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This How-To describes how to create Virtual Disks on modern Dell PERC Controllers using the BIOS Configuration Utility.

8 Steps total

Step 1: Entering the PERC BIOS Configuration Utility

During POST press Control -R to Enter PowerEdge Expandable RAID Card Configuration Utility
You should be at the following screen ----------------------->

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Note: There might be existing virtual disks present on the controller. Do not delete or modify these without ensuring you are modifying/deleting the correct VD.

Step 2: Controller Operations

Highlight Controller X (Usually Controller 0) and Press F2 for Operations.

You should be at the following screen ----------------------->

From this Screen, you can:

>Create New Virtual Disks
>Reset the Controller Configuration
>Manage Foreign Configurations
(Virtual Disk whose metadata or time stamps do not match controllers copy, or Virtual Disks created on a different controller.)

Step 3: Creating the Virtual Disk

Select 'Create New VD'

You should be at the following screen ----------------------->

The RAID Level Option is Automatically Selected. Select your preferred RAID Level.

Note: It is best practice to keep your OS and Data on separate Virtual Disks. This can help mitigate performance issues and minimize data loss/downtime in the event of a catastrophic failure (eg. multiple hdd failure or a punctured stripe)

Note: If you want to pass a single drive though to the OS or create a JBOD, you must create a single HDD RAID 0, since most PERC Controllers do not provide direct pass through functionality.

Note: Some Newer Controllers do support direct pass through of disk. Refer to documentation.

Step 4: Selecting Member Disks and Naming VD.

Press Tab and use Spacebar the Select the Virtual Disks to be included in the Array.

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Press Tab again and then name the VD. If you are wanting to create a sliced array, you can do so by changing the size.

The main reason to do this is in order to stay under the 2.2TB Limit for bootable disks imposed by MBR.

!!! Do not slice the array unless you are aware the of implications and dangers of a sliced array.

Some of the Major Issues to Consider:
1. You cannot easily expand the Sliced Array and you cannot easily reconfigure RAID Levels.
2. Most controllers do not support online capacity expansion with sliced arrays period.
3. Disaster recovery is much more complicated and if the metadata is corrupted you cannot easily retag a sliced array.

!!! You CANNOT Mix SAS and SATA within a VD.

!!! DO NOT change the advanced options unless you are aware of the possible implications. Most servers are best off using the default values.

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Note: Your Virtual Disk Size is dependent on the smallest HDD in the array. It is wise to have the same size disks if possible in order to minimize space loss.

Please consult the owners manual of your respective card for more information on the some of the more advanced/obscure settings:

PERC 5I / 5E
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/RAID/PERC5/en/UG/PDF/ug_en.pdf

PERC 6I / 6E
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/RAID/PERC6/en/UG/PDF/ug_en.pdf

PERC H700/H800
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/storlink/H700H800/en/UG/HTML/index.htm

Step 5: Finishing Steps

Tab over to enter and press okay. You will see the following screen, this is okay.

Step 6: Initializing the Virtual Disk

Highlight your newly created VD and Press F2. Select Initializtion.

You can select a fast init or Init.

Fast Init only deletes the boot sector and stripe information
Only choose this option if you are short on time OR the Hard Drives in question are NEW/UNUSED.

It is always recommended to do a full initialization on drives which have contained data previously.

!!!!! A Full Initialization permanently destroys any existing data on that virtual disk. !!!!!

Step 7: Initializing the Virtual Disk

You will see this progress bar.

Full Initialization can take up to 1-2 minutes per GB. The speed of Initialization depends on the Controller Model, Speed of Hard Drives, and Firmware Version. On Average, Initialization of 2TB takes ~24hrs or less.

Fast Initialization usually takes 30-60 seconds. W220 service manual.

Step 8: Last Step

If you created multiple VDs, ensure the correct VD you wish to boot to is selected on the controller Management Screen.

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After reading this, you should be able to create virtual disks using the BIOS Utility with ease. In my experience, this is the fastest and by far the most reliable method of creating Virtual Disks on PERC Controllers.

There are other ways of creating Virtual Disks on PERC Controllers. Such as OMSA, SMTD, etc. Those are extremely well documented on Dell's support site.

References

Dell Perc Driver

• PERC 6 User Manual

Dell Perc 5 I User Manual Software

5 Comments

• Datil
  SnifferSir Oct 13, 2012 at 03:44am

  Good write-up. Nice touch including the screenshots - always helpful.

• Pimiento
  christopherwardle Nov 20, 2014 at 09:28pm

  After I completed these steps exactly, I tried to load my OS and it is saying that it can't load windows because it does not recognize any harddrives. I tried to load the PERC 5/I drivers to see if that would do the trick but they won't load when I press F6 to install third party drivers. I am at my wits end! Any suggestions?

• Chipotle
  CalPayIT Nov 25, 2014 at 11:39pm

  What exactly are the 'dangers' of a sliced array?

  I’d really like to get above the 2TB disk limit, and ideally find a way around not being able to boot GPT partitioned disks with a bios. How to write a user manual. I would like to have a RAID 10 of 6 2TB disks, create an array of 128GB to install the OS and have a second array of 5458GB both of which utilize the same 6 disks?

• Jalapeno
  Kyle H. Nov 26, 2014 at 05:21am

  There are 3 Major issues to consider:
  1. You cannot easily expand the Sliced Array and you cannot easily reconfigure RAID Levels.
  2. Most controllers do not support online capacity expansion with sliced arrays period.
  3. Disaster recovery is much more complicated and if the metadata is corrupted you cannot easily retag a sliced array.

  You will normally get burned by one of these issues sooner or later as you look to expand or recover.

• Pimiento
  seanlynch May 7, 2015 at 06:33pm

  Good write up Kyle H.! Having been 'burned' by 'one of these issues' in the past I had to smile.
  If I may add some other thoughts: Water cooler water not cold.

  'Slicing' an array, or slicing available raid volume space into multiple virtual disks should be used with caution in large arrays-it's better to add additional arrays. Experience shows that Kyle is absolutely correct in his assertion regarding disaster recovery and re-tagging if you've 'sliced' your raid volume space into multiple virtual disks-be sure you save your raid configuration information- especially if you are taking advantage of any advanced features and foregoing defaults.
  When you assign physical disks while creating a raid array, -especially raid 5, and subsequently divide the available space into multiple virtual disks, you cannot append physical drives to the raid volume at a later time. The volume must be configured to use the entire available physical drive space if you intend to add drives and expand the array in the future. When you add physical drives the perc controllers and append the new physical drive space to the existing single raid volume virtual disk and rebuilds the array in the background.
  Of course your operating system can subsequently partition virtual disks as required..

  For maximum performance and reliability all drives should be same make, model and firmware revision. Always have a matching spare drive- if not in the server as a hot-spare, then somewhere safe..best to keep it simple, having said that.

  In my living room lab, setting stripe size to 128 on WD 1Tb RE4 drives with 64Mb physical cache has some performance benefits with volumes that contain contiguous large files (>Gb) in my experience. If using NTFS file system on virtual disks, you want your clusters to fit evenly within underlying stripe boundaries. If working on production servers default everything so the next person to maintain the array (who may be inexperienced) doesn't have to try to figure out your documentation and performance tweaks.

  An issue for a lot of Techs/Sys Admins may be that they never have an opportunity to practice disaster recovery on these controllers until disaster strikes. If your employer won't/can't provide you with a lab server where you can practice disaster recovery -build your own lab at home and write off your media server or NAS on your taxes as a job related expense.