User manual
Table Of Contents
- RAIDXpert User Manual
- Contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Installation
- Chapter 3: Setup
- Chapter 4: RAIDXpert User Interface
- Chapter 5: Monitoring and Managing
- Logging into RAIDXpert
- Choosing a Language
- Logging out of RAIDXpert
- User Management
- Host Management
- Utility Configuration
- Controller
- Physical Drives
- Logical Drives
- Viewing Logical Drives
- Creating a Logical Drive
- Deleting a Logical Drive
- Viewing Logical Drive Information
- Making Logical Drive Settings
- Backing up a RAID Ready Logical Drive
- Migrating a Logical Drive
- Rebuilding a Logical Drive
- Synchronizing All Logical Drives
- Synchronizing One Logical Drive
- Initializing a Logical Drive
- Logical Drive Activation
- Managing a Critical or Offline Logical Drive
- Spare Drives
- Chapter 6: Technology Background
- Appendix A: Frequently Asked Questions
- Appendix B: Partition and Format
RAIDXpert User Manual
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Initialization
Initialization is the process of setting all of the data bits on all of the physical
drives to zero. This has the effect of erasing any existing data from the drives.
This action is especially helpful in creating accurate parity in logical drives with
more than four drives.
Fast Initialization is available for all RAID levels and JBOD. Full Initialization is
available for RAID 1, 5, and 10. See “Creating a Logical Drive” on page 62.
The Full Initialization process begins immediately after the logical drive is created
and can take some time to finish, depending on the size of the physical drives in
your logical drive. Your logical drive is available while initialization is in progress.
If any of the physical drives in your logical drive were previously used in other
logical drives, or you are not sure, choose Full Initialization
Hot Spare Drive(s)
A hot spare is a physical drive that is connected to the logical drive system but is
not assigned as a member of the logical drive. In the event of the failure of a drive
within a functioning fault tolerant logical drive, the hot spare is activated as a
member of the logical drive to replace a drive that has failed.
The AMD Chipset SATA Controller replaces a failing physical drive in a logical
drive with an unassigned drive, if one is available. The unassigned drive is not
part of any logical drive. Such a drive is called a hot spare drive. There are two
types:
• Global – The spare drive is available to any logical drive on the Host PC.
• Dedicated – The spare drive can only be used by the specified logical drive.
The hot spare policy function lets you select whether a logical drive will access
any unassigned physical drive or a designated drive in the event of physical drive
failure. See “Rebuilding a Logical Drive” on page 74 and “Creating a Spare Drive”
on page 89 for information.
The spare drive effectively takes the place of the failed drive and the RAID
system immediately begins to rebuild data onto the spare drive. When the rebuild
is complete, the logical drive returns to fault tolerant status.
Maintaining a hot spare drive is a good precaution to protect your logical drive
integrity in the event of physical drive failure.