Expanding the capacity of a server by adding new disk drives is a typical activity for administrator. In this article, let us review how to add two new disk drives to the DELL server and create RAID 1 using “Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller – PERC” configuration utility. This tool is also called as “PERC/CERC Bios Configuration Utility”.
If you are using the latest DELL Servers, please refer to the article that explains how to create RAID on PERC 6/i Integrated BIOS Configuration Utility.
1. Launch PERC/CERC BIOS Configuration Utility.
Insert the two new disk drives onto the empty slots available on the server and reboot. During the system startup, press Ctrl+M to launch the PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS Configuration Utility.
2. Go to Configure -> View/Add Configuration
Using the arrow keys, select the Configure option from the main menu and “View/Add Configuration” option from the Configure menu as shown below.
3. Status of the new disk drives
The “View/Add Configuration” menu item, will display all disk drives on the system along with status. In the following example, 4 disk drives are online and already configured. The 2 new drives display the READY status as shown below. The text next to ONLINE indicates the logical volume number and the disk# inside the logical drive. For e.g. A01-00 indicates logical volume 1 and disk#0. A01-01 indicates logical volume 2 and disk#1.
4. Make the disk drives online
- Use arrow key and select the first drive with READY status and press space bar, which will change the status from READY to ONLINE and add A02-00 next to it. A02-00 will be blinking at this stage.
- The cursor will automatically move to the next available drive with READY status. Press space bar, which will change the status from READY to ONLINE and add A02-01 next to it. Both A02-00 and A02-01 will be blinking at this stage.
- Press Enter to indicate the array selection is complete. Both A02-00 and A02-01 will stop blinking.
5. Configure the disk drives
Press F10 to continue the configuration of two selected disk drives. This will display the Array configuration screen as shown below. The array number A02 number that got assigned for the new disk drives from the previous step, is displayed here.
- Press space bar which will display the Span-1 message in the A02 text area as shown below.
- Press F10 to continue the configuration to the next step.
6. Select RAID Level.
Pressing F10 from the above screen, will display the RAID configuration screen as shown below.
- Use the arrow keys to select RAID 1 and press enter.
- Use arrow keys to scroll down, select Accept and press enter to save the configurations.
The advanced menu in the above screen has the following options. I suggest that you don’t change this and leave it to the default values.
- Stripe Size: 2KB, 4KB, 8KB, 16KB, 32KB, 64KB (default value) or 128 KB.
- Write Policy: WRBACK (default value) or WRTHRU
- Read Policy: NO_READAHEAD, READAHEAD or ADAPTIVE (default value)
- Cache Policy: Cached IO or Direct IO (default value)
After saving the configuration, reboot the system. Logical Volume 02 is now configured as RAID1 using the two new disk drives and ready for use.
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My name is Ramesh Natarajan. I will be posting instruction guides, how-to, troubleshooting tips and tricks on Linux, database, hardware, security and web. My focus is to write articles that will either teach you or help you resolve a problem. Read more about 
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Very useful information. Thought, you are talking about the server config, I guess the process will be applicable to high end desktops as well? (apart from BIOS tools). I am planning to go on RAID 1 for better fault tolerance – really lost some data a couple of weeks back, following a crash
Ajith
This is a great post inded.I will book mark it for sure. I have configured the Raid in Windows. Even the Raid 1 is the best for mirroring data.
Last year I was In a situation were I wanted to backup all my data as my pc was crashing most of the time. So I thought to configure the raid 1, but when later I come to know that its always feasible if you setup a NAS box. There are many reason I go for the NAS
I had 4 pcs in my home network and I can keep the NAS as a central backup point. Lately I had only 250 GB in my NAS box but recently I have added one more 250 GB.
I have used my a p3 desktop to setup NAS box
good, Clear insight into PERC configuration on Dell servers. Please be aware there is now a new RAID bios that comes with dell adaptors look a bit different but essentially does the same job. http://www.tsukl.eu
I second Mark’s comment above.
