Document Number: 680-021-021

Rev. G
2019 - 02

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

This document describes the new features, enhancements, fixed issues, and open issues in Storage Center 7.3.
Current Version: 7.3.6
Release Date: 2019 - 02
Previous Version: 7.3.5

Topics:

• Document Revision History

• Platforms Affected
• New in This Release
• Storage Center 7.3 Feature Availability and Licenses
• Storage Center 7.3 Scalability
• Fixed Issues
• Open Issues
• Limitations
• Support Resources

Document Revision History

Document Number: 680-021-021

Revision Date Description

A April 2018 Initial release of Storage Center 7.3

B May 2018 Updated the Data-in-Place Upgrade and iSCSI HBA Support information

C August 2018 Updated for Storage Center 7.3.2

D September 2018 Updated for Storage Center 7.3.3

E October 2018 Updated for Storage Center 7.3.4

F November 2018 Updated for Storage Center 7.3.5

G February 2019 Updated for Storage Center 7.3.6

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 1

Platforms Affected
The following storage systems support Storage Center 7.3:

• SC9000
• SC8000
• SC7020F
• SC7020
• SC5020F
• SC5020
• SC4020
• SCv3000 Series
• SCv2000 Series

NOTE:
Storage Center 7.3 also supports cabling mixed-speed expansion enclosures. SC400, SC420, and SC420F expansion enclosures can be
cabled with SC200 and SC220 expansion enclosures.

New in This Release

The following features were added to Storage Center 7.3.

Advanced Restripe
Several enhancements have been made to the RAID restripe process to integrate and remove disks from a storage system.
One major feature is the ability for the storage system to offload data transfers to RAID for reduced restripe times. The storage system also
has improved targeting of data movement to reduce unnecessary effort. To provide accurate monitoring of RAID rebalances, the Storage
Manager Client and Unisphere interface contain an improved RAID rebalance progress interface.

Automatic Disk Placement

Automatic disk placement allows you to configure the default disk folder to use for newly-inserted drives.

CloudIQ Support
CloudIQ simplifies storage management by providing:

• Centralized monitoring across your environment.

• Proactive serviceability that informs you about issues before they impact your environment.
• A dashboard that aggregates key information such as system health scores, performance metrics, and current capacity and trends.

For more information about using CloudIQ to monitor Storage Centers, see the Storage Center CloudIQ Onboarding Quick-Start Guide
located on the Dell EMC Support site.

2 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Conservation and Emergency Mode
The Conservation Mode threshold has been changed to 0.5 percent of the usable space in a storage system. The minimum amount of
usable space might range from 100 GB to 2 TB, depending on size of the storage system.
When a storage system enters Conservation Mode, the volume queue depth is limited to reduce the rate at which servers consume space.
Snapshots no longer expire automatically when a storage system is in Conservation or Emergency mode.
Conservation and Emergency mode messaging improvements have been added to Storage Manager and Unisphere. The storage system
sends alerts every day the system is in Conservation mode. The Storage Manager Client and Unisphere interface also display a
Conservation or Emergency mode banner that links to information about reducing space consumption.

Cross-Platform Replication
The following improvements have been made to cross-platform replication:

• Snapshot Management on PS Groups – Storage Center snapshots Time To Live (TTL) is monitored by the PS Group and snapshots are
automatically deleted according to schedule. (Requires PS Series version 10.0 firmware.)
• Cross-Platform Replication on a remote Data Collector – If the primary Data Collector is unavailable, a remote Data Collector can be
used for cross-platform replication.

Data-in-Place Migration
Data-in-Place Migration is a new licensed feature in Storage Center 7.3.2 that can be used to upgrade an SC4020 storage system to an
SC5020 or SC7020 storage system.

Distributed Sparing
Distributed sparing allocates spare disk space across all drives rather than reserving an entire drive as a spare. Distributed sparing enables
the storage system to use all disks in a balanced and optimized manner, which ensures the fastest recovery time following a drive failure.
After a storage system is updated to Storage Center 7.3, it automatically manages all spare drives and prompts the user to enable the Spare
Optimizer feature. The option to enable the Spare Optimizer feature is displayed in the Storage Manager Client and Unisphere interface.
This process moves RAID data to distribute the spare space among the drives. If Spare Optimizer is not enabled, all drives might appear to
be managed, but sparing space is focused on a limited number of drives.
No dedicated spare drives are present in a storage system after updating to Storage Center 7.3.

Existing storage systems inherit the sparing ratio after updating a Storage Center. New installations of Storage Center default to a 20:1
sparing ratio.

iSCSI HBA Support

This release supports 25 GbE and 100 GbE iSCSI HBAs for SC5020, SC7020, and SC9000 storage systems.
This release also supports 25 GbE and 100 GbE iSCSI mezzanine cards for SC5020 and SC7020 storage systems.

NOTE: The 25 GbE and 100 GbE iSCSI HBAs/mezzanine cards do not support Data Center Bridging (DCB) in Storage Center
7.3.1. The iSCSI HBAs/mezzanine cards fail to pause traffic after receiving PFC pause frames.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 3

Health Check for Software Updates
Before installing a software update, Storage Center checks the system to make sure it can update properly. If any health checks fail,
Storage Manager reports information about the errors found.

