Acer AcerAltos 3102RS User manual

AcerAltos 3102RSAcerAltos 3102RS
Ultra-SCSI to Ultra-SCSI RAID Controller
User’s Guide

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CopyrightCopyright
Copyright 1998 by Acer Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a
retrieval system, or translated into any language or computer
language, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of this company.
DisclaimerDisclaimer
This company makes no representations or warranties, either
expressed or implied, with respect to the contents hereof and
specifically disclaims any warranties, merchantability or fitness for any
particular purpose. Any software described in this manual is sold or
licensed "as is". Should the programs prove defective following their
purchase, the buyer (and not this company, its distributor, or its dealer)
assumes the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair, and any
incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect in the
software. Further, this company reserves the right to revise this
publication and to make changes from time to time in the contents
hereof without obligation to notify any person of such revision or
changes.

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FCC Class B Radio FrequencyFCC Class B Radio Frequency
Interference StatementInterference Statement
Note:
This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for
a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of FCC Rules. These
limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful
interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates,
uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and
used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful
interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee
that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this
equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television
reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and
on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or
more of the following measures:
1. Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
2. Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
3. Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from
that to which the receiver is connected.
4. Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television technician
for help.
Notice 1:
The changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party
responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate
the equipment.
Notice 2:
Shielded interface cables, if any, must be used in order to comply with
the emission limits.

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Table of ContentsTable of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................1
Chapter 2 Features.........................................................3
Chapter 3 Functional Description.................................7
RAID Management..........................................................................7
What are the RAID levels?.................................................7
NRAID Disk Spanning...................................................8
JBOD Single Drive Control............................................9
RAID 0 Disk Stripping....................................................9
RAID 1 Disk Mirroring .................................................10
RAID (0+1) Disk Striping with Mirroring ......................11
RAID 3 Disk Striping with Dedicated Parity Disk.........12
RAID 5 Striping with Interspersed Parity.....................13
Drive Failure Management............................................................14
Global and Local Spare Drive...........................................14
Identifying Drives..............................................................16
Automatic Rebuild and Manual Rebuild ...........................18
Automatic Rebuild.......................................................18
Manual Rebuild ...........................................................19
Concurrent Rebuild in RAID (0+1)....................................20
Disk Array Parameters ..................................................................21
Rebuild Priority .................................................................21
Verify-after-Write..............................................................21
Cache Parameters.........................................................................23

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Optimization for Sequential or Random I/O......................23
Drive-Side SCSI Parameters .........................................................24
SCSI Motor Spin-up..........................................................24
SCSI Reset at Power Up...................................................24
Disk Access Delay Time...................................................25
SAF-TE Enclosure Management ...................................................26
What is SAF-TE?..............................................................26
How Does SAF-TE work?.................................................26
Dynamic Logical Drive Expansion..................................................27
What Is It and How Does It Work? ...................................27
Two Modes of Dynamic Logical Drive Expansion.............27
Example: RAID Expansion in Windows NT
Server ................................................................30
Chapter 4 Hardware Installation................................. 39
Locations of the Parts ....................................................................39
Front View ......................................................................39
Rear View of the Main Board............................................40
Top View of the Main Board..............................................41
Top View of the Daughter Board (AA-9073UWS).............42
Top View of the Daughter Board (AA-9072UWD) ............42
Top View of the Daughter Board (AA-9073U2).................43
Installing DRAM SIMM...................................................................44
Installing the SCSI Channel Upgrade Daughter Board..................45
Battery Backup...............................................................................47
Power Connection..........................................................................50
Serial Port Connection and Set-Up................................................51
Basic Operational setup.................................................................53

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In-band SCSI.................................................................................55
What is it and why do you need it?...................................55
How Do You Configure the Acer RAID Manager
to Use In-band SCSI? .......................................56
RAID Controller Adjustments......................................56
Example: Settings for Windows NT 4.0 ......................58
Using In-band SCSI in Acer RAID Manager.....................60
Local Connection — SNMP Not Required ..................60
Remote Connection — SNMP Required.....................60
Chapter 5 Quick Setup.................................................67
Front Panel....................................................................................67
RS-232 Terminal Interface ............................................................69
Chapter 6 Configuring RAID........................................71
Starting to Build a RAID System Drive ..........................................71
How the RAID Controller Works?..................................................73
SCSI Channel, SCSI ID and LUN.....................................73
Understanding Step by Step.............................................74
Chapter 7 General Front Panel Operation..................77
Understanding the Information on the LCD...................................77
The Initial Screen..............................................................77
Logical Drive Status..........................................................78
SCSI Drive Status.............................................................79
SCSI Channel Status........................................................80
Viewing and Editing Logical Drives................................................82
Creating a Logical Drive...................................................82