I’ve just completed the buildout of 450 Dell R900 servers this week in four of our datacenters. The newer PERC setup (which is what ships with PERC 6 controllers) is still sourced by Dell from LSI. You use Ctrl+R to enter the PERC setup now.
The user interface has three screens (or tabs if you want to think of them that way). One that shows a tree or list view of the storage groups/logical volumes/physical disks. A second that shows a status view of the storage groups (online/offline). And a third that shows controller details–and from which you can upgrade the controller firmware.
This is a wonderful post and just what I needed and was searching for. I am running a Dell PE2800 server with 2 360GB drives in RAID1. These drives are partitioned in the standard C, D configuration with the large D partition containing an expanding searchable database.
After installing two new RAID 1 drives with the help of this post, can I extend the D Partition on the original drives to include the new drives? Any comments or suggestions will be very much appreciated.
I see no mention of formatting in the original post or follow up comments. Do the new disks have to be formatted, or is that done after that are attached in the RAID configuration?
Comments or suggestions much appreciated.
Ron,
After you’ve completed the hardware RAID configuration, from the Linux OS, you can use fdisk for partitioning and mk2fs to create ext3 filesystem.
Ramesh,
Great article! I’ve been fighting with my PE2800 trying to install a second raid 1 array on top of the existing raid 1 array, just as you have described.
My two new Seagate Cheetah drives show 0mb as well as 32 media errors in the PERC raid bios and although they are ‘ready’ they cannot be put online.
I think I need to format them before I can add them. Fdisk will only see online drives … any suggestions how to format these drives?
Hi Ramesh,
Will you please share some tips or tricks to test/verify that RAID 1 actually configure and working properly?
I have few question’s for you
Will really aprrecate if you answer of them or publish some artical on base of them.
I have not the same Configure interface => CTRL + R for me not M…
Why i cant CTRL + M ?
@Barney,
You should try the following from the PERC/CERC Configuration Utility menu.
1. Objects -> Logical Drive -> Logical Drive 1 (or whatever the number) -> Check Consistency
Note: You may want to do an initialize also here.
2. Objects -> Physical Drive -> ONLINE A00-00 (or whatever the number) -> Rebuild
@Sunny,
Excellent questions. Those questions definitely deserves a separate article. I’ve add that to my list of things to do.
Now, the whole logical volume should be in de-graded state. If your raid 1 is configured properly, this should not cause any service disruption at the operating system level.
BTW, it is very easy to test a RAID 1 configuration. Just pull-out one of the drives that belongs to the RAID Group.
@Korben,
That depends on your controller. What type of dell server is that? I need to check on a latest dell server to see whether it is still Ctrl – M (or) probably it is changed to Ctrl – R on the new server.
Thanks
Ramesh,
Thanks for your motive and willing to help each and other.nice to meet you .Could i get any link or guide how to retrieve data from raid 1+0 .
HI, I have a Poweredge 2850 but I cant Access PERC/CERC Configuration Utility menu, When it boots wont appear Ctrl – M or Control R……..what can I do…Thanks in advance
@Arul, What do you mean by retrieve data from raid 1+0? If one of the disk failed in RAID 1+0 RAID-Group, then the whole logical volume will go to degraded status. Once you replace the failed disk, it will automatically sync the data and change the status to Active.
@John, That is very strange. It definitely shows on the several PowerEdge 2850 servers I tested in the data center. Are you looking under the section where it says “PowerEdge Expandable RAID ControllerBIOS” during the boot-up. i.e as Shown in the 1st picture in this article? You don’t even see such message during boot-up? If not, you better call DELL support to find out what is going on.
Thanks Ramesh, yes I cannot Se the message…I have 2 similar servers and Idont have any problem….I think its more a Hardware problem…..I better call Dell Support.
@John, Please Keep me updated on the outcome of the support ticket that you created with DELL on this topic. I’m very curious to find out the reason for this problem and how it was resolved. Thanks.
