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Dell PowerEdge R660 PowerEdge RAID Controller S160 Users Guide - Page 37

Performance degradation after disabling SATA physical disk write cache policy

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Performance degradation after disabling SATA physical disk write cache policy Likely Cause: Corrective Action: Disk write operations can cause degradation in performance. To resolve this issue, enable the physical disk write cache policy. NOTE: Ensure that there is constant power supply to the system (A UPS is recommended). NOTE: If you create a virtual disk using Dell LifeCycle controller, then the physical disk write cache policy is set to default. For more information about the physical disk write cache policy behavior, see the Managing the physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives section. Unable to modify any feature settings in UEFI or OPROM Likely cause: Corrective Action: You cannot modify the settings in UEFI or OPROM if the number of virtual disks exceeds than 30. To resolve this issue: 1. Start the operating system. 2. Use OpenManage to ensure that the maximum number of virtual disks does not exceed 30. Extra reboot during OS installation Description Likely Cause: The system may reboot one extra time during the OS installation using driver-injection method. SATA in RAID mode and NVMe in non-RAID mode may cause an extra reboot on system with NVMe PCIe SSDs during OS installation. OS installation failing on NVMe PCIe SSD with thirdparty driver Likely Cause: Corrective Action: Using third-party driver for NVMe PCIe SSD while NVME mode is set to RAID may cause the OS installation to fail. Third-party drivers for NVMe PCIe SSDs are not supported in NVMe in RAID mode. Server performance is slow and crashes during OS installation on the SATA configuration Likely Cause: Corrective Action: One or more SAS drives is connected along the SATA drives in the server. Disconnect the SAS drives connected to the server. SAS drives is not supported on the SATA configuration. Troubleshooting your system 37

