Working with SSD Flash Expansion Kit in Arcserve X Series Appliance

Arcserve SSD Flash Expansion Kit lets you expand the data capacity by creating a secondary datastore and performing DR-related operations (IVM /VSB/Continuous Availability) in the Arcserve Appliance X-Series.

Follow these steps:

  1. Perform the following steps to insert SSDs in the empty disk slots:
    1. From the Arcserve UDP Console, verify and make sure that no jobs are running on the Appliance Server. If in case any jobs are running, pause the corresponding plans.
    2. Insert SSDs in the empty disk slot.
  2. Perform the following steps to configure Raid-5 from the BIOS Boot Manager option:
    1. To launch the Virtual Console dashboard, log in to iDRAC, and then click Start the Virtual Console.
    2. In the Virtual Console page, click Boot, and then select the BIOS Boot Manager option.
    3. On the confirmation window, click Yes to restart the BIOS Boot Manager.
    4. Click Power, and then select Reset system (warm boot).
    5. The appliance boots and relaunches the Boot Manager setup page.
    6. In the Boot Manager Main Menu, click Launch System Setup, and then navigate to Device Settings > Dell EMC PERC S140 Controller > Virtual Disk Management > Create Virtual Disk.
    7. From the Select RAID Level drop-down list, select RAID 5.
    8. Note: The RAID 5 Virtual Disk is used for expansion kit and includes newly attached disks of 3.63 TB for each physical disk.
    10. Select the Select Physical Disks option.
    12. The Select Physical Disk Operation window opens.
    13. For the Select Interface Type option, click NVMe.
    14. A list of physical disks is displayed.
    15. From the list of physical disks, select the disks as needed, and then click Apply Changes.

    17. Notes: Select a minimum of three disks and a maximum of 16 disks.
    18. After the changes are applied, click the Create Virtual Disk option again to complete the process of creating the virtual disk.
  3. Navigate to Configuration Options > Physical Disk Management > Select Physical Disk Operations.
    1. For Select Interface Type, click NVMe.
    2. From the Select Physical Disk drop-down list, select the option as needed, and then click Convert to RAID Capable Disk.
    3. Note: You can apply the Convert to RAID Capable Disk option to all the physical disks one by one.
    5. When the following warning message is displayed, do the following:
    6. RAC0516: Converting physical disk drives to RAID-compatible will overwrite any OS-created RAID arrays.
      1. Verify that there are no OS-configured RAID arrays, and then click OK.
      2. Click OK.
  4. Navigate to Configuration Options > Virtual Disk Management, and then do the following:
    1. To manage your virtual disks, click Manage Virtual Disk Properties.
    2. From the Select Virtual Disks drop-down list, select any RAID 5 disk, and then click View Associated Physical Disks.
    4. The associated disks are displayed.
    6. To select the virtual disk operations, click Select Virtual Disk Operations.
    8. To view the virtual disk properties in the Boot Manager, click View Virtual Disk Properties.
  6. To view the disk information in iDRAC, log into iDRAC, and then click Storage > Overview.
  8. In the Overview section, click Physical Disks to view the list of physical disks that you have created.
  10. To initialize and format the newly added Virtual Disk, do the following:
    1. Navigate to Computer Management and Disk Management.
    2. Double click the new virtual disk that you added.
    3. The Initialize Disk window appears.
    4. Select the GPT (GUID Partition Table) option and click OK.
    5. From the Disk Management window, select the virtual disk and apply the following properties:
      • Assign a Drive Letter
      • Specify NTFS as File System
      • Format the disk
    7. The virtual disk is created.