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Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 4/SC and 4/DC
User's Guide
Hardware Requirements
Summary of PERC 4 Specifications
Configuration Features
Hardware Architecture Features
Array Performance Features
Fault Tolerance Features
Software Utilities
Operating System Software Drivers
RAID Management Utilities
PERC 4/SC and 4/DC can be installed in a Dell™ PowerEdge™ computer with a motherboard that has 5V or 3.3V, 32- or 64-bit PCI slots.
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NOTE: PERC 4/DC supports clustering, but PERC 4/SC does not. |
Table 2-1 provides a summary of the specifications for PERC 4/SC and PERC 4/DC.
Table 2-1 Summary of the PERC 4 Specifications
| Parameters |
PERC 4/SC Specifications |
PERC 4/DC Specifications |
Card size |
Low-profile PCI adapter card size (6.875" X 4.2") |
Half-length PCI adapter card size (6.875" X 4.2") |
Processor |
Intel GC80302 (Zion Lite) |
Intel GC80303 (Zion) |
Bus type |
PCI 2.2 |
PCI 2.2 |
PCI bus data transfer rate |
Up to 512 MB/s |
Up to 1064 MB/s |
Cache configuration |
64 MB SDRAM |
128 MB SDRAM |
Firmware |
1 MB |
2 MB |
Nonvolatile random access memory (RAM) |
32 KB for storing RAID configuration |
32 KB for storing RAID configuration |
Operating voltage |
3.3V, 5V, +12V, -12V |
3.3V, 5V, +12V, -12V |
SCSI controller |
One SCSI LSI53C1020 controller for Ultra320 support |
One SCSI LSI53C1030 controller for Ultra320 support |
SCSI data transfer rate |
Up to 320 MB/s per channel |
Up to 320 MB/s per channel |
SCSI bus |
LVD or single-ended |
LVD or single-ended |
SCSI termination |
Active |
Active |
Termination disable |
Automatic through cable and device detection |
Automatic through cable and device detection |
Devices per SCSI channel |
Up to 15 Wide SCSI devices |
Up to 15 Wide SCSI devices |
SCSI device types |
Synchronous or asynchronous |
Synchronous or asynchronous |
RAID levels supported |
0, 1, 5, 10, 50 |
0, 1, 5, 10, 50 |
SCSI connectors |
One 68-pin internal high-density connector for SCSI devices. One very high density 68-pin external connector for Ultra320 and Wide SCSI. |
Two 68-pin internal high-density connectors for SCSI devices. Two very high density 68-pin external connectors for Ultra320 and Wide SCSI. |
Serial port |
3-pin RS232C-compatible connector (for manufacturing use only) |
3-pin RS232C-compatible connector (for manufacturing use only) |
64 MB of cache memory resides in a memory bank for PERC 4/SC and 128 MB for PERC 4/DC. PERC 4 supports write-through or write-back caching,
selectable for each logical drive. To improve performance in sequential disk accesses, the PERC 4 controller uses read-ahead caching by default.
You can disable read-ahead caching.
The PERC 4 controller has a speaker that generates audible warnings when system errors occur.
The audible warnings are listed in Troubleshooting.
For easy upgrade, the PERC 4 BIOS resides on 1 MB flash memory for PERC 4/SC and 2 MB for PERC 4/DC.
It provides an extensive setup utility that you can access by pressing <Ctrl><M> at BIOS initialization to run the BIOS Configuration
Utility or <Ctrl><H> to run the WebBIOS Configuration Utility.
Table 2-2 lists the configuration features for the PERC 4/SC and 4/DC controllers.
Table 2-2 Configuration Features
| Specifications |
PERC 4/SC |
PERC 4/DC |
RAID levels |
0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 |
0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 |
SCSI channels |
1 |
2 |
Maximum number of drives per channel |
14 |
28 |
Array interface to host |
PCI Rev 2.2 |
PCI Rev 2.2 |
Cache memory size |
64 MB SDRAM |
Up to 128 MB SDRAM |
Cache Function |
Write-back, write-through, adaptive read-ahead, non read-ahead, read-ahead |
Write-back, write-through, adaptive read-ahead, non read-ahead, read-ahead |
Number of logical drives and arrays supported |
Up to 40 logical drives and 32 arrays per controller |
Up to 40 logical drives and 32 arrays per controller |
Online capacity extension |
Yes |
Yes |
Hot spares |
Yes |
Yes |
Flashable firmware |
Yes |
Yes |
Hot swap devices supported |
Yes |
Yes |
Non-disk devices supported |
No |
No |
Mixed capacity hard drives |
Yes |
Yes |
Number of 16-bit internal connectors |
1 |
2 |
Cluster support |
No |
Yes |
The self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) detects predictable hard drive failures.
SMART also monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and hard drive electronics.
With drive roaming (also known as configuration on disk), if the controller is replaced, the new controller detects the actual RAID configuration from
the configuration information on the drives. The configuration information is saved in both non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) on the PERC 4
controller and on the hard drives attached to PERC 4. This maintains the integrity of the data on each drive, even if the drives have changed their
target ID.
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NOTE: Drive roaming does not work if you change both the adapter and the
SCSI connectors to different connectors on the new adapter. It works only if you make one change at a time. |
Drive roaming is supported across channels on the same controller. Drive roaming across channels is not
supported when cluster mode is enabled.
