Users Guide

Assigning or Unassigning Dedicated Hot Spares
A dedicated hot spare is an unused backup disk that is assigned to a virtual disk. When a physical disk in the virtual disk fails, the
hot spare is activated to replace the failed physical disk without interrupting the system or requiring your intervention.
You must have Login and Server Control privilege to run this operation.
Only T10 PI (DIF) capable physical disks can be assigned as a hot spare to T10 PI (DIF) enabled virtual disks. Any non T10 PI
(DIF) drives that are assigned as dedicated hot spare will not be a hot spare if T10 PI (DIF) is enabled on a virtual disk later on.
You can assign only 4K drives as hot spare to 4K virtual disks.
If you have assigned a virtual disk as a dedicated hot spare in Add to Pending Operation mode, the pending operation is created
but a job is not created. Then, if you try to unassign the dedicated hot spare, the assign dedicated hot spare pending operation
is cleared.
If you have unassigned a virtual disk as a dedicated hot spare in Add to Pending Operation mode, the pending operation is
created but a job is not created. Then, if you try to assign the dedicated hot spare, the unassign dedicated hot spare pending
operation is cleared.
Managing Virtual Disks Using Web Interface
1. In the iDRAC Web interface, go to Overview > Storage > Virtual Disks > Manage.
The Manage Virtual Disks page is displayed.
2. From the Controller drop-down menu, select the controller for which you want to manage the virtual disks.
3. For one or more Virtual Disks, from each Action drop-down menu, select an action.
You can specify more than one action for a virtual drive. When you select an action, an additional Action drop-down menu
is displayed. Select another action from this drop-down menu. The action that is already selected does not appear in the
additional Action drop-down menus. Also, the Remove link is displayed next to the selected action. Click this link to remove
the selected action.
● Delete
● Edit Policy: Read Cache — Change the read cache policy to one of the following options:
○ Adaptive Read Ahead
○ No Read Ahead
○ Read Ahead
● Edit Policy: Write Cache — Change the write cache policy to one of the following options:
○ Write Through
○ Write Back
○ Force Write Back
● Edit Policy: Disk Cache — Change the disk cache policy to one of the following options:
○ Default
○ Enabled
○ Disabled
● Initialize: Fast — Updates the metadata on the physical disks so that all the disk space is available for future write
operations. The initialize can be completed quickly because existing information on the physical disks is not erased,
although future write operations overwrites any information that remains on the physical disks.
● Initialize: Full — All existing data and file systems are erased.
● Check Consistency
● Encrypt Virtual Disk — Encrypts the virtual disk drive. If the controller is encryption capable, you can create, change or
delete the security keys.
● Manage Dedicated Hotspares — Assign or unassign a physical disk as a dedicated hotspare. Only the valid dedicated
hotspares are displayed. If there are no valid dedicated hotspares, then this section does not appear in the drop-down
menu.
For more information about these options, see the iDRAC Online Help.
4. From the Apply Operation Mode drop-down menu, select when you want to apply the settings.
5. Click Apply.
Based on the selected operation mode, the settings are applied.
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Managing Storage Devices