Initial Setup and Configuration

Improvements have been made to the Storage Center initial setup and configuration workflow, including the option to use DHCP for
assigning IP addresses.
NOTE: The option to use DHCP for assigning IP addresses is not available for SCv2000 series storage systems.

Live Volume ALUA

This release includes full support for Live Volume ALUA, including identification of optimzed and non-optimized paths. A guided process is
provided to enable this feature after the software update is completed.

Proactive Notifications
Dell EMC technical support can send notifications to your system based on alerts that are reported by Storage Center. These notifications
may include a recommended Storage Center software update, a technical fix, a best practice, a specific issue, or other alerts.
Acknowledging a notification sends a message to technical support informing them that you have received the notification. Proactive
notifications are displayed in the alerts section of Storage Manager and Unisphere. If the system is set up to send alerts using SNMP,
customers also receive alerts through email.

Replication for SCv2000 Series Storage Systems

Replication is now supported between SCv2000 Series storage systems and the following storage systems:

• SC9000
• SC8000
• SC7020F
• SC7020
• SC5020F
• SC5020
• SC4020
• SCv3000 Series

SRA Improvements
Changes made to SRA code and API resolve issues found in SRA operation, resulting in:

• Improved SRA error handing and reporting.

• Better stability in multi-threaded environment.
• Resolution to generating duplicate volume IDs.

4 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Storage Manager 2018 R1
Storage Manager 2018 R1 or later is required to manage storage systems running Storage Center 7.3.

Thin Import from VNX and VNXe

Thin import from VNX and VNXe storage systems is supported in Storage Center 7.3.2.

Unisphere for SC Series

Unisphere for SC Series is a new web-based user interface for Storage Center. Unisphere for SC Series allows you to manage a Storage
Center and to perform monitoring and administrative tasks.
For more information about using Unisphere for SC Series see the Unisphere and Unisphere Central for SC Series Administrator’s Guide.

Storage Center 7.3 Feature Availability and Licenses

The core licenses and support for optional licensed features varies depending on the storage system.

SC9000 Features and Licenses

SC9000 storage systems provide the following licensed features and optional value-added bundles.

Core Software Bundle

• Data Reduction (Compression and Deduplication)
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Multi-VLAN Tagging
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

Optional Licenses
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager
• SED FIPS Secure Data

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 5

• Storage Manager Chargeback

Storage Optimization Bundle

• Data Progression
• Fast Track

Storage Protection Bundle

• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager

Total Feature Bundle

• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback
• Storage Optimization Bundle
• Storage Protection Bundle

SC8000 Features and Licenses

SC8000 storage systems provide the following licensed features:

Core Licenses
• Data Reduction (Compression and Deduplication)
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Multi-VLAN Tagging
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

Optional Licenses
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager
• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback

6 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

SC7020F and SC5020F Features and Licenses
SC7020F and SC5020F all-flash storage systems provide the following licensed features.

Total Feature Bundle

• Data Progression
• Data Reduction (Compression and Deduplication)
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Multi-VLAN Tagging
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager
• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

SC7020 and SC5020 Features and Licenses

SC7020 and SC5020 storage systems provide the following licensed features and optional value-added bundles.

Core Software Bundle

• Data Reduction (Compression and Deduplication)
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Multi-VLAN Tagging
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 7

Optional Licenses
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager
• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback

Storage Protection Bundle

• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager

Storage Optimization Bundle

• Data Progression
• Fast Track

Total Feature Bundle

• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback
• Storage Optimization Bundle
• Storage Protection Bundle

SC4020 Features and Licenses

SC4020 storage systems provide the following licensed features:

Core Licenses
• Data Reduction (Compression and Deduplication)
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Multi-VLAN Tagging
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

8 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Optional Licenses
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager
• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback

Performance/Optimization Bundle
• Data Progression
• Fast Track

Remote Data Protection Bundle

• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication

Remote Data Protection with Live Volume Bundle

• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover

SCv3000 Series Features and Licenses

SCv3000 series storage systems provide the following licensed features and optional value-added bundles.

Core Software Bundle

• Data Compression
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Virtual Ports
• Volume QoS
• VVols

Optional Licenses
• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Replay Manager

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 9

• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback

Storage Protection Bundle

• Live Volume and Live Volume with Auto Failover
• Remote Instant Replay (Replication), including Cross-Platform Replication
• Replay Manager

Storage Optimization Bundle

• Data Progression
• Fast Track

Total Feature Bundle

• SED FIPS Secure Data
• Storage Manager Chargeback
• Storage Optimization Bundle
• Storage Protection Bundle

SCv2000 Series Features and Licenses

SCv2000 series storage systems provide the following licensed features:

Core Licenses
• Dell Storage Manager
• Dynamic Capacity
• Dynamic Controllers
• Live Migrate

Optional Licenses
• Flex Port
• Local Data Protection
– Data Instant Replay (Snapshots)
– Manual Replay (Snapshots)
• Remote Data Protection (Asynchronous replication only)

10 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Storage Center 7.3 Scalability
The following scalability guidelines apply to Storage Center 7.3.

Storage System Scalability Guidelines

The following scalability guidelines apply to SC9000, SC8000, SC7020F, SC7020, SC5020F, SC5020, SC4020, SCv3000 Series, and
SCv2000 Series storage systems running Storage Center 7.3.

