Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 6/E Firmware Release; Package Version: 6.1.1-0047

Dell highly recommends applying this update as soon as possible. The update contains changes to improve the reliability and availability of your Dell system.

*** When you upgrade to this release you will not be able to revert back to the prior release.

1. When viewing SATA physical disk properties from Ctrl-R or other management applications, the Vendor Identification will be translated as "ATA" followed by blanks.

2. If all physical disks making up a virtual disk are removed from the system or enclosure, the RAID controller will delete the virtual disk. If the disks are later re-inserted, they will be marked foreign and can be imported using a management application.

3. If a virtual disk is configured with write-back cache enabled and some or all of its physical disks are removed from the system or enclosure, the RAID controller will preserve the virtual disk's write cache. The controller will flush the preserved cache when the physical disks are replaced and the foreign configuration is imported. Any attempt to update controller firmware will be blocked when cache is preserved for a virtual disk.

4. Physical disks determined to contain a foreign configuration are not available for configuration as a new dedicated or global hot spare, or as a member of a new virtual disk. The foreign configuration must be imported or cleared from the physical disk before it may be used as a hot spare or member of a virtual disk. Physical disks with a foreign configuration will not appear on the Create New VD screen in Ctrl-R.

5. Prior to performing a virtual disk migration to another system, the source system must be powered off before removal of the physical disks to preserve the correct virtual disk state. This is not required for the target system and the physical disks may be inserted while the system is powered on or off.

6. The controller restricts the importing of virtual disks that are undergoing RAID Level Migration or Capacity Expansion. Do not interrupt virtual disks that are performing either of these operations because it will disable the ability to import the virtual disk and the data will be unavailable. Dell recommends that the user perform a data backup before starting these operations.

7. EMM changes or drive migrations are not supported during a Capacity Expansion or Raid Level Migration. This may cause the VDs to go offline. Dell recommends the user to perform a data backup before starting these operations.

8. This version of firmware will not ensure complete compatibility with an older version of management applications. OpenManage 5.5 or greater is recommended.

9. It is recommended that the customer upgrade the management application and device driver to the latest version available from Dell at the time of installation of this firmware.

10. Important Information for Update Packages for Microsoft Windows

a. Do not run other applications while executing Dell Update Packages.
b. Do not run storage controller update packages if the controller is in use
by other applications. The firmware upgrade may fail if any of the
RAID controllers in the system are performing I/O background tasks
(consistency checks, background initializations, rebuilds, or
reconstructions). Allow the background tasks to complete before
attempting to upgrade the firmware. Patrol Read tasks will not affect
firmware upgrades.

11. Important Information for Update Packages for Linux

a. Do not run other applications while executing Dell Update Packages.
b. If the following error occurs, "Error while loading shared libraries:
libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
directory", you must install the compatibility libraries. These
libraries can be found on the installation media or online. To install
the compatibility libraries, use the following commands:
"rpm -ih compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3.-*.i386.rpm" for RHEL 4 or 5
"rpm -ih compat-libstdc++-5.0.7-*.x86_64.rpm" for SLES 10
c. When Update Packages stop abruptly due to a power outage or abnormal
termination, perform the following steps:
- Remove the lock file.
- Type the following command: rm -f /var/lock/.spsetup
- Run the Update Package again to reapply the update.
d. Do not run storage controller update packages if the controller is in
use by other applications. The firmware upgrade may fail if any of the
RAID controllers in the system are performing I/O background tasks
(consistency checks, background initializations, rebuilds,
or reconstructions). Allow the background tasks to complete before
attempting to upgrade the firmware. Patrol Read tasks will not affect
firmware upgrades.
e. Linux systems running one or more applications that interact with SCSI
devices in certain ways are known to cause a kernel panic situation. It
is recommended that you stop Server Administrator and its Storage
Management service before running storage controller firmware update
packages.
- To stop the Dell OpenManage(TM) Server Administrator service, run
"omconfig system webserver action=stop" or
"/etc/init.d/dataeng stop"
- To start the Server Administrator service, run
"omconfig system webserver action=start" or
"/etc/init.d/dataeng start"

12. A reboot is required after running diagnostics on a PERC 6/E Adapter when there are no virtual disks configured.

13. All RAID volumes will be presented as write through (WT) to the operating system (Windows and linux) independent of the actual write cache policy of the virtual disk. The controller manages the data in cache independently of the OS and any applications. Please use OpenManage or the BIOS Configuration Utility to view and manage virtual disk cache settings.

	Systems	Operating systems
	PowerEdge 1950 PowerEdge 2900 PowerEdge 2950 PowerEdge 2970 PowerEdge 6950 PowerEdge R200 PowerEdge R300 PowerEdge R610 PowerEdge R710 PowerEdge R805 PowerEdge R900 PowerEdge R905 PowerEdge T300 PowerEdge T610 PowerVault DL2000 PowerVault DP500/NF500 PowerVault DP600/NF600	Not Applicable

1. The controller will preserve uncommited write cache for virtual disks that become offline or deleted because of missing physical disks.

2. Improved performance for RAID 0 virtual disks.

3. The controller now detects charged batteries that were previously fully depleted without rebooting the system.

4. Corrected an issue where the battery learn cycle delay was not delaying for the right amount of time.

5. Corrected an issue where battery warning messages were not correctly being disabled on controllers without batteries.

6. Addressed a performance issue with Native Command Queuing (NCQ) on SATA hard drives.

7. Resolved an issue with firmware package 6.1.1-0045 that occurs in a configuration where there are greater than eight virtual disks and the ninth virtual disk has a different stripe size than the previous eight.

