User`s guide

Document Number: MAN-002000-000 Version 2.6
Sil 4726 Manager User’s Guide
Page 3
How the SiI 4726 Storage Appliance operates
The SiI 4726 architecture (Figure 1) supports configuration and management of multiple storage devices
connected to a single host. Its built-in features include RAID configuration, disk rebuild, and virtualization
capabilities. Disk virtualization uses the SiI 4726’s innovative SteelVine processor technology to map the
physical drives to virtual drives for optimal storage.
Figure 1: Basic SiI 4726 operation
In its basic form, the SiI 4726 Storage Appliance supports individual mapping of a hard disk drive to a
corresponding volume or virtual drive.
Using complex mapping options, the physical drives can be concatenated and mapped to virtual drives in
several ways to implement FAST, SAFE, or BIG storage policies, as described in the next section. Depending
on the end-user’s choice, the data is written to one or more disks sequentially or simultaneously.
The SiI 4726 Manager User’s Guide assumes that end-users are using the SV-HBA3124-4 host bus adapter and
driver, which provide port multiplier support as a SATA host. Refer to “Install the SiI 4726 hardware
” for more
information on running the SiI 4726 Storage Appliance with other hosts that may not support port multipliers.
Big
Safe
FAS
T
SteelVine
Processor
Virtual Drives
Physical Drives
striping
mirroring
concatenation