive.
2. Select the RAID level for the logical drive.
3. Select Stripe Size.

Stripe Size specifies the size of the segment written to each disk in a RAID 1, 5, or 10 logical drive. You can set the stripe size to 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB (the default), or 128 KB.

A larger stripe size produces higher read performance, especially if your computer does mostly sequential reads. However, if your computer performs random read requests more often, select a smaller stripe size.

Select the Read Policy.

The Read Policy (Read-Ahead) enables the cache read-ahead feature for the logical drive. The options are as follows:

Adaptive (the default): The controller uses read-ahead policy when the two most recent drive accesses occur in sequential sectors. If all read requests are random, the algorithm reverts to No Read-ahead; however, all requests are still evaluated for possible sequential operation.
Read-ahead: The RAID controller uses read-ahead policy for the current logical drive cache.
No Read-ahead: The controller does not use read-ahead policy for the current logical drive cache.

Select the Write Policy.

Write Policy specifies the cache write policy. The options are as follows:

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.
Write-through (the default): The controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host when the drive subsystem has received all the data in a transaction.

Write-through caching provides better data security than write-back caching, while write-back caching offers higher throughput than write-through caching.

NOTE: You should not use write-back for any logical drive to be used as a Novell® NetWare® volume.

Select the Cache Policy.

Cache Policy applies to reads on a specific logical drive. It does not affect the Read-ahead cache. The options are as follows:

Cached I/O: All reads are buffered in cache memory.
Direct I/O: (the default) Reads are not buffered in cache memory. Direct I/O does not override the cache policy settings. Data is transferred to cache and the host concurrently. If the same data block is read again, it comes from cache memory.

Enable or disable the spanning mode for the current logical drive.

If enabled, the logical drive can occupy space in more than one array. If disabled, the logical drive can occupy space in only one array.

To span two arrays, they must have the same stripe width (they must contain the same number of physical drives) and must be consecutively numbered. For example, assuming array 2 contains four hard drives, it can be spanned only with array 1 and/or array 3, and only if arrays 1 and 3 also contain four hard drives. If the two criteria for spanning are met, the RAID controller automatically allows spanning. If the criteria are not met, the Span setting is ignored.

Select the size of the logical drive in the Select Size field.
Click Accept to accept the changes or Reset to delete the changes and return to the previous settings.
Click Next.

The Configuration Preview screen displays.

Preview the configuration on the Configuration Preview screen.
Click Accept to save the configuration or Back to return to the previous screens and change the configuration.

You are prompted to save the configuration.

At the prompt, select Yes to save the configuration.
At the prompt, select Yes to initialize the logical drives.

The screen used to initialize logical drives displays. See "Initializing Logical Drives" for more information about initializing logical drives.

Configuring RAID 10 and 50 Arrays

To configure RAID 10 and RAID 50 arrays, you must select RAID 1 or RAID 5 arrays and span them. Perform the following steps to configure a RAID 10 or RAID 50 array.

Select Configuration Wizard on the WebBIOS main menu screen.

The Configuration Wizard screen displays.

Select Add Configuration and click Next.

The next configuration screen displays.

Select Custom Configuration and click Next.

The Array Definition screen displays.

Hold the <Ctrl> key down and select two hard drives for a RAID 1 array.
Click Accept Array.
Hold the <Ctrl> key down and select two hard drives for another RAID 1 array.
Click Accept Array.
After the drives are listed under the Arrays heading, click Next.

The Logical Drive Definition screen displays.

Perform the following steps to configure a logical drive.
1. Hold the <Ctrl> key down as you click and highlight the arrays that you want to span.

For detailed information about settings, such as Stripe Size and Read Policy, refer to step 10 in the previous procedure for configuring arrays and logical drives.

Click the down arrow in the box to the right of RAID Level to display the possible RAID levels for the logical drive.
Select the RAID level for the logical drive.
Select Stripe Size.

Stripe Size specifies the size of the segment written to each disk in a logical drive.

Select the Read Policy.

The Read Policy (Read-Ahead) enables the cache read-ahead feature for the logical drive.

Select the Write Policy.

Write Policy specifies the cache write policy.

Select the Cache Policy.

Cache Policy applies to reads on a specific logical drive. It does not affect the Read-ahead cache.