Section	Page
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller S160 User’s Guide	1
Contents	3
Overview	6
PERC S160 specifications	6
Supported operating systems	9
Supported PowerEdge servers	9
Supported physical disks	9
Management applications for the PERC S160	10
Physical Disks	11
Physical disk features	11
Physical disk roaming	11
Physical disk hot-swapping	11
Physical disk power management	11
Physical disk failure detection	11
Mirror rebuilding	12
Fault tolerance	12
Self-monitoring and reporting technology	12
Native Command Queuing	12
NVMe PCIe SSD support	12
Physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives	13
Linux RAID	13
Virtual Disks	14
Virtual disk features	14
TRIM for SATA SSDs	14
To perform TRIM on the pass-through SSDs	15
Disk initialization	15
Background Array Scan	15
Checkpointing	15
Consistency check	15
Background initialization	15
Automatic virtual disk rebuild	15
Virtual disk cache policies	16
Virtual disk migration	16
Migrating a virtual disk	16
Expanding virtual disk capacity	17
BIOS Configuration Utility	18
Entering the BIOS configuration utility	18
Exiting the BIOS Configuration Utility	19
Initializing the physical disks	19
Converting to RAID disks	19
Converting to Non-RAID disks	19
Creating the virtual disks	20
Selecting virtual disk sizes while creating a virtual disk	20
Deleting the virtual disks	20
Swapping two virtual disks	21
Managing the hot spare disks	21
Assigning the global hot spare disks	21
Unassign hot spare disks	21
Viewing the physical disks details	22
Viewing the virtual disks details	22
Rescan disks	22
Controller Options	22
Continue to boot	23
UEFI RAID configuration utility	24
Entering the DELL PERC S160 Configuration Utility	24
Exiting the DELL PERC S160 Configuration Utility	24
Controller management	25
Viewing the controller properties	25
Changing the boot order of the virtual disks	25
Stopping the system from booting if there is a critical BIOS error	25
Converting a physical disk to a Non-RAID disk	25
Converting physical disk to RAID capable disk	25
Rescan disks	26
Virtual disk management	26
Configuring Windows RAID	26
Configuring Linux RAID	27
Mixed RAID configuration	27
Manage virtual disk properties	27
Viewing virtual disks properties and policies	28
Deleting a virtual disk	29
Physical disk management	29
Viewing physical disk properties	29
Managing the physical disk write cache policy for SATA drives	30
Assigning the global hot spare	31
Unassign a global hot spare	31
Assigning the dedicated hot spare	31
Cryptographic erase	32
Viewing global hot spares	32
Installing the drivers	33
Pre-installation requirements	33
Setting the SATA controller to RAID mode	33
Setting the NVMe PCIe SSDs to RAID mode	33
Creating a virtual disk	34
Checking PERC S160 options and the boot list priority	34
Creating the device driver media for Windows driver installation	34
Downloading drivers for PERC S160 from the Dell support website for all operating systems	34
Downloading drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools media for Windows	35
Accessing ZP files	35
Troubleshooting your system	36
Precautions for hot removal or hot insertion of NVMe drives	36
Unable to configure Linux RAID using UEFI Configuration Utility	36
Performance degradation after disabling SATA physical disk write cache policy	37
Unable to modify any feature settings in UEFI or OPROM	37
Extra reboot during OS installation	37
OS installation failing on NVMe PCIe SSD with third-party driver	37
Server performance is slow and crashes during OS installation on the SATA configuration	37
Server performance is slow during OS installation on the NVMe configuration	38
System startup issues	38
System does not boot	38
Controller mode is set incorrectly at system setup	38
Boot mode, boot sequence, and or boot sequence retry are set incorrectly	38
Bootable virtual disk is in a failed state	39
The boot order is incorrect for a bootable virtual disk	39
A Non-RAID virtual disk is no longer in first position in the BIOS configuration utility list after a system reboot	39
The BIOS configuration utility option does not display	39
Configuring RAID using the ROM utility option is disabled	39
Warning Messages	39
WARNING- Found virtual disks that are degraded	40
WARNING - Found virtual disks that are failed	40
WARNING - Found virtual disks that are degraded and failed	40
Other errors appearing on the BIOS screen	41
BSOD is observed while booting on the NVMe configuration server	41
S160 controller lists M.2 drives	41
Error in displaying the CD/DVD-ROM while in legacy mode	41
Unavailable error under UEFI boot settings	41
S160 does not display greater than ten virtual disks in the BIOS Configuration Utility or CTRL R	41
Unable to delete virtual disks when there are more than 30 virtual disks present in the system	41
Virtual disk rebuild status in the BIOS Configuration Utility (<CTRL><R>) or in UEFI HII	42
Physical disk - related errors	42
The physical disk fails	42
A physical disk is not visible in the BIOS Configuration Utility or is offline	42
A physical disk is highlighted red at the BIOS Configuration Utility or Ctrl R	42
Cannot initialize a physical disk	42
Status LED is not working	43
Cannot update NVMe PCIe SSD firmware by using Dell Update Package or DUP	43
NVMe drive error when inserted for the first time	43
Third-party driver installation for NVMe PCIe SSD failing	43
Unable to find the NVMe PCIe SSD for operating system installation	43
Virtual disks - related errors	43
Stale partitions are listed on creating a virtual disk for Linux	44
Rebuilding a virtual disk the global hot spare is not listed as online in HII or iDRAC	44
S160 displays 22 virtual disks on POST instead of 30 virtual disks	44
S160 displays 43 virtual disks on POST instead of 30 virtual disks	44
Display of failed virtual disk in HII	45
Virtual disk size in decimals is not supported while creating a VD	45
Cannot create a virtual disk	45
The physical disk is not displayed	45
Insufficient free space available on the selected physical disks	45
Incorrect number of physical disks selected for the desired RAID level	45
The desired physical disk is unavailable	45
The system already has a maximum of 30 virtual disks	45
A virtual disk is in a degraded state	46
Virtual disks are degraded on migrating the physical drives	46
A physical disk was removed	46
Physical or mechanical problems with the physical disk	46
The virtual disk has lost redundancy	46
Corrupted metadata in the virtual disk	46
Cannot assign a dedicated hot spare to a virtual disk	46
The RAID level does not allow a dedicated hot spare to be created	47
The designated physical disk does not have sufficient capacity to be a dedicated hot spare	47
The physical disk is already part of a virtual disk	47
The physical disk are of different types	47
Cannot create a global hot spare	47
There are no empty physical disks available or the physical disks have not been converted to RAID-capable disks	47
The physical disk is already part of a virtual disk	47
The physical disk assigned as the global hot spare has failed	48
The physical disk assigned as the global hot spare is missing	48
A dedicated hot spare fails	48
The controller cannot communicate with the hot spare	48
The dedicated spare is not visible in the BIOS Configuration Utility or is offline	48
Failed or degraded virtual disk	48
Cannot create a virtual disk on selected physical disks	48
RAID disk created from the NVMe PCIe SSDs not appearing in operating system environment, showing as partitioned disks	49
Cannot perform an online capacity expansion or reconfigure on a virtual disk	49
Unable to configure RAID on NVMe PCIe SSD using a third party RAID configuration utility	49
S160 config driver is not installed after S160 DUP is run	49
S160 driver not identifying P4800 drives	49
Getting help	50
Contacting Dell	50
Locating the Express Service Code and Service Tag	50
Related documentation	51