Table 1. Scalability Guidelines for Dual-Controller Storage Systems

Storage System Raw (512 Addressable Raw (2 MB Addressable Raw (4 MB Addressable

(memory per controller) KB pages) (512 KB pages) pages) (2 MB pages) pages) (4 MB pages)
SC9000 (128 GB or 256 GB) 1500 TB 1000 TB 6000 TB 4000 TB 12,000 TB 8000 TB
SC8000 (64 GB) 750 TB 500 TB 3000 TB 2000 TB 3000 TB 2000 TB
SC7020F or SC7020 (128 GB) 1000 TB 650 TB 4000 TB 2600 TB 8000 TB 5200 TB
SC5020F or SC5020 (64 GB) 540 TB 350 TB 2160 TB 1400 TB 4320 TB 2800 TB
SC4020 (16 GB) 263 TB 175 TB 1054 TB 700 TB 1054 TB 700 TB
SCv3000 Series (16 GB) 250 TB 169 TB 1000 TB 675 TB 2000 TB 1350 TB
SCv2000 Series (8 GB) 168 TB 112 TB 672 TB 450 TB N/A N/A

Storage Center Scalability Guidelines

The following scalability guidelines are the maximum recommended design guidelines for storage systems running Storage Center 7.3.

Table 2. Storage Center Scalability Guidelines for SC9000, SC8000, SC7020F, SC7020, SC5020F, SC5020, and SC4020 Storage
Systems

Storage Center Object Supported Maximum

Drives • SC9000 – 1024 drives total, 192 drives per SAS chain
• SC8000 – 960 drives total, 168 drives per SAS chain
• SC7020F or SC7020 – 606 drives total, 192 drives per SAS chain
• SC5020F or SC5020 – 222 drives total, 192 drives per SAS chain
• SC4020 – 192 drives total, 168 drives per SAS chain

Disk Folder 10 disk folders

Server • 500 servers (Total number of servers includes physical servers, virtual servers, and server clusters)
• 500 server folders
• 1000 server HBA initiator ports (Total number of HBA initiator ports includes all physical and virtual
ports that are visible to the SAN)

Volume • 500 TB maximum volume size (or the maximum addressable storage space, whichever is less)
• 2000 volumes
• 500 volume folders

Deduplication 1 PB data ingestion limit (SC4020 – 500 TB data ingestion limit)

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 11

Storage Center Object Supported Maximum
Live Volume 500 Live Volumes

Thin Import 10 volumes (maximum simultaneous imports)

QoS Profiles • 100 Volume QoS Profiles

• 100 Group QoS Profiles
• 100 Volumes per Group QoS Profile

Data Instant Replay (Snapshots) • Snapshots:

– SC9000 – 32,000 snapshots
– SC8000 – 16,000 snapshots
– SC7020F or SC7020 – 16,000 snapshots
– SC5020F or SC5020 – 8000 snapshots
– SC4020 – 8000 snapshots
• 1000 snapshot profiles
• 100 snapshot history profiles
• 200 consistency groups
• 100 volumes per consistency group
– SC5020F or SC5020 – 50 volumes per consistency group
– SC4020 – 40 volumes per consistency group

Replications • 500 source replications (SC9000 – 1000 source replications)

• 2000 target replications
– SC4020 with Fibre Channel front-end ports – 1000 replications
– SC4020 with iSCSI front-end ports – 230 replications

Table 3. Storage Center Scalability Guidelines for SCv3000 Series Storage Systems

Storage Center Object Supported Maximum

Drives • SCv3000 – 208 drives total, 192 drives per SAS chain
• SCv3020 – 222 drives total, 192 drives per SAS chain

Disk Folder 10 disk folders

Server • 250 servers (Total number of servers includes physical servers, virtual servers, and server clusters)
• 250 server folders
• 500 server HBA initiator ports (Total number of HBA initiator ports includes all physical and virtual
ports that are visible to the SAN)

Volume • 500 TB maximum volume size (or the maximum addressable storage space, whichever is less)
• 1000 volumes
• 500 volume folders

Live Volume 250 Live Volumes

Thin Import 10 volumes (maximum simultaneous imports)

QoS Profiles • 100 Volume QoS Profiles

• 100 Group QoS Profiles
• 100 Volumes per Group QoS Profile

12 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Storage Center Object Supported Maximum
Data Instant Replay (Snapshots) • 4000 snapshots
• 1000 snapshot profiles
• 100 snapshot history profiles
• 100 snapshots per volume
• 200 consistency groups
• 25 volumes per consistency group

Replications • 250 source replications

• 1000 target replications

Table 4. Storage Center Scalability Guidelines for SCv2000 Series Storage Systems

Storage Center Object Supported Maximum

Drives • SCv2000 – 168 drives total, 156 drives per SAS chain
• SCv2020 – 168 drive totals, 144 drives per SAS chain
• SCv2080 – 168 drives total, 84 drives per SAS chain

Disk Folder 4 disk folders

Server • 100 servers (Total number of servers includes physical servers, virtual servers, and server clusters.)
• 100 server folders
• 200 server HBA initiator ports (Total number of HBA initiator ports includes all physical and virtual
ports that are visible to the SAN.)

