Dell PowerVault MD Series Storage Arrays Administrator's Guide Notes, Cautions, and Warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. 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. © 2012 Dell Inc. Trademarks used in this text: Dell™, the Dell logo, Dell Boomi™, Dell Precision™ , OptiPlex™, Latitude™, PowerEdge™, PowerVault™, PowerConnect™, OpenManage™, EqualLogic™, Compellent™, KACE™, FlexAddress™, Force10™ and Vostro™ are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel®, Pentium®, Xeon®, Core® and Celeron® are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. AMD® is a registered trademark and AMD Opteron™, AMD Phenom™ and AMD Sempron™ are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. 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A00 Contents Notes, Cautions, and Warnings...................................................................................................2 1 Introduction................................................................................................................................15 Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Storage Manager .................................................................................................15 User Interface.........................................................................................................................................................15 Enterprise Management Window...........................................................................................................................15 Inheriting The System Settings........................................................................................................................16 Array Management Window..................................................................................................................................16 Dell PowerVault Modular Disk Configuration Utility...............................................................................................17 Other Information You May Need...........................................................................................................................17 2 About Your MD Series Storage Array....................................................................................19 Physical Disks, Virtual Disks, And Disk Groups......................................................................................................19 Physical Disks..................................................................................................................................................19 Physical Disk States.........................................................................................................................................19 Self-Monitoring Analysis And Reporting Technology......................................................................................20 Virtual Disks And Disk Groups..........................................................................................................................20 Virtual Disk States............................................................................................................................................20 Disk Pools...............................................................................................................................................................21 Thin Virtual Disks....................................................................................................................................................21 RAID Levels.............................................................................................................................................................21 RAID Level Usage.............................................................................................................................................22 RAID 0...............................................................................................................................................................22 RAID 1...............................................................................................................................................................22 RAID 5...............................................................................................................................................................22 RAID 6...............................................................................................................................................................22 RAID 10.............................................................................................................................................................23 Segment Size..........................................................................................................................................................23 Virtual Disk Operations...........................................................................................................................................23 Virtual Disk Initialization...................................................................................................................................23 Consistency Check...........................................................................................................................................23 Media Verification............................................................................................................................................24 Cycle Time........................................................................................................................................................24 Virtual Disk Operations Limit............................................................................................................................24 Disk Group Operations............................................................................................................................................24 RAID Level Migration.......................................................................................................................................24 Segment Size Migration...................................................................................................................................25 Virtual Disk Capacity Expansion.......................................................................................................................25 Disk Group Expansion......................................................................................................................................25 Disk Group Defragmentation............................................................................................................................25 Disk Group Operations Limit.............................................................................................................................25 RAID Background Operations Priority....................................................................................................................26 Virtual Disk Migration And Disk Roaming...............................................................................................................26 Disk Migration..................................................................................................................................................26 Disk Roaming....................................................................................................................................................27 Host Server-To-Virtual Disk Mapping..............................................................................................................27 Host Types........................................................................................................................................................28 Advanced Features.................................................................................................................................................28 Types Of Snapshot Functionality Supported....................................................................................................28 Snapshot Virtual Disks (Legacy)......................................................................................................................29 Snapshot (Legacy) Repository Virtual Disk......................................................................................................29 Virtual Disk Copy..............................................................................................................................................29 Virtual Disk Recovery.......................................................................................................................................30 Using Snapshot And Virtual Disk Copy Together.............................................................................................30 Multi-Path Software...............................................................................................................................................30 Preferred And Alternate Controllers And Paths...............................................................................................31 Virtual Disk Ownership.....................................................................................................................................31 Load Balancing.......................................................................................................................................................31 Monitoring System Performance............................................................................................................................32 