User's Manual

Virtual Disks 241
Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard (Step 1 of 4)
Does my controller support this feature? See Supported Features.
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.
Before creating a virtual disk, you should be familiar with the information in
Considerations Before Creating Virtual Disks. You may also want to review
Choosing RAID Levels and Concatenation.
If you want to have the wizard choose a recommended virtual disk
configuration for you, click Go To Express Wizard.
To Create a Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard: Step 1 of 4
1 Click the radio button to select the correct RAID level.
– Depending on the controller,
Concatenated enables you to combine
the storage capacity of several disks or to create a virtual disk using
only a single physical disk. For information on the number of disks
supported by
Concatenated , see Number of Physical Disks per Virtual
Disk. Using
Concatenated does not provide data redundancy nor
does it affect the read and write performance.
– Select
RAID 0 for striping. This selection groups n disks together as
one large virtual disk with a total capacity of n disks. Data is stored to
the disks alternately so that they are evenly distributed. Data
redundancy is not available in this mode. Read and write performance
is enhanced.
– Select
RAID 1 for mirroring disks. This selection groups two disks
together as one virtual disk with a capacity of one single disk. The data
is replicated on both disks. When a disk fails, the virtual disk
continues to function. This feature provides data redundancy and
good read performance, but slightly slower write performance. Your
system must have at least two disks to use RAID 1.
– Select
RAID 5 for striping with distributed parity. This selection
groups n disks together as one large virtual disk with a total capacity of
(n-1) disks. When a disk fails, the virtual disk continues to function.