Dell hardware RAID card updating

Over the past month we have been implementing the Dell OpenManage system on our Dell Windows dedicated servers.

http://www.dell.com/openmanage

This SNMP-based monitoring system gives us a very comprehensive diagnostic readout of the server’s health and notifies us of any impending issues.

Since we started rolling it out, some of these very issues have indeed come to light; some trivial, some more urgent.

In many cases, however, we have seen the need for the RAID card’s driver and/or firmware to be updated.

Replacing the driver is an easy matter, as it is directly available through the optional Hardware section of Windows Update. The required driver is marked version 1.29.03.00, and it requires a server reboot for it to take effect.

The firmware update is more difficult as it requires at least 10-15 minutes of server downtime to allow the PC to boot to a floppy disk containing the updated firmware (version 00.10.51.00.06.12.05.00). It also requires an actual human being to do this at the server itself…

Once these updates have been applied, OpenManage functions correctly.

The firmware update is even more pressing than the driver, as the older firmware, unbelievably, does not allow you to replace a failed hard drive with a new one and then rebuild an existing array; it asks you to start from scratch and delete all data.

The newer firmware allows the addition of a replacement drive as a “hot spare” which is then added to the existing array and rebuilt automatically.

More details of this firmware update is available as a PDF here:

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q08-20090105-Bernal.pdf