Users Guide

Table Of Contents
Creating Virtual Disks
Does my controller support this feature? See Supported Features.
WARNING: There is an automatic initialization in the background which starts and if there are some user data it
will be erased.
In order to implement RAID functions, you must create a virtual disk. A virtual disk refers to storage created by a RAID controller
from one or more physical disks. Although a virtual disk may be created from several physical disks, it is seen by the operating
system as a single disk.
Before creating a virtual disk, you should be familiar with the information in Considerations Before Creating Virtual Disks.
Storage Management provides wizards to help you create a virtual disk:
The Create Virtual Disk Express Wizard calculates an appropriate virtual disk layout based on the available space and
controller considerations. Using this wizard, you can quickly create a virtual disk using recommended selections.
The Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard allows you to specify the read, write, and cache policy for the virtual disk. You
can also select the physical disks and the controller connector to be used. You need a good knowledge of RAID levels and
hardware to use the advanced wizard.
Reconfiguring Or Migrating Virtual Disks
Does my controller support this feature? See Supported Features.
Reconfiguring or migrating a virtual disk enables you to increase the capacity or change the RAID level of the virtual disk.
NOTE:
On software RAID S110 and S130 controllers, if a physical disk (SATA SSD or HDD) is removed from a virtual disk
and the same physical disk is reinserted (hot plug) into the virtual disk instantly, within a fraction of a second, then the
virtual disk state is displayed as Ready and the physical disk state is displayed as Online. However, if the same physical disk
is reinserted after a short delay, then the virtual disk state is displayed as Degraded and the physical disk state is displayed
as Ready.
To reconfigure a virtual disk:
1. Review the information in Starting and Target RAID Levels for Virtual Disk Reconfiguration and Capacity Expansion.
2. Locate the controller on which the virtual disk resides in the tree view. Expand the controller object until the Virtual Disks
object is displayed.
3. Select the Reconfigure task from the virtual disks Tasks drop-down list box and click Execute.
4. Complete the Reconfigure task using the Reconfigure wizard.
Starting and Target RAID Levels for Virtual Disk
Reconfiguration And Capacity Expansion
After you have created a virtual disk, the possibilities for reconfiguring the virtual disk depend on the controller, RAID level, and
available physical disks.
Table 38. Possible scenarios for reconfiguring a virtual disk on PowerEdge servers
Controller Starting RAID Level Target RAID Level Comments
PERC H800 Adapter, PERC
H700 Adapter, PERC H700
Integrated, and PERC H700
Modular, PERC H310 Adapter,
PERC H310 Mini Monolithic,
PERC H310 Mini Blades,
PERC H710 Adapter, PERC
H710 Mini Blades, PERC
H710 Mini Monolithic, PERC
H710P Adapter, PERC H710P
RAID 0 RAID 1 Add a single disk
RAID 0 RAID 0, RAID 5 Add at least one additional
disk.
RAID 0 RAID 6 RAID 6 requires a minimum of
4 disks.
Reconfiguration from RAID
0 to RAID 6 requires at
least 2 additional disks even
Virtual Disks 129