Monitoring Performance Using The Tabular View...........................................................................................32 Monitoring Performance Using The Graphical View.......................................................................................33 3 Discovering And Managing Your Storage Array.................................................................35 Out-Of-Band Management.....................................................................................................................................35 In-Band Management.............................................................................................................................................35 Access Virtual Disk..........................................................................................................................................36 Storage Arrays........................................................................................................................................................36 Automatic Discovery Of Storage Arrays..........................................................................................................36 Manual Addition Of A Storage Array...............................................................................................................36 Setting Up Your Storage Array...............................................................................................................................37 Locating Storage Arrays..................................................................................................................................37 Naming Or Renaming Storage Arrays..............................................................................................................38 Setting A Password..........................................................................................................................................38 Adding Or Editing A Comment To An Existing Storage Array...........................................................................39 Removing Storage Arrays................................................................................................................................39 Enabling Premium Features.............................................................................................................................40 Displaying Failover Alert..................................................................................................................................40 Changing The Cache Settings On The Storage Array......................................................................................40 Changing Expansion Enclosure ID Numbers....................................................................................................41 Changing The Enclosure Order........................................................................................................................41 Configuring Alert Notifications...............................................................................................................................41 Configuring E-mail Alerts.................................................................................................................................42 Configuring SNMP Alerts.................................................................................................................................43 Battery Settings......................................................................................................................................................44 Changing The Battery Settings........................................................................................................................44 Setting The Storage Array RAID Controller Module Clocks...................................................................................44 4 Using iSCSI.................................................................................................................................47 Changing The iSCSI Target Authentication............................................................................................................47 Entering Mutual Authentication Permissions.........................................................................................................47 Creating CHAP Secrets...........................................................................................................................................48 Initiator CHAP Secret.......................................................................................................................................48 Target CHAP Secret.........................................................................................................................................48 Valid Characters For CHAP Secrets.................................................................................................................48 Changing The iSCSI Target Identification..............................................................................................................49 Changing The iSCSI Target Discovery Settings.....................................................................................................49 Configuring The iSCSI Host Ports...........................................................................................................................49 Advanced iSCSI Host Port Settings........................................................................................................................50 Viewing Or Ending An iSCSI Session......................................................................................................................51 Viewing iSCSI Statistics And Setting Baseline Statistics.......................................................................................51 Edit, Remove, Or Rename Host Topology...............................................................................................................52 5 Event Monitor.............................................................................................................................53 Enabling Or Disabling The Event Monitor...............................................................................................................53 Windows..........................................................................................................................................................53 Linux.................................................................................................................................................................53 6 About Your Host.........................................................................................................................55 Configuring Host Access........................................................................................................................................55 Using The Host Mappings Tab................................................................................................................................55 Defining A Host.................................................................................................................................................56 Removing Host Access...........................................................................................................................................57 Managing Host Groups...........................................................................................................................................57 Creating A Host Group............................................................................................................................................57 Adding A Host To A Host Group.......................................................................................................................58 Removing A Host From A Host Group...............................................................................................................58 Moving A Host To A Different Host Group.......................................................................................................58 Removing A Host Group...................................................................................................................................58 Host Topology...................................................................................................................................................59 Starting Or Stopping The Host Context Agent..................................................................................................59 I/O Data Path Protection.........................................................................................................................................59 Managing Host Port Identifiers..............................................................................................................................60 7 Disk Groups, Standard Virtual Disks, And Thin Virtual Disks.............................................63 Creating Disk Groups And Virtual Disks.................................................................................................................63 Creating Disk Groups........................................................................................................................................63 Locating A Disk Group......................................................................................................................................65 Creating Standard Virtual Disks.......................................................................................................................65 