Volume • 500 TB maximum volume size (or the maximum addressable storage space, whichever is less)
• 1000 volumes
• 500 volume folders

Thin Import 10 volumes (maximum simultaneous imports)

QoS Profiles • 100 Volume QoS Profiles

• 100 Group QoS Profiles
• 100 Volumes per Group QoS Profile

Data Instant Replay (Snapshots) • 2000 snapshots

NOTE: Data Instant • 1000 snapshot profiles
Replay is a licensed • 100 snapshot history profiles
feature. • 100 snapshots per volume
• 100 consistency groups
• 25 volumes per consistency group

Replications • 124 source replications

• 1000 target replications

Fixed Issues
The following sections summarize the issues fixed in Storage Center 7.3.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 13

Fixed Issues Related to Alerts and Reporting
The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 5. Fixed Alert and Reporting Issues in Storage Center 7.3.6

Issue Description
SCOS-53062 Partial connectivity alerts might occur on a storage system with front-end SAS ports, if the front-end
SAS ports on both storage controllers are connected to different SAS HBAs on the same sever.

Table 6. Fixed Alert and Reporting Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-46024 A storage system with a scaled SED backend sends an unnecessarily large number of trusted
peripheral device authentication success messages to the syslog server.

SCOS-45412 On a SC7020 storage system, a customer might receive false Cache battery alert detected
alerts because the remaining capacity alarm threshold does not adjust over time to match the real-time
capacity of the battery.
SCOS-44972 If a storage system or storage controller reset is initiated from Storage Manager, the reset might not
be recorded in Storage Center logs.

SCOS-44159 The logs for the peer storage controller might not be sent when the Send SupportAssist Information
Now option is initiated from Storage Manager.

SCOS-42702 Disk alerts might occur for drives that have been archived.

SCOS-38023 The email alert message that provides the location of a failed drive might be confusing.

SCOS-18986 The Secure Console connection alert might fail to clear after Secure Console is disabled.

Fixed Issues Related to Data Reduction

The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 7. Fixed Data Reduction Issues in Storage Center 7.3.6

Issue Description
SCOS-53301 A controller might reset when defragmentation is enabled on a storage system that uses deduplication.

SCOS-52955 If compression or deduplication is enabled on storage system with front-end SAS ports, a controller
failover might cause a Permanent Device Loss (PDL) condition for an ESXi host.

Table 8. Fixed Data Reduction Issues in Storage Center 7.3.4

Issue Description
SCOS-52711 During data deduplication operations, a read may not complete in a timely fashion, which could result in
unexpected system behavior.

14 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Table 9. Fixed Data Reduction Issues in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-50937 A controller might reset if the Deduplication Page Manager (DPM) defragmentation process is paused
during Data Progression and the PagesBeingRead list is not cleared before the DPM defragmentation
process resumes.

SCOS-50517 Deleting volumes that use deduplication might take longer than normal to complete and result in
increased latency on the Storage Center.

Table 10. Fixed Data Reduction Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-49144 Data progression might stop running or the Storage Center might reset when a payload checksum
failure occurs due to table entries being read incorrectly from memory.
SCOS-49069 In rare instances, increased latency might occur on a storage system if a pagepool consolidation
process is active.

SCOS-48621 In rare instances, deduplication and compression might erroneously return pagepool pages with
incorrect tags, which cause payload error counts to be incremented on the pagepool freelist.

SCOS-47507 Slow deduplication ingest rates might occur when multiple Storage Center processes are working on
the same volume simultaneously.

SCOS-46684 A controller might reset because of multiple small memory allocation requests.

SCOS-46391 On a storage system in an unbalanced state that has volumes with deduplication or compression
enabled, rebalancing the local ports might fail after creating a Copy Mirror Migrate to new volumes
with deduplication or compression enabled.

SCOS-44165 Increased Data Progression run times might occur if a storage system is using deduplication and
switches to compression only because of delays in freeing metadata space.

SCOS-44137 Storage Center data optimization might fail to stop after 72,000 seconds (20 hours).

SCOS-43550 Data optimization pause settings are not enforced for compression to deduplication and deduplication
to compression data migrations.

SCOS-42781 In rare instances, increased latency might occur during deduplication or data progression on a storage
system running Storage Center 7.2.11

SCOS-42539 The defragmentation process that runs at the end of the data progression post stage is a lengthy
process and increases the data progression run time.

SCOS-42286 Deduplication ingest might fail to occur when expected on an unbalanced storage system after a
Rebalance Local Ports operation is performed.

SCOS-42026 Deduplication and compression might continually skip some volumes due to reaching the 20 hour
runtime limit.

SCOS-41825 The deduplication and compression statistics at the volume level are inaccurate.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 15

Fixed Issues Related to Hardware
The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 11. Fixed Hardware Issues in Storage Center 7.3.6

Issue Description
SCOS-53489 A storage system with iSCSI HBAs running a Chelsio T420 driver might experience elevated latency on
replication connections.

SCOS-53386 A storage system with iSCSI HBAs running a Chelsio T420 driver might experience lost connectivity to
the iSCSI ports.

SCOS-52494 The ports on 25 GbE and 100 GbE iSCSI mezzanine cards are reversed in the Storage Manager Client
and Unisphere web interface.
EH-1347 Storage Center might fail to recognize 10GBASE-T mezzanine cards if they are installed in SCv3000
series or SC5020 storage systems that were deployed without mezzanine cards.

Table 12. Fixed Hardware Issues in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-51118 An SC9000 controller might reset because of alignment changes to the virtual address space.

