Installation guide

Kaleidescape Part No. 101-0105-00 Rev 3 Page 54
Kaleidescape Installation Guide Physical Installation
Server Fault Tolerance
RAID-K Data Protection
Every Kaleidescape server includes RAID-K technology for content
protection. RAID-K is a proprietary technology developed by Kaleidescape to
provide the following features:
• Better performance for movies and music
• Increased safety for content storage
• Content protection from a single drive failure
• Incremental additions to storage capacity
Unlike other variations of RAID technology, RAID-K allows new drives with
different storage capacities to be added to the array.
If a drive fails, RAID-K data and parity information allow the server to
continue providing content from the failed drive until a replacement disk
cartridge can be installed.
Note: A failed disk cartridge must be replaced as soon as possible. If a second
drive failure occurs on a 1U Server, 5U Server or Mini System before the
first failed disk cartridge is replaced, content will be lost.
RAID-K technology does NOT allow swapping disk cartridges between
servers.
Note: When a disk cartridge with a storage capacity larger than the other disk
cartridges is added to servers other than the 3U Server, the larger capacity
disk cartridge allots to storage the same amount of capacity as the largest
disk already in the server. Any excess capacity is allotted to parity
information. However, when a second large capacity disk cartridge is
added, the entire storage capacity can be used to store movies and music.
Note: When a disk cartridge with a storage capacity larger than the other disk
cartridges is added to a 3U Server, the first larger disk is used as hot spare,
second is used for data and some parity, the third is all data.
3U Server Hot Spare Disk Cartridge
A hot spare disk cartridge is an additional disk cartridge installed in the
3U Server. The hot spare is immediately available as a replacement if an
existing drive fails. The Kaleidescape server continues to operate because
of RAID-K technology and no content is lost. Information on the failed disk is
recreated on the hot spare disk cartridge.
The hot spare disk cartridge can be identified by the slow blink on the blue
light at the base of the disk cartridge. Active disk cartridges have steady
blue lights.