Dell UCPM-800 Battery Transparent Learn Cycle, The Controller Failover Feature

If a system power loss or improper system shutdown has occurred:

1. Ensure all online physical disks are still connected.

2. Restore the system power.

3. Boot the system.

Virtual disks are automatically imported and preserved cache (if any) will be flushed to the physical

disks of appropriate virtual disks. If preserved cache is still present, there could be situations

preventing the flushing of preserved cache data.

NOTE: For more information on recovering the cache data, see the Dell Chassis Management

Controller for Dell PowerEdge VRTX User’s Guide at dell.com/poweredgemanuals.

NOTE: If there is preserved cache in Shared PERC 8, you can clear the preserved cache in the

CMC. If there is no preserved cache, this option is not displayed in CMC which indicates that

the preserved cache data is recovered and written to the physical disks successfully.

NOTE: If preserved cache is discarded, preserved cache data is not written to the physical disks.

Ensure that the preserved cache data is not critical before discarding.

Battery Transparent Learn Cycle

A transparent learn cycle is a periodic operation that calculates the charge that is remaining in the battery

to ensure there is sufficient energy. The operation runs automatically, and causes no impact to the

system or Shared PERC 8 card performance. The Shared PERC 8 card automatically performs the

Transparent Learn Cycle (TLC) on the battery to calibrate and gauge its charge capacity once every 90

days.

NOTE: Virtual disks stay in Write-Back mode, if enabled, during transparent learn cycle. If the TLC

completes, the Shared PERC 8 card sets the next TLC to +90 days.

The time frame for completion of a learn cycle is a function of the battery charge capacity and the

discharge and charge currents used. For Shared PERC 8 card, the expected time frame for completion of

a learn cycle is approximately seven hours.

The Shared PERC 8 battery is marked Failed in the Battery Status in the CMC, when the state or health of

the battery is declared bad. If battery is declared failed, then the firmware runs learn cycles in subsequent

reboots until the battery is replaced. After the battery is replaced, the virtual disk then transitions to Write-

Back mode.

The Controller Failover Feature

The dual-controller configuration of the VRTX system has two shared-PERC controllers configured in an

active-passive mode. A single active controller monitors all the storage related processes. When the

active controller stops functioning, the passive controller acts as a peer hot-spare, and takes over the

functions of the active controller in a seamless manner. Although the transition is seamless with respect

to the operating system, there may be some temporary performance impact in the course of the failover.