HI Ramesh thanks for the concern, it result that was a Hardware problem, I replaced the raiser with another one and it Work, so Im in the process to buy that piece…..It was weird but it result to be Hardware!!!!!!…thanks for the support.
@John,
Thanks for sharing the information with me. Yeah. It is very weird that a hardware issue could cause that problem. But, I’m not surprised about this at all. I’ve seen similar issues with DELL servers (especially anything to do with BIOS related software issues), where a software problem turned out to be because of hardware issues. Good luck with your replacement.
guys
I need your help
i have dell perc 6i ,once install unbeakable linux on the server the server R900 can not detect the disk then go out of the installation ,please i want the steps or method for complete my installation
be aware this is the first time install linux on the server.
Hi
Thanks for your article.
I need one help, I have a HP ML370 G5 Tower Server E5420.
We installed Ubuntu server in this, but the RAID is not working (we pulled out one disk, it became in degraded state), we don’t know how to configure the RAID.
We need to configure the RAID properly, Can you help us?
I think you should add the Initialization instructions for NEW drives !
In my PE2800 I had all cheetah’s die @ the same time (power Surge?).
And using this tutorial sure saved me lots of time.
Is it possible to create a “dual boot” with 2 OS’s?
I would like to stop getting tech calls from customers, so having the serer boot menu to offer XP and SBS 2003, will be a great feature for me, grant you, it will down size the hard drives, but its more “user friendly”.
Hi I’m very new at this but I have DELL Powervault 770n I recently purchased. I was having some problems finding a floppy and subsequently the right SCSI drivers to try install Windows XP as I didn’t have a copy of Server 2003. I have 2 X 18 GB 15K ultra 320 drives and I configured the RAID array as above which worked well (Great and informative post by the way) but whilst attempting to setup operating system I changed some settings. I think I did a consistency check which came up with a failed drive and I think it’s automatically rebuilding the drive as it says drive 1 : ONLIN A00-01 / drive 2 : REBLD A00-00, I cant configure anything at the moment as it says drive is currently in RBLD state, but theres no indication it’s actually doing anything and I turned off the computer not knowing what I was doing whilst it said this and pulled out the drives thinking it would correct itself. I’m not sure if I’ve screwed the drive. When I did do a restart it says 1 drive is degraded state but I have not yet been able to access an operating system only the dell server management. I’ve just found a floppy and pretty sure I’ve got the right drivers now to install XP but now I dont know about the drive or whether XP will see the drive in this state so I’m not sure what to do now. I guess my question is what does RBLD A00-00 mean I’ve been traulling the web for hours and have not found an explanation…if anyone could help it would be great it’s taken me over a week just to find a floppy so I’m pretty frustrated by now.
Hello, I have this situation.
I have 1 DELL 6850 with:
1 PERC 4/dc Raid controller with 1 volume – 3 disks RAID 5 (server bays).
another 4e/di raid controller (additional card) connected to a 1 TB storage (with 10 SCSI discs (140 GB Maxtor) . I made 2 logical volumes here, with 5 disks in RAID 5 mode.
Everything ok. the Volume at the 4/dc was initialized properly.
I switch to the second adapter from the CTRL M screen. I ve started the initialize process for the others two volumes…. and… NEVER FINISH…… NEVER. I left it a lot of time really.
I’ve UPGRADED the BIOS of the SERVER, also and UPGRADE with the Firmware on both adapters. Factory defaults for them. Nothing
I’ve Connected the Storage on the second channel of the 4/dc controller. Nothing.
I’ve tried with a unique disk. diffent disks. Nothing.
Any IDEA ???, I cannot initialize the the 2 by RAID 5 volumes….
How can I do that to start using them??
help
Great Article! I have a dell 2850 (perc 4/i a06 bios) 5 drive (3-36 raid 0) 2-76 raid 1.
I just added a 6th 76gb disk. I’m out of space on raid 0 c: drive. Can I add the new drive to the raid 0 array?
thanks
jim
Please, How to add a DISK on a 3 disks RAID 5 volume on PERC/CERC BIOS utility U821?