Dell PERC 6/i Integrated Firmware Update Package Version: 6.2.0-0013 Criticality: Recommended TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Performing the Firmware Upgrade 3.0 Important Information 4.0 Fixes 5.0 Enhancements/Tasks 6.0 Known Issues 7.0 History 1.0 Introduction ================ This is a firmware release for the Dell PERC 6/i Integrated. Component Current Version Previous Version Package 6.2.0-0013 6.1.1-0047 Firmware 1.22.02-0612 1.21.02-0528 Bootblock 1.00.00.01-0011 1.00.00.01-0011 Ctrl-R 1.02.015B 1.02.014B 2.0 Performing the Firmware Upgrade =================================== ZipPack: -------- Download 1. Click the Download Now link to download the file. 2. When the File Download window appears, click Save to save the file to your hard drive. Extract Files 1. Browse to the location where you downloaded the file and double-click the new file to unzip the download package. 2. Click Continue. 3. Specify the location to unzip the files. 4. Click on the OK button to extract files. After the files are extracted the message all files were successfully unzipped will appear. 5. Click the OK button to exit from the installer. Installation 1. Copy extracted files to bootable media. 2. Reboot system to bootable media. 3. Execute update.bat to perform flash. 5. After flash is complete, remove bootable media. 4. Reboot system for changes to take effect. Windows Update Package: ----------------------- Download 1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file. 2. When the File Download window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive. Installation 1. Browse to the location where you downloaded the file and double-click the new file. 2. Read over the release information presented in the dialog window. 3. Download and install any prerequisites identified in the dialog window before proceeding. 4. Click the Install button. 5. Follow the remaining prompts to perform the update. Linux Update Package: --------------------- Download 1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file. 2. When the File Download window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive. Installation 1. Read over the release information presented by executing the "./FRMW_LX_RXXXXXX.BIN --version" command from the shell. 2. Download and install any prerequisites identified in the above step before proceeding. 3. Run the update by executing "./FRMW_LX_RXXXXXX.BIN" from the shell. 4. Follow the remaining prompts to perform the update. GnuPG Signature of Dell Update Package Instructions for FRMW_LX_RXXXXXX.BIN: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Download 1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file. 2. When the "File Download" window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive. Installation 1. Import the Dell public key. (You only need to do this once on your system.) 2. Verify the Dell Update Package by using its signature file, FRMW_LX_RXXXXXX.BIN. 3.0 Important Information ========================= 1. When viewing SATA physical disk properties from Ctrl-R or other management applications, the Vendor Identification will be translated as "ATA" followed by blanks. 2. If all physical disks making up a virtual disk are removed from the system or enclosure, the RAID controller will delete the virtual disk. If the disks are later re-inserted, they will be marked foreign and can be imported using a management application. 3. If a virtual disk is configured with write-back cache enabled and some or all of its physical disks are removed from the system or enclosure, the RAID controller will preserve the virtual disk's write cache. The controller will flush the preserved cache when the physical disks are replaced and the foreign configuration is imported. Any attempt to update controller firmware will be blocked when cache is preserved for a virtual disk. 4. Physical disks determined to contain a foreign configuration are not available for configuration as a new dedicated or global hot spare, or as a member of a new virtual disk. The foreign configuration must be imported or cleared from the physical disk before it may be used as a hot spare or member of a virtual disk. Physical disks with a foreign configuration will not appear on the Create New VD screen in Ctrl-R. 5. Prior to performing a virtual disk migration to another system, the source system must be powered off before removal of the physical disks to preserve the correct virtual disk state. This is not required for the target system and the physical disks may be inserted while the system is powered on or off. 6. The controller restricts the importing of virtual disks that are undergoing RAID Level Migration or Capacity Expansion. Do not interrupt virtual disks that are performing either of these operations because it will disable the ability to import the virtual disk and the data will be unavailable. Dell recommends that the user perform a data backup before starting these operations. 7. EMM changes or drive migrations are not supported during a Capacity Expansion or Raid Level Migration. This may cause the VDs to go offline. Dell recommends the user to perform a data backup before starting these operations. 8. This version of firmware will not ensure complete compatibility with an older version of management applications. Dell OpenManage 5.5 or greater is recommended. 9. It is recommended that the customer upgrade the management application and device driver to the latest version available from Dell at the time of installation of this firmware. 10. Important Information for Update Packages for Microsoft Windows a. Do not run other applications while executing Dell Update Packages. b. Do not run storage controller update packages if the controller is in use by other applications. The firmware upgrade may fail if any of the RAID controllers in the system are performing I/O background tasks (consistency checks, background initializations, rebuilds, or reconstructions). Allow the background tasks to complete before attempting to upgrade the firmware. Patrol Read tasks will not affect firmware upgrades. 11. Important Information for Update Packages for Linux a. Do not run other applications while executing Dell Update Packages. b. If the following error occurs, "Error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory", you must install the compatibility libraries. These libraries can be found on the installation media or online. To install the compatibility libraries, use the following commands: "rpm -ih compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3.