How to set RAID on Dell Servers

Objective: Understand how to set RAID on Dell Servers.

In this part, most of Dell servers settings are pretty same. If there is any different, it should be minor differences. The main thing is, you just need to REMEMBER the flow of create RAID process. Not remember the menu, but remember the flow process itself.

1.Set up the RAID from System Setup 
2.Set up the RAID from Life Cycle Controller (F10)

- Set up the RAID from System Setup (F2)
- Power up server and go to System Setup (F2).
- Choose Device Settings.
- Choose the RAID Controller driver of current Dell Server usually called PERC.
- Go to Virtual Disk Management.
- Remove the disk first if there is(are) any disk profile.

How to remove any virtual disk created?

- Go to Virtual Disk Management.
- Choose the virtual created disk profile.
- Select operation > Delete Virtual Disk > Go > Confirm > Yes.

If you sure there is(are) no virtual disk created, then may proceed to create the configuration as needed.

- Go to Configuration Management.
- Go to Clear Configuration to clear all configuration first if any.

Let’s proceed to create virtual Disk

- Go to Create Virtual Disk.
- Select RAID 0 for Host OS.
- Select Physical Disks.
- Choose unconfigured physical disks that matching for Host OS. Usually 2x 200 GB of disk will be applied to Host OS.
- Select media type properly, whether it is SSD or HDD.
- Choose OK.

After that you will see the actual virtual disk size. Don’t forget to give it Virtual Disk Name. Once everything is in order, go to Create Virtual Disk. And you are done. Now you have 2x 200 GB of RAID 0.

After this part, try to repeat again as per previous step. Next, we will setup the vm disk. The disk for vm usually contained 6x 1 TB disk of HDD or 4x 1 TB SSD (guessing). The thing you should remember is, small disk size to be used for host OS (installing the OS node) and the big disk size will be used for vm partitions. That’s it.

For the VM disk, we usually go with RAID 50. Make sure no disk left unpartitioned with RAID.

Once settled, you may go to BIOS and make sure the boot is from the disk to proceed Operating System installation.

Set up the RAID from Life Cycle Controller (F10)[edit]

This is typically easy to setup. Once powered up, go to F10 to enter Life Cycle Controller. The load might took longer than F2 menu, because it loads some f***ing modules in one go.

Once loaded, you will see new interface.

- Go to OS Deployment.
- Configure RAID First.

The menu interface is very simple and easy to understand. You just need to go and follow the interface directions.

Unable To Load Life Cycle Controller

Rarely, when you boot up you might facing difficulties to load Life Cycle Controller (F10) such as unable to load Life Cycle Controller (F10). To fix this issue shutdown the server, make sure you did not made any major changes within the BIOS server. Then plug out the power cable for a moment. And then plug in the power cable, turn on the server. The error should vanished.