Creating NVMe RAID Configurations
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Open Advanced > Intel(R) Virtual RAID on CPU > All Intel VMD Controllers > Create RAID Volume.
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Set Name.
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Set RAID Level.
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If cross-controller RAID is required, select Enable RAID spanned over VMD Controller.
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Select specific disks for RAID with an [X].
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RAID0: Select at least two [2–24] disks
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RAID1: Select only two disks
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RAID5: Select at least three [3–24] disks
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RAID10: Select only four disks
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Select Strip Size (Default 64 KB).
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Select Create Volume.
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If another RAID is needed, start again at step 1.
Status Indications
An LED indicator on the drive carrier shows the RAID status of the drive.
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Drive Carrier Status LED Indicator |
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|---|---|
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Status |
State (red) |
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Normal function |
Off |
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Locating |
4 Hz blinking |
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Fault |
Solid on |
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Rebuilding |
1 Hz blinking |
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IBPI SFF 8489 Defined Status LED States |
|
Hot-Swap Drives
Intel VMD enables hot-plug and hot-unplug for NVMe SSDs, whether from Intel or other manufacturers. Under vSphere ESXi, several steps are necessary to avoid potential stability issues. See the information at link [1] below.
Hot-Unplug
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Prevent devices from being re-detected during rescan:
esxcli storage core claiming autoclaim --enabled=false
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Unmount the VMFS volumes on the device. Check link [2] below for details.
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Detach the device. Check link [3] below for details.
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Physically remove the device.
Hot-Plug
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Physically install the device.
ESXi will automatically discover NVMe SSDs, but a manual scan may be required in some cases.