SCOS-49956 On SCv3000 series, SC5020, and SC7020 storage systems, rebooting the storage controllers might
result in a BMC split-brain condition.

SCOS-49899 SCv360 and SC460 expansion enclosures might report false alerts for the cooling fan sensors and
power supplies.

SCOS-49758 Improved HDD and SSD failure handling.

Table 13. Fixed Hardware Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-45629 If unsupported drives were added to a storage system by technical support using CLI commands, the
drives might go offline when the Storage Center software is updated on the storage system.

SCOS-45475 A controller might reset because of multiple FCoE RISC PAUSE hangs.

SCOS-45155 While attempting to gather enclosure logs from an SC400 and SC420 expansion enclosure, the
expansion enclosure might unexpectedly reset.

SCOS-43877 On an SC4020 storage system, a storage controller might incorrectly report “Cache board battery
charge is low”.

SCOS-43848 On SCv2000 series, SCv3000 series, SC4020, SC5020, and SC7020 storage systems that are
destinations for replications using the embedded iSCSI ports, if the source system uses 10 GbE iSCSI
host bus adapters, replication performance may significantly drop until the source system 10 GbE iSCSI
HBAs are restarted.

SCOS-43703 On SCv2000 series and SC4020 storage systems, the write cache might to go down if one of the
redundant power supply fails.

SCOS-43176 On SCv3000 series, SC5020, and SC7020 storage systems, the PCIe Link Reset command might fail
for 10 GbE iSCSI host bus adapters, which causes the HBA to go down.

16 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Issue Description
SCOS-42250 When an initiator performs an iSCSI login to a 10 GbE iSCSI host bus adapter, the HBA might reset and
fail to exit the hibernate mode.

SCOS-39114 A single SSD failure might cause high latency on a storage system.

SCOS-22260 iSCSI I/O cards fail to honor an MTU value change made on a router.

SCOS-22152 A drive might become stuck performing a survey if the drive goes down and the drive does not receive
writes after becoming unhealthy.

SCOS-21161 A single disk failure might cause system wide performance issues on storage system running Storage
Center 6.6.11

SCOS-6516 In rare instances, the internal boot device on an SC9000 controller may become unusable following an
unexpected power event and the controller will not boot.

Fixed Issues Related to Licensing, SupportAssist, and Updating

The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 14. Fixed Licensing, SupportAssist, and Updating Issues in Storage Center 7.3.4

Issue Description
SCOS-52473 After an SCv2000 series or SCv3000 series storage system running Storage Center 7.3 is restarted,
licenses are no longer displayed on the License tab of the Storage Manager Client or Unisphere
interface.

SCOS-52120 Updating a storage system from Storage Center 6.7 to Storage Center 7.3 might cause purchased
licenses to be disabled for new operations.

Table 15. Fixed Licensing, SupportAssist, and Updating Issues in Storage Center 7.3.3

Issue Description
SCOS-52379 When a storage system that was deployed without an iSCSI front-end interface is updated to Storage
Center 7.3, the Storage Manager Client and Unisphere interface might display a message that states
the Storage Center requires initial configuration.

Table 16. Fixed Licensing, SupportAssist, and Updating Issues in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-49445 After updating an SCv2000 series or SC4020 storage system to Storage Center 7.3, a down cache
device might be displayed for slot 0 because the cache device moved to slot 32. This issue required
intervention from technical support to allow future Storage Center updates to occur.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 17

Table 17. Fixed Licensing, SupportAssist, and Updating Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-46903 An SSL certificate with an MD5 signature is no longer supported by Storage Center. Do not allow a
storage system to be updated to Storage Center 7.3 if it uses an SSL certificate with an MD5
signature.

SCOS-46480 On a dual-controller storage system, if a Storage Center ISO update is performed on controller 2 and
the storage system fails over to controller 1 before it is updated, the Storage Center software version
on controller 2 might be downgraded to the version on controller 1, which can damage the Storage
Center configuration.

SCOS-45573 When updating a dual-controller storage system, the iDRAC or BMC firmware updates might fail to
install, which can cause the lead controller to go down and result in a full outage when the peer
controller reboots to perform updates.

SCOS-44945 When updating a dual controller storage system, controller resets might occur during iDRAC firmware
updates.

SCOS-43069 If a Storage Center contains pending firmware updates, newly downloaded firmware updates are not
applied to the FRUs of a controller replacement or new expansion enclosure.

SCOS-41547 This issue is limited to a storage system on which a new version of the Storage Center software has
been downloaded, but not yet installed. When a storage controller is replaced in the storage system,
the storage system might fail to automatically update the low-level firmware to the same version as the
active storage controller. As a result, the storage controllers in the storage system might end up with
different versions of the low-level firmware.

SCOS-32283 On SCv2000 series and SC4020 storage systems, the Storage Center software might indicate that a
prior version of software is available to install after performing a Storage Center ISO update.

SCOS-19264 When updating a dual controller storage system, controller reset might occur because of multiple
Storage Center update requests occurring at the same time and performing the same function.

Fixed Issues Related to Replication and Live Volume

The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 18. Fixed Replication and Live Volume Issues in Storage Center 7.3.6

Issue Description
SCOS-50985 An automatic or manual Live Volume swap role might become stuck and require a controller reset to
complete.

Table 19. Fixed Replication and Live Volume Issues in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-51183 A memory leak might occur on a Storage Center that is performing cross-platform replication over an
iSCSI connection with a PS Series storage array.