Enable or disable the spanning mode for the current logical drive.

If enabled, the logical drive can occupy space in more than one array. If disabled, the logical drive can occupy space in only one array.

If the two criteria for spanning are met, the RAID controller automatically allows spanning. If the criteria are not met, the Span setting is ignored.

NOTE: The WebBIOS utility does not display the size of the spanned RAID arrays after you enable spanning. You need to calculate the size of the spanned arrays.

Select the size of the logical drive in the Select Size field.
Click Accept to save the settings or Reset to return to the previous settings.
Click Next.

The Configuration Preview screen displays.

Preview the configuration on the Configuration Preview screen.
Click Accept to save the configuration or Back to return to the previous screens and change the configuration.
At the prompt, select Yes to save to save the configuration.
At the prompt, select Yes to initialize the logical drives.

The screen used to initialize logical drives displays. See "Initializing Logical Drives" for more information about initializing logical drives.

Selecting a Controller

The Adapter Selection option on the WebBIOS main menu screen displays a list of the RAID adapters in the system. (This screen also appears when you first start the WebBIOS utility). On this screen, you can select an select an adapter and click Start to begin configuration of arrays and logical drives.

Viewing Physical and Logical Configurations

The main menu screen toggles between the physical and logical views when you select Physical View or Logical View. The option toggles between Physical View and Logical View.

Resolving a Configuration Mismatch

A configuration mismatch occurs when the configuration data in NVRAM and on the hard drives are different. The configuration on disk (drive roaming) feature saves configuration data on the NVRAM and the hard drives attached to the system so that it is always available in case of controller failure.

The NVRAM/DISK Configuration screen, shown below, provides three ways to resolve a configuration mismatch:

Create New Configuration deletes the previous configuration and create a new configuration.
View Disk Configuration restores the configuration from the hard drive.
View NVRAM Configuration restores the configuration from the NVRAM.

Reconstructing a Logical Drive

WebBIOS provides for reconstruction of a logical drive in case of a hard drive failure. Reconstruction differs from a rebuild in that you can change ("migrate") the RAID level and add an additional drive during a reconstruction. RAID migration is used to change from one RAID level to another to add capacity.

Perform the following steps to reconstruct a logical drive:

Press <Ctrl><H> during bootup.

The Adapter Selection screen displays.

Click an controller under the Adapter No. field to select it.
Press Start to begin the configuration

The WebBIOS main menu displays.

Click Logical Drive to access the Logical Drive screen.
Click Properties, then Go.

The Logical Drive Properties screen displays.

On the Logical Drive Properties screen, select either RAID Migration or RAID Migration with Addition.

You need to add a drive if you have two drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array and want to migrate to a RAID 5 array, as RAID 5 requires three physical drives.

If adding a drive, select a drive in the box below the RAID Migration option.
Click Go.

The reconstruction process begins. The Logical Drive screen displays a graph to show the progress. Reconstruction Progress displays at the bottom of the Logical Drive screen. Reconstructions can take some time.

Deleting Logical Drives

This RAID controller supports the deletion of any unwanted logical drives and reuse that space for a new logical drive. You can have an array with multiple arrays and delete a logical drive without deleting the whole array.

After you delete a logical drive, you can create a new one using the configuration utilities. You can create the next logical drive from the non-contiguous free space (`holes'), and from the newly created arrays. The configuration utility provides a list of configurable arrays where there is a space to configure.

NOTICE: The deletion of a logical drive can fail under certain conditions: during a reconstruction, rebuild, initialization, check consistency of a logical drive, or if that drive has a higher logical drive number than the drive you want to delete.

You can still create sequential logical drives, without using the non-contiguous segments. WebBIOS provides information about sequential segments, non-contiguous segments, and physical drives that have not been configured. You can use this information when you create logical drives.

Deleting Logical Drives

On the main menu screen, click Logical Drives.

The Logical Drive screen displays.

On the Logical Drive screen, click Properties, then click Go.

The Properties screen displays.

Select a logical drive.
In the Operations section of the screen, select Delete and click Go to delete the logical drive.

The Array Definition screen shows the amount of space available. See "Configuring Arrays and Logical Drives" for more information about configuring arrays.

Please read all restrictions and disclaimers.

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