After the encryption environment is set up, Free keys are used when the following operations are performed. If a problem occurs during one of these operations, additional Free keys might be required to recover from the problem.
- Maintenance operations for drives
- Maintenance operations for encrypting back-end modules (EBEMs)
- Maintenance operations for encrypting controllers (ECTLs)
- Updating certificate encryption keys (CEKs)
- Free keys used for maintenance operations for drives
- Adding drives: 1 for each drive being added
- Replacing drives: 1 for each drive being replaced
- Blocking drives: 1 for each drive being blocked
- Decrypting a parity group: 1 for each drive in the parity group being decrypted
- Free keys used for maintenance operations for EBEMs
- Adding SAS EBEMs: 3 for each SAS EBEM being added
- Replacing SAS EBEMs: 3 for each SAS EBEM being replaced
- Adding NVMe EBEMs: 2 for each NVMe EBEM being added
- Replacing NVMe EBEMs: 2 for each NVMe EBEM being replaced
- Free keys used for maintenance operations for ECTLs
- Replacing ECTLs: 4 for each ECTL being replaced
- Free keys used for updating CEKs
- Updating CEKs for EBEMs: 2 for each EBEM being updated
- Updating CEKs for ECTLs: 4 for each ECTL being updated