Managing Windows Server® 2012 R2 Storage Spaces Enclosure Health with the PowerVault™ MD1200 Series Storage

This blog post was originally written by Michael Schroeder, Aditi Satam & Syama Poluri.

Introduction

Managing a Storage Spaces solution is more than just managing a collection of disks and having the ability to blink drive lights for identification. If components in a JBOD fail, how do you discover and identify those components to address these critical issues? This blog walks through a few of these scenarios. JBOD management is an integral component to the overall management of a Storage Spaces solution. Maintaining good health of the JBOD is arguably just as important as disk health although enclosure awareness can help with certain configurations. The following Microsoft hotfix (KB2913766) is required by Dell for supporting Storage Spaces with Microsoft Windows Server® 2012 R2 and enables health reporting for many elements inside of the PowerVault MD1200 series (voltage sensors, temp sensors, fans, EMM controllers, PSUs).

For this demo, we’ll be using the PowerEdge™ R620 with a PowerVault™ MD1220 array attached.

Prerequisites

• Read this first: Deploying Windows Server® 2012 R2 Storage Spaces on Dell PowerVault™ MD1200 and MD1220
• Storage Enclosure Management for Storage Spaces Hotfix

First, let’s look at some of the more common elements on the PowerVault MD1220-

To check the health of an enclosure, we’ll run the following PowerShell command. If multiple enclosures are present they will be listed as well-

Get-StorageEnclosure | fl

The first property to look at is HealthStatus. This gives us a quick read on the overall health of the enclosure elements monitored on the MD1220. The following table helps map the elements returned by PowerShell to the appropriate components on the MD enclosure. 

Now, let’s take a look at an unhealthy scenario where a power supply issue is present.

Get-StorageEnclosure | fl -AutoSize

The overall HealthStatus for StorageEnclosure0 has changed to Warning and the element type in error is PowerSupply. How can we determine which power supply on the enclosure has an issue?

Get-StorageEnclosure | fl

You can see from the second power supply field (Degraded) this event correlates to the following power supply on the enclosure- PS2.

How do we know if all the JBOD elements are present? Looking at a different scenario, we run the same PowerShell script and notice that some of the element properties have changed.

Get-StorageEnclosure | fl

We see the first enclosure management module is not present and the temperature sensor associated with EMM0 is also listed as Not Installed. The position of the IOControllerOperationalStatus property value tells us that this correlates to EMM0 in the enclosure.

If you’re physically at the rack, enclosure and components status LEDs can assist with identifying potential issues, however that isn’t always practical, so using these PowerShell commands can help you correlate and manage these elements more effectively.

Summary

Having a holistic approach to managing your storage is vital for maintaining the highest levels of availability for your storage solutions. When using PowerVault MD1200 Series Storage with the Storage Enclosure Management for Storage Spaces Hotfix - KB2913766 you can better manage these elements and respond to issues that might arise. To learn more, review the following whitepaper which gives a comprehensive view of Storage Spaces on the PowerVault MD1200 Series Storage - Deploying Windows Server® 2012 R2 Storage Spaces on Dell PowerVault™ MD1200 and MD1220.

Additional Resources:

Technical Guidebook for PowerVault MD1200 and MD1220

Dell PowerVault MD1200 & MD1220

Storage Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell

Storage Spaces Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)