Table 2-3 lists the configuration features for the PERC 4 controllers.
Table 2-3 Features for Drive Roaming
| Specification |
PERC 4/SC |
PERC 4/DC |
Online RAID level migration |
Yes |
Yes |
RAID remapping |
Yes |
Yes |
No reboot necessary after capacity extension |
Yes (only if virtual sizing is enabled) |
Yes (only if virtual sizing is enabled) |
Table 2-4 displays the PERC 4 hardware architecture features.
Table 2-4 Hardware Architecture Features
| Specification |
PERC 4/SC |
PERC 4/DC |
Processor |
Intel GC80302 (Zion Lite) |
Intel GC80303 (Zion) |
SCSI controller(s) |
One LSI53C1020 Single SCSI controller |
One LSI53C1030 Dual SCSI controller |
Size of flash memory |
1 MB |
2 MB |
Amount of NVRAM |
32 KB |
32 KB |
Hardware exclusive OR (XOR) assistance |
Yes |
Yes |
Direct I/O |
Yes |
Yes |
SCSI bus termination |
Active, single-ended or LVD |
Active, single-ended or LVD |
Double-sided dual inline memory modules (DIMMs) |
Yes |
Yes |
Support for hard drives with capacities of more than eight gigabytes (GB) |
Yes |
Yes |
Hardware clustering support on the controller |
No |
Yes |
Table 2-5 displays the PERC 4 array performance features.
Table 2-5 Array Performance Features
| Specification |
PERC 4/SC and PERC 4/DC |
PCI Host data transfer rate |
512 MB/s |
Drive data transfer rate |
Up to 320 MB/s |
Maximum scatter/gathers |
26 elements |
Maximum size of I/O requests |
6.4 MB in 64 KB stripes |
Maximum queue tags per drive |
As many as the drive can accept. |
Stripe sizes |
2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, or 128 KB |
Maximum number of concurrent commands |
255 |
Support for multiple initiators |
Only on PERC 4/DC |
Table 2-6 describes the fault tolerance capabilities of the PERC 4 controllers.
Table 2-6 Fault Tolerance Features
| Specification |
PERC 4/SC |
PERC 4/DC |
Support for SMART |
Yes |
Yes |
Optional battery backup for cache memory |
N/A |
Yes. Up to 72 hours data retention. |
Drive failure detection |
Automatic |
Automatic |
Drive rebuild using hot spares |
Automatic |
Automatic |
Parity generation and checking |
Yes |
Yes |
User-specified rebuild rate |
Yes |
Yes |
Table 2-7 describes the features offered by the utilities used for RAID management.
See RAID Management Utilities in this section for descriptions of the utilities.
Table 2-7 Software Utilities Features
| Specification |
PERC 4/SC |
PERC 4/DC |
Graphical user interface using the WebBIOS Configuration Utility (Ctrl-H) |
Yes |
Yes |
Management utility |
Yes |
Yes |
Bootup configuration using the PERC BIOS configuration utility (Ctrl–M) |
Yes |
Yes |
Online read, write, and cache policy switching |
Yes |
Yes |
These controllers include a Disk Operating System (DOS) software configuration utility and drivers for the following operating systems:
- Microsoft® Windows NT®
- Windows® 2000
- Windows XP
- Windows Server 2003 (when available)
- Novell® NetWare®
- Red Hat Linux
See the PERC 4 RAID Controller Operating System Driver Installation Guide for more information about the drivers.
The PERC 4 firmware handles all RAID and SCSI command processing and supports the features described in
Table 2-8.
Table 2-8 SCSI Firmware Support
| Feature |
PERC 4/SC and PERC 4/DC Description |
Disconnect/reconnect |
Optimizes SCSI bus utilization |
Tagged command queuing |
Multiple tags to improve random access |
Scatter/gather |
Single command can transfer data to and from different memory locations |
Multi-threading |
Up to 255 simultaneous commands with elevator sorting and concatenation of requests per SCSI channel |
Stripe size |
Variable for all logical drives: 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, or 128 KB. |
Rebuild |
Multiple rebuilds and consistency checks with user-definable priority. |
Software utilities enable you to manage and configure the RAID system, create and manage multiple disk arrays, control and monitor multiple RAID
servers, provide error statistics logging, and provide online maintenance. The utilities include:
- BIOS Configuration Utility
- Dell Manager
- WebBIOS Configuration Utility
- Dell OpenManage™ Array Manager
The BIOS Configuration Utility configures and maintains RAID arrays, formats hard drives, and manages the RAID system.
It is independent of any operating system.
See PERC 4 BIOS Configuration Utility for additional information.
WebBIOS is a HTML-based utility used to configure and manage a RAID system on a server.
See WebBIOS Configuration Utility for additional information.
Dell Manager is a utility that works in DOS, Red Hat Linux, and Novell NetWare.
See Dell Manager for additional information.
Dell OpenManage Array Manager is used to configure and manage a storage system that is connected to a server, while the server is active and continues
to handle requests. Array Manager runs under Novell NetWare, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.
Refer to Dell documentation and CDs at the Dell Support web site at support.dell.com for more information.
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NOTE: You can run the OpenManage Array Manager remotely to access NetWare, but not locally. |
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