Creating multiple virtual drives on same physical devices - Servers

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H196898

Symptom

Customers may see a restriction when creating certain Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) arrays using free disk space on the same physical disks if the drive selection extends outside of the available physical disks. This may also result in a failure or loss of the virtual disk created on reboot and when reinitializing the controller.

This restriction may be seen in one of the following ways:

1. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or Legacy based ServeRAID web Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) interface or the MegaRAID Storage Manager software is used to create a new array.
2. An initial virtual disk (ex. VD1) is created and defined in a Drive Group (ex. DG0).
3. The first virtual disk has one of the following RAID types: RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID6 RAID10, RAID50, or RAID60.
4. The first virtual disk does not use the entire available space of the defined array on the physical devices (Hard Disk Drives (HDDs)) on which it was created. Thus, leaving available free space on the devices.
5. A second virtual disk is created using the available free space of the physical devices of the first drive group on which the first virtual disk above was created.
6. All additional virtual disks created this way must conform to the RAID type originally defined in the first virtual disk. This is a policy enforcement rule.
7. When the UEFI or Legacy based version of the ServeRAID controller web BIOS interface is used to create a virtual disk, and a second or third virtual disk is created with available free space of the same physical devices defined in the Drive Group of the first virtual disk are used, then, the second and third iterations of the additional virtual disk must have the same identical properties as the original virtual disk.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• System x3200 M2, type 4367, any model
• System x3200 M2, type 4368, any model
• System x3200 M2, type 9233, any model
• System x3200 M3, type 7327, any model
• System x3200 M3, type 7328, any model
• System x3250 M2, type 4190, any model
• System x3250 M2, type 4191, any model
• System x3250 M2, type 4194, any model
• System x3250 M3, type 4251, any model
• System x3250 M3, type 4252, any model
• System x3250 M3, type 4261, any model
• System x3350, type 4192, any model
• System x3350, type 4193, any model
• System x3400 M2, type 7836, any model
• System x3400 M2, type 7837, any model
• System x3400 M3, type 7378, any model
• System x3400 M3, type 7379, any model
• System x3500 M2, type 7839, any model
• System x3500 M3, type 7380, any model
• System x3550 M2, type 4198, any model
• System x3550 M2, type 7946, any model
• System x3550 M3, type 4254, any model
• System x3550 M3, type 7944, any model
• System x3550, type 1013, any model
• System x3550, type 1913, any model
• System x3550, type 7978, any model
• System x3650 M2, type 4199, any model
• System x3650 M2, type 7947, any model
• System x3650 M3, type 4255, any model
• System x3650 M3, type 7945, any model
• System x3650, type 1914, any model
• System x3650, type 7979, any model

The system is configured with one or more of the following IBM Options:

• ServeRAID-BR10i SAS/SATA Controller
  • Option 44E8689, replacement part number: 44E8690
• ServeRAID-BR10il SAS/SATA Controller Kit
  • Option 44X0411, replacement part number: 43V7415 - Controller kit
• ServeRAID-BR10il SAS/SATA Controller v2
  • Option 49Y4731, replacement part number: 49Y4737
• ServeRAID-MR10M SAS/SATA Controller
  • Option 43W4339, replacement part number: 43W4341 - Adapter
• ServeRAID-MR10i SAS/SATA Controller
  • Option 43W4296, replacement part number: 43W4297 - Adapter
• ServeRAID-MR10ie (CIOv) Controller for IBM BladeCenter
  • Option 46C7167, replacement part number: 46C7171
• ServeRAID-MR10is Vault SAS/SATA Controller
  • Option 44E8695, replacement part number: 44E8696 - Adapter
• ServeRAID-MR10k SAS/SATA Controller
  • Option 43W4280, replacement part number: 43W4282 - Adapter

This tip is not software specific.
The system has the symptom described above.

Workaround

This is working as designed. The policy for creating multiple virtual drives on the same physical devices is a rule for how the LSI ServeRAID controller handles this configuration type. This policy setting should be followed when creating identical virtual disks to reuse free available space on the same physical devices.

Additional information

If additional virtual disks are defined on the free space of the same physical disks on which an original virtual disk was defined, then no other RAID types can be defined on the available free space of the physical devices used in the creation of the original virtual disk.

This issue is working as designed. The issue is the creation of multiple virtual drives using the same physical devices or drives with the IBM ServeRAID controllers listed in this tip.