Changing The Virtual Disk Modification Priority..............................................................................................66 Changing The Virtual Disk Cache Settings.......................................................................................................67 Changing The Segment Size Of A Virtual Disk.................................................................................................68 Changing The IO Type......................................................................................................................................68 Thin Virtual Disks....................................................................................................................................................69 Advantages Of Thin Virtual Disks.....................................................................................................................69 Physical Vs Virtual Capacity On A Thin Virtual Disk........................................................................................69 Thin Virtual Disk Requirements And Limitations..............................................................................................70 Thin Volume Attributes.....................................................................................................................................70 Thin Virtual Disk States....................................................................................................................................71 Comparison—Types Of Virtual Disks And Copy Services...............................................................................71 Rollback On Thin Virtual Disks.........................................................................................................................72 Initializing A Thin Virtual Disk...........................................................................................................................72 Changing A Thin Virtual Disk To A Standard Virtual Disk................................................................................75 Choosing An Appropriate Physical Disk Type........................................................................................................75 Physical Disk Security With Self Encrypting Disk..................................................................................................75 Creating A Security Key...................................................................................................................................77 Changing A Security Key..................................................................................................................................78 Saving A Security Key......................................................................................................................................79 Validate Security Key.......................................................................................................................................80 Unlocking Secure Physical Disks.....................................................................................................................80 Erasing Secure Physical Disks.........................................................................................................................80 Configuring Hot Spare Physical Disks....................................................................................................................80 Hot Spares And Rebuild...................................................................................................................................81 Global Hot Spares............................................................................................................................................82 Hot Spare Operation.........................................................................................................................................82 Hot Spare Drive Protection..............................................................................................................................82 Enclosure Loss Protection......................................................................................................................................83 Drawer Loss Protection..........................................................................................................................................83 Host-To-Virtual Disk Mapping................................................................................................................................84 Creating Host-To-Virtual Disk Mappings.........................................................................................................85 Modifying And Removing Host-To-Virtual Disk Mapping................................................................................86 Changing Controller Ownership Of The Virtual Disk........................................................................................86 Removing Host-To-Virtual Disk Mapping.........................................................................................................87 Changing The RAID Controller Module Ownership Of A Disk Group...............................................................87 Changing The RAID Level Of A Disk Group......................................................................................................88 Removing A Host-To-Virtual Disk Mapping Using Linux DMMP......................................................................88 Restricted Mappings..............................................................................................................................................89 Storage Partitioning................................................................................................................................................90 Disk Group And Virtual Disk Expansion..................................................................................................................91 Disk Group Expansion......................................................................................................................................91 Virtual Disk Expansion......................................................................................................................................91 Using Free Capacity.........................................................................................................................................91 Using Unconfigured Capacity..........................................................................................................................92 Disk Group Migration..............................................................................................................................................92 Export Disk Group.............................................................................................................................................92 Import Disk Group............................................................................................................................................93 Storage Array Media Scan.....................................................................................................................................94 Changing Media Scan Settings........................................................................................................................94 Suspending The Media Scan...........................................................................................................................95 8 Disk Pools And Disk Pool Virtual Disks..................................................................................97 Difference Between Disk Groups And Disk Pools..................................................................................................97 Disk Pool Restrictions.............................................................................................................................................97 Creating A Disk Pool Manually...............................................................................................................................98 Automatically Managing The Unconfigured Capacity In Disk Pools......................................................................99 Locating Physical Disks In A Disk Pool...................................................................................................................99 Renaming A Disk Pool...........................................................................................................................................100 Configuring Alert Notifications For A Disk Pool....................................................................................................100 Adding Unassigned Physical Disks To A Disk Pool..............................................................................................101 Configuring The Preservation Capacity Of A Disk Pool........................................................................................101 Changing The Modification Priority Of A Disk Pool..............................................................................................102 Changing The RAID Controller Module Ownership Of A Disk Pool......................................................................102 Checking Data Consistency..................................................................................................................................103 Deleting A Disk Pool.............................................................................................................................................104 