Cisco UCS C250 Server Installation and Service Guide - RAID Controller Considerations [Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers]

Table Of Contents

RAID Controller Considerations

Supported RAID Controllers and Required Cables

Battery Backup Unit

RAID Controller Cabling

Cable Routing

Cisco UCS C250 Server Cabling

LSI SAS3081E-R PCIe Card

LSI MegaRAID SAS 9261-8iPCIe Card

How to Determine Which Controller Is in Your Server

How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1)

How To Launch Option ROM-Based Controller Utilities

Restoring RAID Configuration After Replacing a RAID Controller

For More Information

RAID Controller Considerations

This appendix contains the following sections:

•Supported RAID Controllers and Required Cables

•Battery Backup Unit

•RAID Controller Cabling

•How to Determine Which Controller Is in Your Server

•How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1)

•How To Launch Option ROM-Based Controller Utilities

•Restoring RAID Configuration After Replacing a RAID Controller

•For More Information

Supported RAID Controllers and Required Cables

This server supports the RAID controller options and cable requirements shown in Table C-1.

Note Do not mix controller types in the server. Dual controllers are not supported.

Table C-1 Cisco UCS C250 Server Supported RAID Options

Controller

Style

Max. Internal Drives

SAS

SATA

Opt. BBU

RAID Levels

Required Cables

LSI SAS3081E-R

PCIe

8

Yes¹

Yes

No

0, 1, 1E

2 SAS
R2XX-PL003-CBL

LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i

PCIe

8

Yes²

Yes

Yes

0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60

2 SAS
R2XX-PL003-CBL

¹You can mix SAS and SATA drives when using an LSI SAS3081E-R card. However, you cannot mix SAS and SATA drives within a volume.

²You can mix SAS and SATA drives when using an LSI MegaRAID card. However, you cannot mix SAS and SATA drives within a volume.

Battery Backup Unit

This server supports installation of one LSI RAID battery backup unit (BBU). The unit mounts directly to the LSI MegaRAID card (see Replacing an LSI Battery Backup Unit).

The optional LSI BBU is available only when using the optional LSI MegaRAID controller cards. This BBU provides approximately 72 hours of battery backup for the disk write-back cache DRAM in the case of sudden power loss.

RAID Controller Cabling

This section includes the following topics:

•Cable Routing

•Cisco UCS C250 Server Cabling

Cable Routing

The red line in Figure C-1 shows the recommended cable routing path from the backplane to the possible controller locations.

Figure C-1 RAID Controller Cabling

1

Drive backplane

2

PCIe risers for controller cards

Cisco UCS C250 Server Cabling

The cable connections required for each type of supported controller are as follows:

LSI SAS3081E-R PCIe Card

The required R2XX-PL003-CBL cable kit has two mini-SAS cables. Cable 1 controls drives 1-4 and cable 2 controls drives 5-8.

1. Connect mini-SAS cable 1 from connector SAS1 on the controller to the SAS1 connector on the backplane.

2. Connect mini-SAS cable 2 from connector SAS2 on the controller to the SAS2 connector on the backplane.

LSI MegaRAID SAS 9261-8iPCIe Card

The required R2XX-PL003-CBL cable kit has two mini-SAS cables. Cable 1 controls drives 1-4 and cable 2 controls drives 5-8.

1. Connect mini-SAS cable 1 from connector SAS1 on the controller to the SAS1 connector on the backplane.

2. Connect mini-SAS cable 2 from connector SAS2 on the controller to the SAS2 connector on the backplane.

How to Determine Which Controller Is in Your Server

If you do not have a record of which option is used in the server, you can disable quiet boot and read the on-screen messages that are displayed during system bootup.

Information about the models of card installed are displayed as part of the verbose boot. You are also prompted to press Ctrl-H to launch configuration utilities for those cards. For servers running CIMC firmware earlier than release 1.2(1), see also How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1).

How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1)

For CIMC firmware and BIOS release 1.2(1) and later, Quiet Boot has been removed. If you are running CIMC firmware and BIOS earlier than release 1.2(1), you can use the following procedure to disable Quiet Boot.

To disable quiet boot so that the controller information and the prompts for the option ROM-based LSI utilities are displayed during bootup, follow these steps:

Step 1 Boot the server and watch for the F2 prompt during bootup.

Step 2 Press F2 when prompted to enter the BIOS Setup utility.

Step 3 On the Main page of the BIOS Setup utility, set Quiet Boot to Disabled. This allows non-default messages, prompts, and POST messages to display during bootup instead of the Cisco logo screen.

Step 4 Press F10 to save your changes and exit the utility.

Step 5 Press F10 to save your changes and exit the utility.

How To Launch Option ROM-Based Controller Utilities

To alter the RAID configurations on your hard drives, you can use your host-based utilities that you install on top of your host OS, or you can use the LSI option ROM-based utilities that are installed on the server.

When you boot the server and you have quite boot disabled (see How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1)), information about your controller is displayed along with the prompts for the key combination to launch the option ROM-based utilities for your controller.

Watch for the prompt for your controller during verbose boot (Ctrl-H).

Note Cisco has also developed the Cisco Server Configuration Utility for C-Series servers, which can assist you in setting up some RAID configurations for your drives. This utility is shipped with new servers on CD. You can also download the ISO from Cisco.com. See the user documentation for this utility at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/ucsscu/user/guide/20/SCUUG20.html

Restoring RAID Configuration After Replacing a RAID Controller

When you replace a RAID controller, the RAID configuration that is stored in the controller is lost. Use the following procedure to restore your RAID configuration to your new RAID controller.

Step 1 Replace your RAID controller. See Installing a PCIe Card.

Step 2 If this was a full chassis swap, replace all drives into the drive bays, in the same order that they were installed in the old chassis.

Step 3 If Quiet Boot is enabled, disable it in the system BIOS. See How to Disable Quiet Boot For CIMC Firmware Earlier Than Release 1.2(1).

Step 4 Reboot the server and watch for the prompt to press F.

Step 5 Press F when you see the following on-screen prompt:
Foreign configuration(s) found on adapter.
Press any key to continue or `C' load the configuration utility,
or `F' to import foreign configuration(s) and continue.
Step 6 Press any key (other than C) to continue when you see the following on-screen prompt:
All of the disks from your previous configuration are gone. If this is 
an unexpected message, then please power of your system and check your cables
to ensure all disks are present.
Press any key to continue, or `C' to load the configuration utility.
Step 7 Watch the subsequent screens for confirmation that your RAID configuration was imported correctly.

•If you see the following message, your configuration was successfully imported. The LSI virtual drive is also listed among the storage devices.
N Virtual Drive(s) found on host adapter.
•If you see the following message, your configuration was not imported. This can happen if you do not press F quickly enough when prompted. In this case, reboot the server and try the import operation again wen you are prompted to press F.
0 Virtual Drive(s) found on host adapter.
For More Information

The LSI utilities have help documentation for more information about using the utilities.

For basic information about RAID and for using the utilities for the RAID controller cards, see the
Cisco UCS Servers RAID Guide.

Full LSI documentation is also available:

•LSI MegaRAID SAS Software User's Guide (for LSI MegaRAID)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/3rd-party/lsi/mrsas/userguide/LSI_MR_SAS_SW_UG.pdf

•LSI Fusion-MPT Device Management User's Guide (for LSI 3081E)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/3rd-party/lsi/fmpt/userguide/LSI_FusionMPT_DevMgrUG.pdf