18 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Table 20. Fixed Replication and Live Volume Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-47224 Write latency might increase for synchronous replications that have a sequential write I/O pattern.

SCOS-46819 On a storage system with Automatic Fail Over Live Volumes, a Live Volume fail over might cause an
error because IORP codes are not transferred back to the originating controller over IPC.

SCOS-46572 The source and destination volumes associated with a replication might become different sizes if the
source volume fails to expand due to Storage Center scalability limitations.

SCOS-45553 Storage Center might be able to manage replication volumes as physical drives.

SCOS-41191 When the Storage Manager Client is directly connected to a Storage Center, the option to delete a
volume associated with a Live Volume or Live Migration is displayed, but it is not supported.

SCOS-27263 The replication of volumes with many recovered (unmapped) pages might be slower than expected.

SCOS-18102 The status of a cross-platform replication partner changes to down when the number of snapshots
exceed 1025.

Fixed Issues Related to Security

The following issues are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 21. Fixed Security Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-44666 A security scan showed possible security vulnerabilities on the iDRAC of SC8000 controllers.

SCOS-42015 A security scan showed a possible security vulnerability on the iDRAC of SC8000 and SC9000
controllers.

SCOS-41311 A security scan showed possible security vulnerabilities on the BMC of SCv2000 series and SC4020
storage systems.

SCOS-40684 A security scan shows possible security vulnerabilities on the iDRAC of SC9000 controllers.
In addition, the following error might occur during a warm boot of an SC9000 controller:
MEM0001 Multi-bit memory errors detected on a memory device at
location(s) DIMM_XX

SCOS-24991 Removed support for SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 from the Storage Center to address security vulnerabilities.

Fixed Issues Related to Storage Management

The following issues related to storage management are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 22. Fixed Storage Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.6

Issue Description
SCOS-53212 A storage system using RAID rebalance might create a RAID device with an unexpectedly large stripe
size.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 19

Table 23. Fixed Storage Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.5

Issue Description
SCOS-52932 A controller might reset if volumes with RAID copies are deleted during a RAID rebuild.

SCOS-52788 On a storage system with a large number of RAID Copy objects, a controller might reset when the
storage system is updated to Storage Center 7.3.4.

SCOS-51165 Disk allocations might be incorrectly marked for deletion during copy cleanup operations when a
controller failover occurs after updating to Storage Center 7.3.3 or 7.3.4.

SCOS-51162 Disk allocations associated with a User Data extent might be incorrectly marked for deletion after a
controller reset.

SCOS-49977 The generation of a default SSL cert on storage systems fails without IP addresses, which might cause
the initial deployment wizard to stall for approximately 20 minutes.

Table 24. Fixed Storage Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.4

Issue Description
SCOS-52721 A large number of RAID copies and RAID rebuilds might cause a dual-controller storage system to reset
due to over extended CPU resources.

Table 25. Fixed Storage Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.3

Issue Description
SCOS-51986 A controller might reset when front-end ports are rebalanced on a Storage Center connected to hosts
running ESXi 6.0 or later.

Table 26. Fixed Storage Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-51533 On SCv2000 series or SC4020 storage systems, a controller might reset because of a memory
acquisition failure for a RAID operation.

SCOS-51430 When using the SCVMM interface to create a LUN on a Storage Center that only has a 512 KB storage
type, a new 2 MB storage type is created and the LUN is assigned to the 2 MB storage type instead of
the 512 KB storage type.

SCOS-50614 If a drive failure occurs on a storage system that contains drives of multiple sizes, a larger spare drive
SCOS-47361 might be resized to match the size of the smaller drives in the Storage Center.

SCOS-49683 When iSCSI TCP connections are unstable on embedded iSCSI ports, the Max Burst Window might be
reduced, which could result in read performance degradation.

SCOS-49452 A dual-controller storage system might reset because of a CPU issue that occurs when there are a
large number of RAID copies and RAID rebuilds.

SCOS-48583 An expansion enclosure with back-end communication issues might mark all of the drives in the
expansion enclosure with a SCOSPredictedError.

20 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Table 27. Storage Management Issues Fixed in Storage Center 7.3.1
Issue Description
SCOS-46611 A controller might reset due to multiple back-end I/O card firmware faults.

SCOS-46365 A controller might reset because of excessive memory consumption during a RAID rebuild.
In addition, a RAID rebuild might fail to start due to excessive memory consumption caused by a rebuild
read failure.

SCOS-45755 The volume space consumption limit cannot be set above 2 TB using Storage Manager.

SCOS-45304 Storage Center is unable to create a mapping profile for a volume that is mapped to a Linux server
without an HBA.

SCOS-45181 On SCv2000 series, SCv3000 series, SC4020, SC5020, and SC7020 storage systems, a controller
might reset if a boot personality is detached and then the IPv6 address is removed from the embedded
iSCSI ports.

SCOS-45042 A controller might reset because of a double delete on an alert object.

SCOS-44898 If a pagepool is creating a device and progression prune evaluation logic works on the same device at
the same time, Data Progression might identify the device as being too small and mark the device for
pruning.

SCOS-44409 A Storage Center might be unable to join an Active Directory environment using LDAP.

SCOS-44163 A controller might reset because of IPMI errors that occur when attempting to communicate with the
iDRAC or BMC.

