Performance Support

Storage: Creating a RAID Group

Transcript
In order to create a RAID Group, the server must have access to a RAID Controller and hard drives. RAID Controller Cards are used to connect multiple disk drives together into disk arrays. In some cases the disks are installed locally into the server, and in other casecases the disks can be installed into an external chassis and connected via an external cable rom the RAID Controller to the disk chassis. !e then use the RAID Controller Card so t"are to con igure the RAID array. In preparation or this demonstration, a physical RAID Controller has been installed into the expansion slot o a physical server. #nce the card is installed and the disk drives are attached to the RAID Controller "e po"er on the physical server. $or our demonstration here, "e%ll be using an &' server that has an &' (mart Array ')** (mart Array Controller. +his is the RAID Controller. !hile the server is booting you%ll seen an option or starting the Array Con iguration ,tility. In this case "e had to press the $- key during the boot up se.uence in the Array Con iguration ,tility "as launched. &ere "e see the main options available to us rom the Array Con iguration ,tility so t"are. !e can create a logical drive, vie" existing logical drives, or delete existing logical drives. $irst let/s have a look at "hat/s con igured on this server. (o "e can see that a RAID 01* group has been created as 2ogical Drive 304 the si5e is 067 gigabytes. I I click OK or hit the Enter key in this case "e%ll see some urther details. !e can see that this RAID array is actually made up o t"o physical drives, t"o (A( drives. +hese are internal disks inside the server. 2et/s back out. 8y pressing the Esc key I can get back to the main menu. 9o" in this case I don/t "ant to delete the logical drive that/s already been created, but I "ant to see i "e can create a ne" logical drive. !hen I select the Create Logical Drive menu item "e%ll see i there/s any additional drives available to us that are not in use. (o here, "e see "e have three available drives. +hey%re all selected by de ault and on the right hand side o the con iguration utility you can see that RAID : has been selected. (ince RAID : does re.uire three or more disks, I%m going to hit the space bar to deselect one o the drives in the available physical drive section. And you can see that the option or RAID con iguration on the right hand side has no" changed. I%ll reselect that drive and the con iguration utility automatically changes my selection back to RAID :. $or our example here, I "ant to create a RAID array but I also "ant to assign a spare drive. (o I%m going to deselect one o my drives, I%ll use my Tab key to tab do"n to the spare section on the right hand side and hit my space bar again to designate one o the drives as a spare. ;ou can see "hen I did that it selected the only drive that "as le t as a spare drive. 9o" I%m going to press Enter, create the logical drive as "e%ve con igured it, a t"o disk, RAID 01* "ith one drive designated as a spare. 'ress F8 to con igure. And the Array Con iguration ,tility so t"are completes. 9o" let/s go vie" the results. +here is our original drive, the RAID 01* that "as created be ore "e started, and the ne" logical Drive 3- created as a RAID 01* "ith an online spare. +hat/s ho" you create a RAID array. +hanks or "atching.

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