User guide

Appendix A. Glossary
266 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
• Boot volume size. The size to be assigned to volume 0 when creating a
unit through 3BM on a PC machine. Note that the resulting volume does
not have to be used as a boot volume. However, if the operating system is
installed on the unit, it is installed in volume 0.
•
Carve size. The size over which a unit will be divided into volumes, if
auto-carving is enabled.
•
Chassis Control Unit (CCU). A device within a chassis (or enclosure)
used to identify a drive or display status of a RAID unit by flashing the
appropriate LEDs.
•
CLI. Command Line Interface. The 3ware CLI is a text program, rather
than a GUI (graphical user interface). It has the same functionality as
3DM, and can be used to view, maintain, and manage 3ware controllers,
disks, and units.
•
Configuration. The RAID level set for a unit.
•
Controller. The physical card from 3ware that you insert into a computer
system and connect to your disk drives or enclosure. The controller
contains firmware that provides RAID functionality. 3ware makes a
number of different models of SATA RAID controllers. (See “System
Requirements” on page 2.)
•
Controller ID number. Unique number assigned to every 3ware
controller in a system, starting with zero.
•
Create an array. The process of selecting individual disk drives and
selecting a RAID level. The array will appear to the operating system as a
single unit. Overwrites any existing unit configuration data on the drives.
Note that in 3ware software tools, arrays are referred to as units.
•
DCB. Disk configuration block. This is 3ware proprietary RAID table
information that is written to disk drives that are in a RAID unit, single
disk, or spare. The DCB includes information on the unit type, unit
members, RAID level, and other important RAID information.
•
Delete an array. Deleting an array (or unit) is the process of returning the
drives in a unit to individual drives. This erases the DCB information
from the drives and deletes any data that was on them. When a unit is
deleted from a controller, it is sometimes referred to as being “destroyed.”
If you want to remove a unit without deleting the data on it, do not delete
it; instead use the Remove feature in 3DM, and then physically remove
the drives.
•
Destroying. Same as deleting a unit.
•
Degraded unit. A redundant unit that contains a drive that has failed.
• Disk roaming. When moving a unit from one controller to another, refers
to putting disks back in a different order than they initially occupied,
without harm to the data.