9. The PERC 6/E Adapter now supports a redundant SAS cable to external disk storage enclosures and can balance I/O load across paths.

9. Added support for revertible hot spares where a commissioned hot spare can be reverted back to its original hot spare assignment when a failed drive is replaced. This is useful for keeping hot spares in specific slots within disk storage enclosures.

10. The controller now allows the user to initiate a task to replace a disk without degrading the virtual disk.

11. Added support for the automatic replacement of a physical disk to an available hot spare when the disk shows a predicted failure.

12. Added support for large RAID 10 virtual disks. A maximum of 144 physical disks can now be configured in a RAID 10 virtual disk.

13. Dell disk storage enclosures can now be attached to the PERC 6/E Adapter without a reboot of the system.

14. A reboot of the system is not required after a disk storage enclosure completes a firmware update.

15. Added the ability for a consistency check operation to be aborted when an inconsistency is found in a virtual disk.

16. Improved background initialization (BGI) performance.

17. Increased support for maximum number of SATA hard drives to 90.

18. The BIOS Configuration Utility (Ctrl-R) now reports the completion of fast initializations of virtual disks.

19. Storage management applications can now provide detailed information on foreign configurations.

20. Improved handling of hard drive errors.

21. Made several cosmetic and usability enhancements to improve customer experience.

Creating a bootable USB key to execute PERC firmware updates.

a. Download and extract the PERC firmware download for the appropriate controller.
b. Download CW1322A1.exe (Windows) or CL1322A1.bin (linux) from support.dell.com. It can be found by putting the file name in the search box at the top of the page.
c. Execute the download to extract the files.
d. Open the folder where the files were extracted.
e. Execute DDDP.exe and choose the USB option. This will FORMAT the USB key, all files and folders on the USB key will be lost. Save any needed files on the key to another destination.
f. Once the USB key is formatted, copy all the files extracted from the PERC firmware download to the USB key.
g. Delete the autoexec.bat file in the root of the USB key (this will keep the diagnostic application from starting up).
h. Boot to the USB key and run update.bat to update the PERC firmware. If multiple firmware downloads need to be executed, each PERC firmware image can be placed in separate folders, then executed.

Creating a bootable CD to execute PERC firmware updates.

When running PERC firmware updates from a CD, a RAMDrive is needed to execute the flash updates. For this reason, a different utility is recommended. The utility recommended is the download to udpate SAS/SATA hard drive firmware, DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A06_R193093.exe. If the need to create BOTH USB and CD updates exists, this utility will work for both environments but is more complex than the USB creation method mentioned above.

a. Download DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A06_R193093.exe from support.dell.com. It can be found by putting the file name in the search box at the top of the page.
b. Execute the download to extract the files.
c. Open the folder the download was extracted to. The boot folder contains the files used by the DDP.exe utility to create the boot environment. The isonaut folder holds the readme file that is put onto the data area of the CD image. The Files folder contains the files that will execute under the boot environment. Inside of the Files folder, the ESG and FW files contain the hard drive firmware updates.
d. In order to stop the hard drive firmware download from launching, edit the autoexec.bat file in the Files folder and remove or comment out "call nautilus %pat%".
e. In order to execute the firmware from a cd environment, copy the files (or folders) to the RAMDrive, which can be addressed as %ramd%:\ , change to the folder containing the firmware update, and execute update.bat. If multiple firmware downloads need to be executed, each PERC firmware image can be placed in a separate folders, then executed.

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Instructions for DELL_PERC-6-E-ADAPTER_A08_R200989.EXE

Download

1. Click the Download Now link to download the file.
2. When the File Download window appears, click Save to save the file to your hard drive.

Extract Files
1. Browse to the location where you downloaded the file and double-click the new file to unzip the download package
2. Click Continue.
3. Specify the location to unzip the files.
4. Click on the OK button to extract files.
After the files are extracted the message all files were successfully unzipped will appear.
5. Click the OK button to exit from the installer.

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Custom Instructions for R200989.txt:

1) Click Download now.
The File Download window appears.

2) Click the Save button.
The Save As window appears.

3) Select Desktop using the drop-down menu to the right of Save in.

4) Click the Save button.
A progress meter moves as the download is completed.

5) If necessary, click X in the upper right-hand corner of the Download Progress Window to close it upon completion.

6) Double click the Icon on your desktop for the newly saved file.
The Dell PERC 6 Release Notes window appears.

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Dell Update Package Instructions for RAID_FRMW_LX_R200989.BIN:

Download
1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file.
2. When the File Download window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive.

Installation
1. Read over the release information presented by executing the "./RAID_FRMW_LX_R200989.BIN --version" command from the shell.
2. Download and install any prerequisites identified in the above step before proceeding.
3. Run the update by executing "./RAID_FRMW_LX_R200989.BIN" from the shell.
4. Follow the remaining prompts to perform the update.

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GnuPG Signature of Dell Update Package Instructions for RAID_FRMW_LX_R200989.BIN.sign:

Download
1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file.
2. When the "File Download" window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive.

Installation
1. Import the Dell public key. (You only need to do once on your system.)
2. Verify the Dell Update Package by using its signature file, RAID_FRMW_LX_R200989.BIN.sign

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Dell Update Package Instructions for RAID_FRMW_WIN_R200989.EXE:

Download

1. Click the "Download Now" link to download the file.
2. When the File Download window appears, click "Save" to save the file to your hard drive.

Installation

1. Browse to the location where you downloaded the file and double-click the new file.
2. Read over the release information presented in the dialog window.
3. Download and install any prerequisites identified in the dialog window before proceeding.
4. Click the Install button.
5. Follow the remaining prompts to perform the update.