SCOS-43994 A RAID rebalance might stall or fail if a snapshot is active and it is past the expiration time/date of the
snapshot.

SCOS-43076 SSD initialization allocations might cause disk queuing, resulting in a possible server timeouts.

SCOS-42003 Volume might suffer from high read/write latency while Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) operations are
in process.

SCOS-41309 A controller might reset because of out of space secondary storage get page aborts.

SCOS-35462 Storage Center might be unable to prune out pagepool devices because of control pages that cannot
be moved or released from the storage system.

SCOS-21053 On an SC8000 controller, lost space messages might flood the console log at the end of a Data
Progression cycle.

SCOS-18314 On an SC4020 storage system, the balancing of multi-threading CPU affinities increases performance
and improves resilience of the BMC watchdog services.

Fixed Issues Related to the User Interface

The following issues related to the user interface are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 28. User Interface Issues Fixed in Storage Center 7.3.2

Issue Description
SCOS-49176 For SCv2000, SCv2020, SCv2080, and SC4020 storage systems and legacy SAS enclosures, when
the Storage Manager Client is directly connected to a Storage Center, the Request DC Undervoltage
Clear command fails to clear the undervoltage indicator.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 21

Table 29. User Interface Issues Fixed in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-41051 When the Storage Manager Client is connected to a Storage Center through a Data Collector, the
Storage Manager Client does not allow you to change the name of an enclosure and asset tag.

SCOS-25031 After a controller failover, the peer controller might be reported as down by both SNMP and a Storage
Manager Client that is directly connected to the peer controller.

SCOS-14951 After deleting volumes and snapshots, Storage Center does not immediately report the deleted volume
space as free space for a disk folder.

Fixed Issues Related to User Management

The following issues related to user management are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 30. Fixed User Management Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-42985 A Storage Center user with privileges based on a Directory Group might be unable to set some user
preferences.

Fixed Issues Related to Virtual Volumes

The following issues related to virtual volumes are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 31. Fixed Virtual Volumes Issues in Storage Center 7.3.5

Issue Description
SCOS-52965 On a dual-controller storage system that is connected to an ESXi host with VVols, a controller might
reset because of an Inquiry VPD Response SCSI command sent to a Protocol Endpoint.

SCOS-52730 On a dual-controller storage system that is connected to an ESXi host with VVols, a controller might
reset because of a Report Target Port Groups SCSI command sent to a Protocol Endpoint.

Table 32. Fixed Virtual Volumes Issues in Storage Center 7.3.1

Issue Description
SCOS-47784 A dual-controller storage system might reset following the VMotion of a VM from a VVol container to a
regular Storage Center datastore.

Fixed Issues Related to Vendors

The following issues related to vendors are fixed in Storage Center 7.3:

Table 33. Fixed Vendors Issues in Storage Center 7.3

Issue Description
SQAI-7 Emulex 8 Gb Fibre Channel host bus adapters (for example, LPe1200x, LPe1205, and OEM
equivalents) are unable to boot from SAN when using Emulex boot code 7.x.

22 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Open Issues
The following sections summarize the open issues in Storage Center 7.3.

Open Issues Related to Alerts and Reporting

The following open issues are related to alerts and reporting:

Table 34. Open Alerts and Reporting Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-38226 In rare instances, a Sync LiveVolume Auto Failover alert is not cleared when the condition is corrected.
Workaround: Use Storage Manager to manually acknowledge and clear the alert.

Open Issues Related to Data Reduction

The following open issues are related to Data Reduction:

Table 35. Open Data Reduction Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-13237 The Storage Type Data Reduction statistics might be incorrect if the amount of data eligible for Data
Reduction contains fewer than 256 pages.
Workaround: None

Open Issues Related to Hardware

The following open issues are related to hardware:

Table 36. Open Hardware Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-49735 On SCv3000 series, SC5020, or SC7020 storage systems, the ports on Intel branded SFP+ modules in
XL710 mezzanine cards might go into an infinite up/down loop.
Workaround: Use Dell branded SFP+ modules in XL710 mezzanine cards instead of Intel branded SFP+
modules.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 23

Open Issues Related to Replications and Live Volumes
The following open issues are related to replications and Live Volumes:

Table 37. Open Replication and Live Volume Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-41280 Using a cluster shared volume (CSV) on a Storage Center within a Windows 2016 cluster solution
might result in an I/O failure during an infrastructure fault condition where one of the Windows hosts is
isolated from both its peer and its quorum witness.
Workaround: Use redundant physical switches to reduce the possibility of the I/O failure.

SCOS-17981 Server mappings may not be completely removed when a server is removed from an OS cluster using
Storage Manager before the server is removed from the OS cluster.
Workaround: Remove the server from the cluster through the OS first. After the server is rebooted,
remove the server object using Dell Storage Manager.

When a server is removed from one Storage Center only, or a volume is un-mapped on one Storage
Center only, the persistent reservations might not stay consistent between primary volume and
secondary volume.
Workaround: When removing a server from a cluster or simply un-mapping a volume, follow the below
order

1 Remove/un-map on the server side prior to make changes on the Storage Centers.
2 Delete the server on both Storage Centers, or un-map the volume on both Storage Centers using
Dell Storage Manager.

