Dell PowerVault ME5 CLI: Volumes, Hosts and Mapping

The PowerVault ME5 is a deliberately simple array, and its CLI reflects that: nearly all provisioning is four commands - create host, create volume, map volume, verify. The difficulty is not the syntax but the ordering and the details (LUN uniqueness, controller ownership, path redundancy) that decide whether the host sees one working LUN or a single-path device that fails on the next controller event. This walkthrough follows the same sequence you would use on a new array.

Before you start: initiators and hosts

show initiators
show hosts
show host-groups

Initiators appear after the host has logged in to the array (iSCSI IQN, FC WWPN or SAS WWID). Create the host object first, then map volumes to it - the array will not let you map to an initiator that no host owns.

1. Create hosts

create host ESXi-01-iscsi-1 initiators iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:esxi01-1a2b3c4d
create host ESXi-01-iscsi-2 initiators iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:esxi01-2b3c4d5e

# for clustered/shared volumes, group the hosts
create host-group ESXi-Cluster hosts ESXi-01-iscsi-1,ESXi-01-iscsi-2

Name hosts after the real system, and register every initiator - a host with one path will work until it doesn't. Keeping LUN IDs consistent across all hosts in a cluster matters for VMware and Windows failover clustering.

2. Create volumes in a pool

show pools
create volume vSphere-DS02 pool A size 2TB
create volume vSphere-DS03 pool B size 2TB

Each linear disk group has a pool of the same name, and virtual pools hold the same volumes as their disk groups. Volume sizes align to 4.2 MB (4 MiB) boundaries - the array rounds the size you request, so verify the result rather than assuming the exact value. Tier affinity can be tuned at creation:

create volume SQL-Data pool A size 1TB access rw tier-affinity performance
create volume-set Backup-Vols pool B size 500GB count 2

To create several identical volumes, create volume-set is clearer and faster than repeating create volume.

3. Map volumes to hosts or host groups

map volume vSphere-DS02 access rw lun 5 initiator ESXi-01-iscsi-1
map volume vSphere-DS02 access rw lun 5 initiator ESXi-01-iscsi-2

# or map to the whole group at once
map volume vSphere-DS03 access rw lun 6 host-group ESXi-Cluster

# single-command form: create and map immediately
create volume V1 pool A size 20GB access rw lun 5   initiator ESXi-01-iscsi-1 ports a1,b1

Use ports a1,b1 when you want the mapping restricted to one controller pair, and check controller ownership: pool A's volumes normally belong to controller A, pool B to controller B. A LUN number must be unique per initiator - reusing LUN 5 for a different volume on the same host is a support ticket waiting to happen.

4. Verify from both sides

show volume-maps
show volume-maps volume vSphere-DS02
show host-maps
show volume vSphere-DS02
show ports

• Windows: Rescan Disks in Disk Management, then confirm the disk shows two paths in the MPIO details.
• ESXi: esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all, then check esxcli storage nmp device list for two active paths.
• Linux: rescan SCSI, then multipath -ll - each LUN should show multiple paths with one active ready and the rest active ghost or active ready depending on ALUA. Tuning that behaviour is covered in Dell PowerStore pstcli: Volume Provisioning Guide.

Common mistakes

1. Volume mapped, host sees nothing - the initiator was never assigned to a host, or the host is unknown to the array.
2. Only one path visible - the second controller's data port is not on the same IP subnet/VLAN as the second host NIC, or the host's multipath software is disabled.
3. Duplicate LUN - an old mapping still exists. show volume-maps reveals it before the OS starts logging conflicting paths.
4. Wrong pool - provisioning on a disk group that is part of a replication set with different retention expectations. Retention priority is set on the volume for snapshot management.
5. Snapshot hygiene: only snappable leaves of a volume's snapshot tree are candidates for automatic deletion, so map and document snapshots deliberately. Where growth is the issue rather than mapping, the SAN-side measurement approach in HPE MSA 2040 iSCSI Configuration is a useful cross-check.

原文链接：https://dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/powervault-me5024/me5_series_cli/create-volume