-*.i386.rpm" for RHEL 4 or 5 "rpm -ih compat-libstdc++-5.0.7-*.x86_64.rpm" for SLES 10 where * is the package version specific to your kernel. c. When Update Packages stop abruptly due to a power outage or abnormal termination, perform the following steps: - Remove the lock file. - Type the following command: rm -f /var/lock/.spsetup - Run the Update Package again to reapply the update. d. Do not run storage controller update packages if the controller is in use by other applications. The firmware upgrade may fail if any of the RAID controllers in the system are performing I/O background tasks (consistency checks, background initializations, rebuilds, or reconstructions). Allow the background tasks to complete before attempting to upgrade the firmware. Patrol Read tasks will not affect firmware upgrades. e. Linux systems running one or more applications that interact with SCSI devices in certain ways are known to cause a kernel panic situation. It is recommended that you stop Server Administrator and its Storage Management service before running storage controller firmware update packages. - To stop the Dell OpenManage(TM) Server Administrator service, run "omconfig system webserver action=stop" or "/etc/init.d/dataeng stop" - To start the Server Administrator service, run "omconfig system webserver action=start" or "/etc/init.d/dataeng start" 12. All RAID volumes will be presented as write through (WT) to the operating system (Windows and linux) independent of the actual write cache policy of the virtual disk. The controller manages the data in cache independently of the OS and any applications. Please use OpenManage or the BIOS Configuration Utility to view and manage virtual disk cache settings. 4.0 Fixes ========= 1. Improved disk medium error correction in certain scenarios. 2. Improved handling of faulty backplanes and enclosures. 3. Resolved an issue where a predicted failure was still being reported after that drive was replaced. 4. Corrected an issue where SATA disks in an MD1000 may become foreign after the server and enclosure are power-cycled. 5. Resolved an issue where the controller could not handle a large number of rebuilds under heavy IO stress. 6. Fixed an issue where Windows Server 2008 installation in uEFI mode fails when installing to a virtual disk larger than 2 terabytes. 7. Fixed an issue where some Intel® platforms with a PERC 6 installed occasionally fail with Windows Hardware Malfunction blue screen error during OS reboots. 8. Made several cosmetic and usability enhancements to improved customer experience. 5.0 Enhancements/Tasks ====================== 1. Enhanced disk IO performance in multiple SAS and SATA configurations. 2. Improved random IO performance. 3. Improved response and completion times for random IO. 4. Increased SATA disk command queue depth. 6.0 Known Issues ===================== 1. If a RAID 10 virtual disk is created with greater than two physical disks per span, that virtual disk will no longer be accessible if the controller's firmware is downgraded to a revision previous to 6.1.1-0047. 7.0 History =========== Component Current Version Previous Version Package 6.1.1-0047 6.0.3-0002 Firmware 1.21.02-0528 1.11.82-0473 Bootblock 1.00.00.01-0011 1.00.00.01-0008 Ctrl-R 1.02.014B 1.01.010B 1. The controller will preserve uncommitted write cache for virtual disks that become offline or deleted because of missing physical disks. 2. Improved performance for RAID 0 virtual disks. 3. The controller now detects charged batteries that were previously fully depleted without rebooting the system. 4. Corrected an issue where the battery learn cycle delay was not delaying for the right amount of time. 5. Corrected an issue where battery warning messages were not correctly being disabled on controllers without batteries. 6. Addressed a performance issue with Native Command Queuing (NCQ) on SATA hard drives. 7. Resolved an issue with firmware package 6.1.1-0045 that occurs in a configuration where there are greater than eight virtual disks and the ninth virtual disk has a different stripe size than the previous eight. 8. The PERC 6/E Adapter now supports a redundant SAS cable to external disk storage enclosures and can balance I/O load across paths. 9. Added support for revertible hot spares where a commissioned hot spare can be reverted back to its original hot spare assignment when a failed drive is replaced. This is useful for keeping hot spares in specific slots within disk storage enclosures. 10. The controller now allows the user to initiate a task to replace a disk without degrading the virtual disk. 11. Added support for the automatic replacement of a physical disk to an available hot spare when the disk shows a predicted failure. 12. Added support for large RAID 10 virtual disks. A maximum of 144 physical disks can now be configured in a RAID 10 virtual disk. 13. Dell disk storage enclosures can now be attached to the PERC 6/E Adapter without a reboot of the system. 14. A reboot of the system is not required after a disk storage enclosure completes a firmware update. 15. Added the ability for a consistency check operation to be aborted when an inconsistency is found in a virtual disk. 16. Improved background initialization (BGI) performance. 17. Increased support for maximum number of SATA hard drives to 90. 18. The BIOS Configuration Utility (Ctrl-R) now reports the completion of fast initializations of virtual disks. 19. Storage management applications can now provide detailed information on foreign configurations. 20. Improved handling of hard drive errors. 21. Made several cosmetic and usability enhancements to improve customer experience. Component Current Version Previous Version Package 6.0.3-0002 6.0.2-0002 Firmware 1.11.82-0473 1.11.52-0396 Bootblock 1.00.00.01-0008 1.00.00.01-0008 Ctrl-R 1.01.010B 1.01.010B 1. Resolved a firmware download failure issue on systems that can address greater than 4Gb of memory. 2. Resolved a possible IO hang issue during Patrol Read medium error recovery in RAID 1 and RAID 10 configurations. 3. Fixed an issue where reconstructions do not puncture all unrecoverable media errors. Component Current Version Previous Version Package 6.0.2-0002 6.0.1-0080 Firmware 1.11.52-0396 1.11.52-0349 Bootblock 1.00.00.01-0008 1.00.00.01-0008 Ctrl-R 1.01.010B 1.01.010B 1. Addressed a chipset compatibility problem with AMD-based systems that could result in a fatal PCI error following a Windows reboot. 2. Resolved a potential data integrity issue related to cache line handling during rebuilds while concurrent media errors are also being recovered. 3. Corrected a potential data handling error following reconstructions if the operation is performed using read ahead cache mode while I/O is running. Component Current Version Previous Version Package 6.0.1-0080 N/A Firmware 1.11.52-0349 N/A Bootblock 1.00.00.01-0008 N/A Ctrl-R 1.01.010B N/A 1. Initial Release.