Managing Dell Perc Array Controllers from the Command Line

Background

You may find it easier to do basic disk controller configuration from the command line because the UI can be a bit clunky.  Also, there are times when a drive will show up in the UI with an unclear warning message and the drive is unusable.  The CLI can be used to clear issues in some cases.

Below are some brief notes on performing some basic tasks, the complete documentation can be found at dell.com .

Download the Tool

Go to Dell.com

Go to support Search for PercCLI Download and extract to c:\windows\system32

You should only see two files:

Controllers

#Show controllers (Note the Controller index/number)

perccli show all

#Show detail for a controller, it's physical disks, and it's virtual disks (e.g. Controller 0)

perccli /c0 show all

Note: This output is long, I included the most interesting parts that relate to basic disk configuration

#Show controller logs

perccli /c0 show termlog

Virtual Disks

#Create a virtual disk (e.g. Controller 0, Virtual disk, RAID 0, Drives 2 through 4)

perccli /c0 add vd type=RAID0 drives=32:2-4 strip=64

#Show a virtual disk's configuration (e.g. Controller 0, Virtual Disk 1)

perccli /c0/v1 show all

#Delete a virtual disk (e.g. Controller 0, Virtual Disk 1)

perccli /c0/v1 delete

Physical Disks

#Show a specific disk (Controller 0, Enclosure 32, Slot 2)

perccli /c0/e32/s2 show all

#Initialize a disk

perccli /c0/e32/s2 start initialization

#Show initialization progress

perccli /c0/e32/s2 show initialization

#Note: If a drive gets stuck in a funky state starting then stopping an initialization can un-wedge it

#Stop disk Initialization

perccli /c0/e32/s2 stop initialization

#Note: Initialization can take a long time and a complete initialization may not be needed

[ Keywords: disk perc dell cli command line controller raid ]