Anyone using a Dell PERC 6/i controller?

[Shad]

I'm using one in a Poweredge 2950 and in the LSI MegaRAID application (12.05.03.00) against each physical disk the value for 'Drive Speed' and 'Negotiated Link Speed' is 'UNKNOWN'. The maximum sequential read/write speed I've seen from a single disk is around 130MB/s, including from an OCZ Agility 4 SSD.

I'm running the latest firmware package on the card from Dell (6.3.1-0003 from May this year) although MegaRAID says the build date was Sep 12 2011. I believe I've also got the most recent LSI Windows drivers, 4.5.0.64.

Is it likely that drives are being defaulted to SATA 1 for some reason? I can't find any options to set the speed for a drive. Faulty card maybe? The backplane is only a few months old and replaced one with broken LEDs, but the old one was no different in terms of speeds reported.

In a different server I'm using a Dell SAS 6/i and the same LSI MegaRAID tool reports the 'Negotiated Link Speed' as '3.0 Gbps' which is correct. No backplane involved though.

Maybe I need to test the PERC in a different system without a backplane?

Any help appreciated, cheers

[scaryjim]

Based on that transfer speed it definitely sounds like it's defaulting to SATA 1 as compatibility mode to ensure that it works. No idea why it wouldn't correctly detect the drives though, I'm afraid! My default position when something isn't working properly is always to eliminate possible causes, and since it sounds like you've updated to the latest software and firmware, testing it without the backplane would be the next logical step if you can do it

[spoon_]

What's in OMSA?

[Shad]

What's in OMSA?

Nothing untoward, but nothing particularly useful when it comes to drive/link speed. Backplane status is OK, latest firmware which I re-flashed this evening just in case. Each drive (2x Samsung HD103SJ and 2x Western Digital (Dell) WD2500YS) is marked as 'SATA' for the bus protocol (presumably as opposed to SAS).

I ran DSET but it just says "Either OMSA does not support the SCSI/RAID controllers present in the system, or Storage Management is not installed" - do you know what it's referring to by 'Storage Management'?

[Shad]

Well I've just tried again with the original backplane and that was the same. Then I powered up the drives via external PSU and connected them directly to the controller and that made no difference either.

Annoying