Users Guide
CERC SATA RAID Controllers
The following Cost Effective RAID Controller (CERC) controllers use Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) technology.
l CERC SATA1.5/6ch
l CERC SATA1.5/2s
CERC ATA RAID Controllers
The following Cost Effective RAID Controller (CERC) controllers use Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) technology.
l CERC ATA100/4ch
l CERC 6/I controller family
SAS RAID Controllers
The following RAID controllers use Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) technology.
l PERC 5/E
l PERC 5/i Integrated
l PERC 5/i Adapter
l SAS 5/iR Integrated
l SAS 5/iR Adapter
l PERC 6/E
l PERC 6/I controller family
l SAS 6/iR controller family
RAID Controller Features
Different controllers have different features. If you have more than one controller attached to your system, you may notice that the tasks displayed on the
controller's Information/Configuration subtab are different for each controller.
Controllers may also have differences in their read, write, and cache policies as well as how they handle hot spares. You should be aware of these differences
when creating virtual disks and assigning hot spares.
The following describes some of the RAID controller features and provides links to a more detailed explanation. For information on which controllers support
which features, see "Supported Features."
l Hot spares. On RAID controllers, a hot spare is a backup for a disk that fails. See the "Protecting Your Virtual Disk with a Hot Spare."
l Rebuilding data. You can rebuild data from a failed physical disk if the disk is a member of a redundant virtual disk. See "Rebuilding Redundant
Information."
l Virtual disk expansion. Virtual disk expansion enables you to expand the capacity of a virtual disk while it remains online by adding additional disks to
the virtual disk. This feature is also known as online capacity expansion (OLCE). See "Virtual Disk Tasks."
l RAID migration. After creating a virtual disk, you can change the RAID level. See "Reconfiguring/Migrating Virtual Disks."
l Moving physical and virtual disks to another controller. The PERC 3/SC, 3/DC, 3/QC, 4/SC, 4/DC, 4e/DC, 4/Di, 4e/Si, 4e/Di, and CERC ATA100/4ch
controllers enable you to move physical and virtual disks from one controller to another. See "Moving Physical and Virtual Disks from One System to
Another."
l Read, write, and cache policies. The manner in which a controller reads and writes data can vary. The read, write, and cache policies have implications
for data security and system performance. See "RAID Controller Read, Write, Cache, and Disk Cache Policy."
l Check consistency. A check consistency determines the integrity of a virtual disk's redundant data. When necessary, this feature rebuilds the redundant
information. See "Maintain Integrity of Redundant Virtual Disks."
l Cluster Support. Storage Management supports PERC 3/DC, 4/DC, and 4e/DC controllers that have Microsoft®Cluster Server (MSCS) enabled. See
"Cluster-enabled RAID Controllers."
l Patrol Read. Patrol Read identifies disk errors in order to avoid disk failures and data loss or corruption. See "Set Patrol Read Mode" for more