My Dell OpenManage Server Administrator application has an alert and is telling me my firmware (and driver?) versions are not high enough.
Should I be concerned / what issue might this cause? I believe it has been running this way for a LONG time.
Firmware/Driver Information for Controller PERC 4e/Di
Firmware Version;521X
Minimum Required Firmware Version;522D
Driver Version;6.46.2.32
Storport Driver Version;5.2.3790.3959
Minimum Required Storport Driver Version;5.2.3790.4173
You've been lucky ;).
Drivers make assumptions about functionalities present and bugs absent in firmware newer than version X. Only certain combinations of drivers and firmware are tested, because it would be prohibitively resource-consuming to test all the pairs. Also it doesn't make sense to verify new versions of code against an ancient counterpart with known bugs fixed in later releases.
If the server was running for a long time it may be that you've found another working combination or simply lucked out and didn't hit any bugs possible because of the mismatch. Worst case (based on experience with non-Dell hardware): server corrupts data on the disks, crashes and refuses to boot. HW specialist called to repair it will wonder why did it ever run with this FW/driver combination. Best case: server runs without any problems until it is replaced by a newer one 10 years since.
My recommendation would be to upgrade to the next to newest version of firmware and the corresponding recommended driver. This should give you something that is reasonably new and supported, but not cutting edge code which may have yet undiscovered bugs.
Note: Always have tested backups when modifying storage system configuration.
If it is telling you that your firmware needs to be updated, it's because you are running a version that has known problems. These problems can include disks "failing" when they're actually still OK, and the consequences can include downtime and data loss.
It is critically important to update the driver first, and then update the firmware. New drivers can talk to old firmware, but old drivers will not necessarily work with new firmware. If you do this in the wrong order, you run the risk of being unable to boot the system in order to update the drivers!
My first question for you would be why don't you want to upgrade the firmware? I've done hundreds (gosh...I hope not thousands) of these things and never run into an issue. In fact, you run far more risk by not upgrading the firmware than you do by upgrading it. Dell has made 2 updates to the firmware since your version and has marked both of them as urgent. There are some serious stability issues addressed by the latest firmware. So if you can't come up with a reason not to upgrade, just do it.
This really doesn't present any problem, unless the firmware/driver version you're running has a particular issue that you're currently affected by. That being said, the resolution would be to update the firmware and driver.
