VMware Cloud Community
prontosystems
Contributor
Contributor

Parity Initialization Progress - CLI Created Logical Volume

Servus Community,

Yesterday we created a new logical volume in the Command Line Interface with the following command:

/opt/smartstorageadmin/ssacli/bin/ssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:17,1I:1:18,1I:1:19,1I:1:20,1I:1:21,1I:1:22,1I:1:23 raid=6

The volume was immediately visible in the web GUI of our ESX 6.5 and we were able to create a new data store there. This is also usable and we already install some VMDKs there.

What we don't know is the status of the Parity Initialization Progress display, which is still at 0%. For another volume, which already existed and was not created with the CLI, but in the controller BIOS, it will be displayed there: Initialization Completed:

For the new, CLI created volume we got this output:

---snip---

/opt/smartstorageadmin/ssacli/bin/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 show

Smart Array P440ar in Slot 0 (Embedded)

   Array B

      Logical Drive: 2

         Size: 5.46 TB

         Fault Tolerance: 6

         Heads: 255

         Sectors Per Track: 32

         Cylinders: 65535

         Strip Size: 256 KB

         Full Stripe Size: 1280 KB

         Status: OK

         Unrecoverable Media Errors: None

         MultiDomain Status: OK

         Caching:  Enabled

         Parity Initialization Status: In Progress

         Parity Initialization Progress: 0% complete

         Unique Identifier: 600508B1001C4828A9D9A8C1870E0F8A

         Logical Drive Label: 06C4F007PDNLH0BRH78D1217CE

         Drive Type: Data

         LD Acceleration Method: Controller Cache

---snap---

And for the existing, controller BIOS created Volume, we got this output:

---snip---

[root@localhost:/opt/smartstorageadmin/ssacli/bin] ./ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 show

Smart Array P440ar in Slot 0 (Embedded)

   Array A

      Logical Drive: 1

         Size: 6.55 TB

         Fault Tolerance: 6

         Heads: 255

         Sectors Per Track: 32

         Cylinders: 65535

         Strip Size: 256 KB

         Full Stripe Size: 1536 KB

         Status: OK

         Unrecoverable Media Errors: None

         MultiDomain Status: OK

         Caching:  Enabled

         Parity Initialization Status: Initialization Completed

         Unique Identifier: 600508B1001C0FC35B29727B79F53993

         Logical Drive Label: 01B0CE71PDNLH0BRH78D12FD28

         Drive Type: Data

         LD Acceleration Method: Controller Cache

---snap---

We assume that the output 0% is incorrect, but it would be interesting what we have to do, to update it, to the current correct value...

Thx & Bye Tom

Reply
0 Kudos
4 Replies
scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Is this a storage system issue, a local hardware/controller issue, or something specific to ESXi?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
Reply
0 Kudos
prontosystems
Contributor
Contributor

Good question, I don't know but I would rule out a storage system issue...

Reply
0 Kudos
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

Yeah I'm wondering what any of this has to do with esxi, esxi only creates the file system on the array it wouldn't have anything to do with any process beyond that. Nothing I see is esxi related other then thats the os using the volume.

Reply
0 Kudos
blazilla
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Saw this odd behaviour years ago. Did you reboot the server? Usually it‘s sufficient to do some IO to start paritiy init, but I had a case where it started after a reboot.

Best regards Patrick https://www.vcloudnine.de
Reply
0 Kudos