Users Guide

Virtual Disks
A virtual disk refers to a 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 viewed by the operating system as a single disk. Depending on the RAID level used, the virtual disk may retain
redundant data if there is a disk failure or have particular performance attributes.
NOTE: Virtual disks can only be created on a RAID controller.
Topics:
• Considerations Before Creating Virtual Disks
• Creating Virtual Disks
• Reconfiguring Or Migrating Virtual Disks
• Starting And Target RAID Levels For Virtual Disk Reconfiguration And Capacity Expansion
• Maintaining The Integrity Of Redundant Virtual Disks
• Rebuilding Redundant Information
• Managing Virtual Disk Bad Block Management
• Recommendations For Clearing Bad Blocks
• Virtual Disk Properties And Tasks
• Virtual Disk — Available Tasks
• Create Virtual Disk Express Wizard
• Create Virtual Disk Express Wizard Step 2
• Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard
• Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard Step 2
• Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard Step 3
• Span Edit
• To Reconfigure A Virtual Disk - Step 1 of 3
• To locate Reconfigure In Storage Management
• Virtual Disk Task - Reconfigure Step 2 of 3
• To Reconfigure A Virtual Disk Expand Virtual Disk Capacity - Step 2 of 3
• Virtual Disk Task - Reconfigure Step 3 of 3
• Slow And Fast Initialize
• Formatting Or Initializing A Disk
• Deleting A Virtual Disk
• Renaming A Virtual Disk
• Changing The Policy Of A Virtual Disk
• Split Mirror
• Unmirror
• Assigning And Unassigning Dedicated Hot Spare
• Virtual Disk Task - Replace Member Disk Step 1 of 2
• Virtual Disk Task - Replace Member Disk Step 2 of 2
Considerations Before Creating Virtual Disks
Different controllers have particular characteristics in the way they implement virtual disks. These characteristics may include use of disk
space, limitations on the number of virtual disks per controller, and so on. It can be helpful to understand these characteristics before
creating virtual disks on the controller.
The following sections describe controller information that applies to virtual disks:
• Virtual Disk Considerations for Controllers
• Problems Associated With Using The Same Physical Disks For Both Redundant And Non-Redundant Virtual Disks
• Virtual Disk Considerations On Systems Running Linux
• Number Of Physical Disks Per Virtual Disk
15
106 Virtual Disks