SCOS-14322 A one path to disk alert is generated when a Live Volume is created and there is only one
replication path per controller.
Workaround: None

SCOS-12067 When importing a volume, Storage Manager does not allow you to select 0 as the LUN number.
Workaround: None

Open Issues Related to Storage Management

The following open issues are related to Storage Management:

Table 38. Open Storage Management Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-40588 Connecting to a storage system through Storage Manager Data Collector and setting up an iSCSI fault
domain in legacy mode might result in the error Unable to access controller port
information and an iSCSI fault domain with only one port.
Workaround: Use the Storage Manager Client to connect directly to the storage system and then set
up an iSCSI fault domain in legacy mode.

SCOS-22150 In very rare instances, a controller failover on an SC7020 or SC5020 storage system might prevent
Secure Console access.

24 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

Issue Description
Workaround: Contact technical support.

SCOS-22026 Removing an HBA or deleting a server object before unmapping it from volumes could result in the
server losing access to volumes and a controller failover will not complete properly.
Workaround: Remove volume mappings from the HBA prior to removing the HBA or server object
from the system.

HPEM-541 In rare instances, SC7020 updates do not complete successfully and the Storage Center might indicate
that updates are still required.
Workaround: Contact technical support.

Open Issues Related to User Management

The following open issues are related to user management:

Table 39. Open User Management Issues

Issue Description
SCOS-11192 Storage Center cannot authenticate directory service users that are configured to use an alternate
DNS suffix.
Workaround: None

Open Issues Related to Vendors

The following open issues are related to vendors:

Table 40. Open Vendor Issues

Issue Description
SQAI-9 An ESXi 5.5 (Update 3b) host using FCoE and QLogic 8262 converged network adapters (CNAs)
might cause the host to fail during controller failovers.
Workaround: Update the QLogic firmware on the adapter. The QLogic firmware is available at http://
www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=6RGDW.

SQAI-3 Software FCoE timeouts might occur when using CNAs in NIC mode.
Workaround: Update the QLogic firmware on the adapter. The QLogic firmware is available at http://
www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=6RGDW

SQAI-2 An ESXi 5.5 or 6.0 host with an Emulex FC/FCoE HBA running driver version 11.0.x.x might crash
during a controller failover.
Workaround: Update to the latest Dell custom images of ESXi 5.5, 6.0, or 6.5.

SQAI-1 Fibre-Channel boot from SAN does not work with Emulex LPe12002 boot code version 7.00a2 and the
Linux servers RHEL 6.8, SLES 12, and XenServer 7.0.
Workaround: Update to Emulex 12002 boot code version 11.20a8 or later.

SCOS-27133 Server bandwidth to the onboard 10 Gb Ethernet ports on an SC7020 drops significantly on reads
when the server iSCSI initiator has interrupt moderation set to default (enabled).

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 25

Issue Description
Workaround: From the server, disable interrupt moderation on the iSCSI cards as described in Dell
EMC SC Series Storage: Microsoft Multipath I/O Best Practices.

CVSE-3 Storage Center 7.3.1 and 7.3.2 does not support Commvault Simpana Backup.
Workaround: None

Limitations
The following limitations exist in Storage Center 7.3:

Portable Volumes
Storage Center 7.3 does not support Portable Volumes.
Portable Volumes are supported in Storage Center 7.2 or earlier.

Support Resources
The following section provides resources for finding more information on using a Storage Center storage system.

Storage Center Update Information

Contact technical support to determine the Storage Center software version that is required to update to Storage Center 7.3.
NOTE: When updating both the Storage Center and Storage Manager software, update the Storage Manager software before
updating the Storage Center software. A storage system that is running a newer version of the Storage Center software cannot
be managed by an older version of Storage Manager software.

Related Documentation
The following documents are available for a storage system running Storage Center 7.3.

• Storage Center Software Update Guide

Describes how to update Storage Center software from an earlier version to the current version.
• Storage Center Update Utility Administrator’s Guide
Describes how to use the Storage Center Update Utility to install Storage Center software updates. Updating Storage Center software
using the Storage Center Update Utility is intended for use only by sites that cannot update Storage Center using standard methods.
• Storage Manager Release Notes
Provides information about Storage Manager software releases, including new features, enhancements, fixed issues, and open issues.
• Storage Manager Installation Guide
Provides installation and setup instructions for the Storage Manager software.
• Storage Manager Administrator’s Guide
Provides instructions for using the Storage Manager software.
• Unisphere and Unisphere Central for SC Series Administrator’s Guide
Provides instructions and information for managing storage systems using Unisphere and Unisphere Central for SC Series.
• Dell Storage REST API Release Notes

26 Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes

 Provides information about the Dell Storage REST API, which allows you to manage the Storage Manager Data Collector and Storage
Centers.

Finding Documentation
The following locations contain documentation for Storage Center products:

• Dell Support
Provides documentation for Storage Center storage systems. Go to www.dell.com/support.
• Dell TechCenter
Provides technical white papers, best practice guides, and frequently asked questions about Storage Center storage systems. Go to
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/.

Contacting Dell
Dell provides several online and telephone-based support and service options. Availability varies by country and product, and some services
might not be available in your area.
To contact Dell for sales, technical support, or customer service issues, go to Dell.com/support.

• For customized support, type your system service tag on the support page and click Submit.
• For general support, browse the product list on the support page and select your product.

Copyright

© 2018 – 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other
trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Storage Center 7.3 Release Notes 27