Help needed about DELL R430 raid conntroller

Retep001,

I would recommend making sure the systems are up-to-date on BIOS, iDrac,  H730, and the drives. You should also make sure you are using the latest version of the application used to monitor endurance. Updates may change how endurance is calculated or reported, and it may also fix issues of incorrect reporting.

Let me know what you see.

Some checks

Bios  2.9.1    could be upgraded to 2.13
Storage backplane 25.5.5.0005  Driver 7.708.07.00
Power supply  00.30.44

Harddrive SSDSC2BB960G7R   revision N201DL42
For the harddrive seems to be a new firmware, only i have to look how to update them. Since the server runs ESXi  . According the help is must be installed on a MS or Linux platform ( https://www.dell.com/support/home/nl-nl/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=chjgv)

Tomorrow is will update the bios to the latest.  2.13.0  

If you have a iDRAC Enterprise you can perform (any fw upgrade) by uploading the Windows DUP during runtime within the iDRAC. The iDRAC will extract the windows package to get the payload for the FW upgrading process.
If your iDRAC have access to the internet you can check first by selecting HTTPS  and "dl.dell.com" as the source instead of "LOCAL". The scan results are listet on the bottom of the page and you have to scroll down a bit.

We use OME to check our fleet of poweredge server (most running ESXi) and made the FW upgrades including Disks as well on that way.

Back to your messages from above it looks like that your disk/slots are disconnected and than reconnected every few minutes. Thats not a normal behavior for sure.

Regards,
Joerg

It might be a phys. issue. Power it down and reset everything.

Again.. these message are not normal and what did you expect performance wise when your disk disconnect every few seconds?

About non working dl.dell.com address.. you have to check your iDRAC DNS settings otherwise use a IP.  If not than your FW blocks the outgoing requests.

Because you use ESXi... there is Dell OpenManage Enterprise(OME) which is available for free as a ESXi Appliance. It will discover all your Dell Server/Storage and you can easily update your PowerEdge servers.

Regards,
Joerg

Sorry for the big delay, i was infected with covid and had to stay @home for 10 days.

So i first had to manual upgrade with disk the Idrac to a newer version.  ( the HTTPS and "dl.dell.com"   was not available).
After the update i could update all drivers, bios and firmware to the latest version.

The system has be running for 1 week, but now and then we get the log messages, after this message's the VM's are slow.
The servers, we have 4 R430's  this is the only one with this log messages. They are all in the same rack and no people have access.

Disk 0 and 1  are configured as Raid 1 with disk 2 as global spare
Disk 3 is the bootdisk with the  latest Esxi 6.7
All disk are the Intel SSDSC2BB960G7R

About the updates ,
This now works great with the HTTPS and "dl.dell.com" and the DNS setting.
The old Idrac version did not accept the HTTPS address.
A new check message SUP029: Firmware versions on server match catalog, applicable updates are not present in the repository.

We already powerdown the the server for several times after the updates.
We then also checked that de disks are placed ok.

Next thing we will try is to pull out the server and inspect the inside.
Other people say we need to change the battery for Perc PERC H730 Mini (Embedded) controller. However the system says that the battery is ok.

Now after 2 months we have a serious problem

Mon Sep 19 2022 11:51:03 A fatal error was detected on a component at bus 0 device 1 function 0.
Mon Sep 19 2022 11:51:03 A fatal error was detected on a component at bus 1 device 0 function 0.

The Perc H730 Integrated RAID Controller  is not available   ???
 

Hi,

both could be the source of this failure, but you could test the PERC controller in another slot to validate if the motherboard is working fine.

Do you have any other questions?

Regards Martin 

Hello Martin,

We have another R430 running, but the problem is we can not shut it down.  Ill try to find a replacement H370. I have a really old R330 but i have to look if this server has a Hxxx device witch will fit in the R430

So, good news.

We managed to buy another H370 card.
After this we imported the raid. A foreign configuration was imported on Integrated RAID Controller 1.
so this is working, only the fort drive witch is used as the boot drive for ESXI is not seen by the bios

Disk slot 0,1 is de raid 1 array, Disk 2 is spare for the array
Disk 3 is the boot disk, witch contain the boot.    Pressing F11 @Boot list all devices except  DISK3

So iám a little puzzled what to do.

Retep001,

Would you confirm how it was previously configured, such as if it previously configured as a raid 0? If so then you should be able to retag it, which is configuring it as a raid 0, but you would NOT initialize it, as that would delete the data.

Now if you are unsure, or the data is vital, you may also consider a data recovery service, unless you have a full backup of the data in case of any issues.
.
Let me know.