User's Manual

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.
Related Links
What Is RAID?
Deleting A Virtual Disk
Channel Redundancy And Thermal Shutdown
Reconfiguring Or Migrating Virtual Disks
Physical Disk Or Physical Device Properties
Physical Disk Or Physical Device Tasks
Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard
Create Virtual Disk Express 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.
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 disk’s 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. The following table describes the possible scenarios
for reconfiguring a virtual disk.
Table 32. Possible scenarios for reconfiguring a virtual disk
Controller Starting RAID Level Target RAID Level Comments
PERC 5/E and PERC 5/i RAID 0 RAID 0 Add at least one
additional disk
PERC 5/E and PERC 5/i RAID 0 (on a single disk) RAID 1 Add a single disk
PERC 5/E and PERC 5/i RAID 0 RAID 5 Add at least one
additional disk
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