Viewing Storage Array Logical Components And Associated Physical Components ........................................104 Secure Disk Pools.................................................................................................................................................105 Changing Capacity On Existing Thin Virtual Disks................................................................................................106 Creating A Thin Virtual Disk From A Disk Pool......................................................................................................106 9 Using SSD Cache....................................................................................................................109 How SSD Cache Works........................................................................................................................................109 Benefits Of SSD Cache.........................................................................................................................................109 Choosing SSD Cache Parameters........................................................................................................................109 SSD Cache Restrictions........................................................................................................................................110 Creating An SSD Cache........................................................................................................................................110 Viewing Physical Components Associated With An SSD Cache.........................................................................110 Locating Physical Disks In An SSD Cache...........................................................................................................111 Adding Physical Disks To An SSD Cache.............................................................................................................111 Removing Physical Disks From An SSD Cache....................................................................................................111 Suspending Or Resuming SSD Caching...............................................................................................................112 Changing I/O Type In An SSD Cache....................................................................................................................112 Renaming An SSD Cache.....................................................................................................................................112 Deleting An SSD Cache........................................................................................................................................112 Using The Performance Modeling Tool................................................................................................................113 10 Premium Feature—Snapshot Virtual Disk........................................................................115 Snapshot Virtual Disk Vs. Snapshot Virtual Disk (Legacy)...................................................................................115 Snapshot Images And Groups..............................................................................................................................115 Snapshot Virtual Disk Read/Write Properties......................................................................................................116 Snapshot Groups And Consistency Groups..........................................................................................................116 Snapshot Groups............................................................................................................................................116 Snapshot Consistency Groups.......................................................................................................................117 Understanding Snapshot Repositories.................................................................................................................117 Consistency Group Repositories....................................................................................................................117 Ranking Repository Candidates.....................................................................................................................118 Using Snapshot Consistency Groups With Remote Replication....................................................................118 Creating Snapshot Images...................................................................................................................................118 Creating A Snapshot Image...........................................................................................................................119 Canceling A Pending Snapshot Image...........................................................................................................119 Deleting A Snapshot Image............................................................................................................................120 Scheduling Snapshot Images...............................................................................................................................120 Creating A Snapshot Schedule......................................................................................................................121 Editing A Snapshot Schedule.........................................................................................................................121 Performing Snapshot Rollbacks...........................................................................................................................122 Snapshot Rollback Limitations.......................................................................................................................122 Starting A Snapshot Rollback........................................................................................................................123 Resuming A Snapshot Image Rollback..........................................................................................................123 Canceling A Snapshot Image Rollback..........................................................................................................124 Viewing The Progress Of A Snapshot Rollback.............................................................................................124 Changing Snapshot Rollback Priority.............................................................................................................125 Creating A Snapshot Group..................................................................................................................................125 Creating A Consistency Group Repository (Manually)...................................................................................126 Changing Snapshot Group Settings...............................................................................................................128 Renaming A Snapshot Group.........................................................................................................................128 Deleting A Snapshot Group............................................................................................................................129 Converting Snapshots (Legacy) To A Snapshot Group........................................................................................129 Conversion Limitations...................................................................................................................................129 Converting Snapshots (Legacy).....................................................................................................................129 Converting A Snapshot Virtual Disk To Read-Write.............................................................................................130 Viewing Associated Physical Components Of An Individual Repository Virtual Disk..........................................130 Creating A Consistency Group..............................................................................................................................131 Creating A Consistency Group Repository (Manually)...................................................................................132 Renaming A Consistency Group.....................................................................................................................133 Deleting A Consistency Group.......................................................................................................................133 Changing The Settings Of A Consistency Group............................................................................................134 Adding A Member Virtual Disk To A Consistency Group...............................................................................134 Removing A Member Virtual Disk From A Consistency Group......................................................................135 Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Of A Snapshot Image......................................................................................136 Snapshot Virtual Disk Limitations...................................................................................................................136 Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk...................................................................................................................136 Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Repository.................................................................................................138 Changing The Settings Of A Snapshot Virtual