User guide

45MAXDATA SR1202 M1 – StorView
®
RAID User Guide
Optimization and Drive Selection for RAID 5 Arrays
Typical RAID 5 implementations require a number of steps to write the data to the drives. In order to
optimize your system performance based on the type of writes you expect in your operation, we have
provided detailed information on optimizing the performance using full strip write operations in an
appendix. If you intend to setup a RAID 5 array and wish to consider optimum performance, you will
need to consider the number of data drives, parity drives, chunk size. For a review of the optimization
information see ”Optimizing RAID 5 Write Performance” beginning on page 141. Additional information
is provided at the appropriate step during configuration.
Create the Array
Configuring an array involves a few steps from one screen. From the Create Array screen, disk drives
are selected, then the parameters for the array are set through drop-down menu selections or check
boxes. The parameters define the details of the array and are saved in the configuration file. The
configuration file is stored on all disk drives that are members of the array (regardless of whether
the drives are in multiple enclosures). No changes are made to the configuration until the current
process is saved, so it is possible to quit at any time without affecting the current configuration. After
making changes to your configuration, be sure to make a new backup copy of the configuration file,
see ”Saving the Configuration” beginning on page 59. The ability of making a backup copy of the
configuration allows you to quickly recover from a damaged configuration that was not self healing,
and restore everything to the point in time when the configuration was last saved. This preserves the
definition of the arrays, logical drives, SAN LUN Mappings and controller parameter settings.
!
Caution
A damaged configuration could result in loss of data.
1. On the Tool Bar click the Create Array button.
Figure 26. Main Screen