User's Manual

Troubleshooting 59
Troubleshooting
To get help installing Dell SAS RAID Storage Manager on your Dell™
PERC 5/i, SAS 5/iR, PERC 6/i, or SAS 6/iR system, you can contact your Dell
Technical Service representative or access the Dell Support website at
support.dell.com.
Pinned Cache State
If a virtual disk becomes offline or is deleted for any reason, the firmware
preserves the dirty cache from the virtual disk. This preserved dirty cache is
called pinned cache, and is preserved until you import the virtual disk, or
discard the cache.
NOTE: The pinned cache information applies only to the PERC 6 controllers.
You can use the software utility to select whether to import the virtual disk or
discard the pinned cache. In the VD Mgmt menu, select Manage Preserved
Cache and follow the steps on the screen.
NOTE: For the procedure used to import the virtual disk or discard the pinned
cache, see "Preserving Pinned Cache" on page 55.
Certain operations, such as creating a new virtual disk, cannot be performed if
pinned cache exists. In addition, if you reboot your server, the operating
system will not start as long as the pinned cache exists. Messages notify you
that you cannot perform the procedure until you either delete the pinned
cache or import the virtual disks with the pinned cache.
If there are any foreign configurations, it is strongly advised that you import
the foreign configuration before you discard the preserved cache. Otherwise,
you might lose data that belongs with the foreign configuration.
NOTE: Firmware deletes a virtual disk if the virtual disk loses all of its drives, even if
you did not intend to delete the virtual disk. This causes loss of data. Such
unintended cases can occur to configured drives due to unexpected cable failure
or power failure.