Disk........................................................................................139 Disabling A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk..........................................139 Re-creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk......................................140 Renaming A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk.........................................141 Deleting A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk...........................................141 Creating A Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk..........................................................................................142 Creating A Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk Repository (Manually)...............................................144 Disabling A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk..........................................145 Re-creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Or Consistency Group Snapshot Virtual Disk......................................146 Changing The Modification Priority Of An Overall Repository Virtual Disk....................................................146 Changing The Media Scan Setting Of An Overall Repository Virtual Disk.....................................................147 Changing The Pre-read Consistency Check Setting Of An Overall Repository Virtual Disk..........................147 Increasing The Capacity Of An Overall Repository........................................................................................148 Decreasing The Capacity Of The Overall Repository.....................................................................................150 Performing A Revive Operation......................................................................................................................151 11 Premium Feature—Snapshot Virtual Disks (Legacy)......................................................153 Scheduling A Snapshot Virtual Disk.....................................................................................................................154 Common Reasons For Scheduling A Snapshot Virtual Disk...........................................................................154 Guidelines for Creating Snapshot Schedules................................................................................................154 Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Using The Simple Path....................................................................................154 About The Simple Path...................................................................................................................................155 Preparing Host Servers To Create The Snapshot Using The Simple Path.....................................................155 Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk Using The Advanced Path...............................................................................156 About The Advanced Path.............................................................................................................................156 Preparing Host Servers To Create The Snapshot Using The Advanced Path...............................................157 Creating The Snapshot Using The Advanced Path........................................................................................158 Specifying Snapshot Virtual Disk Names.............................................................................................................159 Snapshot Repository Capacity..............................................................................................................................160 Re-Creating Snapshot Virtual Disks......................................................................................................................161 Disabling A Snapshot Virtual Disk........................................................................................................................162 Preparing Host Servers To Re-Create A Snapshot Virtual Disk.....................................................................162 Re-Creating A Snapshot Virtual Disk....................................................................................................................163 12 Premium Feature—Virtual Disk Copy................................................................................165 Using Virtual Disk Copy With Snapshot Or Snapshot (Legacy) Premium Feature...............................................165 Types Of Virtual Disk Copies.................................................................................................................................166 Offline Copy....................................................................................................................................................166 Online Copy....................................................................................................................................................166 Creating A Virtual Disk Copy For An MSCS Shared Disk......................................................................................166 Virtual Disk Read/Write Permissions....................................................................................................................167 Virtual Disk Copy Restrictions...............................................................................................................................167 Creating A Virtual Disk Copy.................................................................................................................................168 Setting Read/Write Permissions On Target Virtual Disk................................................................................168 Before You Begin...........................................................................................................................................168 Virtual Disk Copy And Modification Operations.............................................................................................168 Create Copy Wizard........................................................................................................................................169 Failed Virtual Disk Copy..................................................................................................................................169 Preferred RAID Controller Module Ownership.....................................................................................................169 Failed RAID Controller Module.............................................................................................................................169 Copy Manager......................................................................................................................................................170 Copying The Virtual Disk.......................................................................................................................................170 Storage Array Performance During Virtual Disk Copy.........................................................................................171 Setting Copy Priority.............................................................................................................................................171 Stopping A Virtual Disk Copy................................................................................................................................171 Recopying A Virtual Disk......................................................................................................................................172 Preparing Host Servers To Recopy A Virtual Disk.........................................................................................172 Recopying The Virtual Disk............................................................................................................................173 Removing Copy Pairs............................................................................................................................................173 13 Device Mapper Multipath For Linux...................................................................................175 Overview...............................................................................................................................................................175 Using DM Multipathing Devices...........................................................................................................................175 Prerequisites..................................................................................................................................................175 Device Mapper Configuration Steps....................................................................................................................176 Scan For Newly Added Virtual Disks.............................................................................................................176 Display The Multipath Device Topology Using The Multipath Command......................................................177 Create A New fdisk Partition On A Multipath Device Node...........................................................................177 Add A New Partition To Device Mapper........................................................................................................178 Create A File System On A Device Mapper Partition.....................................................................................178 Mount A Device Mapper Partition.................................................................................................................178