Dell Power Edge R710 Server RAID Configuration Procedure.

Configuring RAID on Dell Power Edge R710/R720/R610 Servers.

      By default, Dell Power Edge R710 Server will be shipping from factory with "Dell PERC 6/i RAID Controller". Dell PERC 6/i RAID Controller is supported with RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 RAID Levels.

Configuring RAID on Dell Power Edge R710 Server.

1.)  Power on the Server and connect the local console via Monitor or iDRAC (IPMI) console.

2.) Press "CTRL+R" When it is prompting to enter RAID Configuration Utility.

3)  It will redirect to " RAID Controller BIOS Configuration Utility". Here we have option to Create the RAID Array. This Utility have 3 menus. 

    a). VD Management - To Create/Delete/Manage Virtual Disk /Logical Disk/ Array

    b). PD Management - To View/Manage Physical Disk

    c) . Ctrl Mgmt - To Manage RAID Controller Settings.

RAID BIOS Console

4) Press "Ctrl+N" to go to "PD Mgmt" Menu and Verify the physical disk status. Here we have 2 physical Disks each have 136 GB of Capacity., Both disk are showing "Online". 

5) Press "Ctrl+N" again to go to "Ctrl Mgmt" to see the RAID Controller Settings. Here we can see the Controller details and its Firmware version.

6) Press "Ctrl+N" and come back to "VD Mgmt" to configure the RAID Array.

Press "F2", and Choose "Create New VD" option to create new RAID Array.

7) It will redirect to "Virtual Disk Management" Page. 

Here we can choose the RAID Level, The physical disk which we are going to choose for RAID, VD Name and VD Size.

Since We have 2 Physical Disks, we will get the RAID level options for RAID 0 and RAID 1 only.

Here I am going to create "RAID 1" Array for mirroring two Physical Disks.

8) Press Enter on "RAID Level" and Choose "RAID 1".

9) Press "TAB" and select both Physical Disks to make member of this RAID 1 Array.

Choose all other options as default and press "OK" to create Array.

10) Press "OK" to Create.

11. Now New Array (Virtual Disk) has been created, its name is " Virtual Disk 0". But It should be initialized before we can use it. 

12. To initialize, Press "F2" Then"Initialization" then enter on " Fast Init." to initialize quickly. It will take around 1 minute to finish initialization.

13. Press "Yes" on the warning. All data will be destroyed on the disks if any data present.

14.  Once Initialization is finished, we will get a message as below.

Now we have create a RAID Array with RAID 1 (Mirroring). Now Server is ready for OS installation and further configurations.

15. Press "ESC" to exit from RAID BIOS Utility" and Press "OK"

16. Press "CTRL+ALT+DEL" to reboot the Server.

17. On next reboot, After prompting the RAID BIOS option, Server will recognize the newly created Array (Virtual Disk/logical disk) As shown in below image.

18. Now Server is ready with " RAID 1 " array for OS Installation.