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Viewing Logical Drives and Drive Members......................84
Deleting a Logical Drive....................................................84
Partitioning a Logical Drive ...............................................85
Deleting a Partition of a Logical Drive...............................86
Assigning a Logical Drive Name.......................................87
Rebuilding a Logical Drive ................................................88
Viewing and Editing Host LUNs .....................................................90
Mapping a Logical Drive to a Host LUN............................90
Viewing and Deleting LUN Mappings................................91
Pass-through SCSI Commands........................................91
Viewing and Editing SCSI Drives...................................................93
Scanning New SCSI Drive................................................93
Viewing Drive Information.................................................94
Adding a Local Spare Drive ..............................................95
Adding Global Spare Drive................................................96
Identifying a Drive .............................................................96
Deleting Spare Drive (Global / Local Spare Drive)............97
SCSI Drives Utilities..........................................................98
SCSI Drive Low-level Format......................................98
SCSI Drive Read/Write Test.......................................99
Viewing and Editing SCSI Channels............................................100
Viewing and Redefining a Channel Mode.......................100
Setting a SCSI Channel’s ID / Host Channel..................101
Viewing a SCSI Channel’s ID ...................................101
Setting a SCSI Channel’s Primary ID / Drive
Channel............................................................103
Setting a SCSI Channel’s Secondary ID / Drive
Channel............................................................104

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Setting a SCSI Channel’s Terminator ............................105
Setting the Transfer Speed ............................................106
Setting the Transfer Width .............................................107
Viewing and Editing a SCSI Target / Drive
Channel...........................................................108
Slot Number ..............................................................108
Maximum Synchronous Transfer Clock....................108
Maximum Transfer Width..........................................109
Parity Check..............................................................109
Disconnecting Support..............................................110
Maximum Tag Count.................................................110
Restoring the Default Setting ....................................111
Viewing and Editing Configuration Parameters...........................112
Communication Parameters...........................................112
Caching Parameters.......................................................112
Write-Back Cache Enable/Disable............................112
Optimization for Sequential / Optimization for
Random ...............................................................113
Host-side SCSI Parameters...........................................113
Maximum Queued I/O Count ....................................114
LUNs per Host SCSI ID.............................................114
Drive-side SCSI Parameters..........................................114
SCSI Motor Spin-Up..................................................115
SCSI Reset at Power-Up...........................................115
Disk Access Delay Time ...........................................116
Tag Command Queuing............................................116
SAF-TE Enclosure Monitoring...................................117

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Detection of Drive Hot Swap Followed by Auto
Rebuild.................................................................117
Idle Drive Failure Detection.......................................118
Disk Array Parameters....................................................119
Rebuilding Priority.....................................................119
Verification on Writes................................................119
Controller Parameters.....................................................121
Controller Name........................................................121
Viewing and Editing Peripheral Devices.......................................122
System Functions.........................................................................123
Mute Beeper....................................................................123
Changing the Password..................................................123
Resetting the Controller ..................................................124
Viewing System Information.........................................................125
Viewing and Editing Event Logs...................................................126
Chapter 8 RS-232C Terminal Interface .................... 127
Understanding the Information on the Screen .............................127
The Initial Screen............................................................127
Main Menu ....................................................................128
Logical Drive’s Status......................................................129
SCSI Drive’s Status.........................................................130
SCSI Channel’s Status....................................................132
Viewing the Current Setting of Each Function ................134
Viewing and Editing Logical Drives..............................................136
Creating a Logical Drive..................................................136
Viewing Logical Drives and Drive Members....................139

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Deleting a Logical Drive..................................................140
Partitioning a Logical Drive.............................................140
Deleting a Partition of a Logical Drive ............................141
Assigning a Logical Drive Name.....................................142
Rebuilding Logical Drive.................................................143
Viewing and Editing Host LUNs...................................................145
Mapping a Logical Drive to a Host LUN .........................145
Viewing and Deleting the LUN Mappings.......................148
Viewing and Editing SCSI Drives.................................................150
Scanning a New SCSI Drive...........................................150
Viewing Drive Information...............................................151
Adding a Local Spare Drive............................................152
Adding a Global Spare Drive..........................................153
Identifying a Drive...........................................................153
Deleting a Spare Drive (Global / Local Spare
Drive)...............................................................154
Viewing and Editing SCSI Channels............................................155
Redefining a Channel Mode...........................................155
Viewing and Editing a SCSI ID / Host Channel ..............156
Adding a SCSI ID......................................................157
Deleting a SCSI ID....................................................157
Setting a Primary Controller’s SCSI ID / Drive
Channel...........................................................158
Setting a Secondary Controller’s SCSI ID / Drive
Channel...........................................................160
Setting a SCSI Channel’s Terminator ............................161
Setting a Transfer Speed ...............................................162
Setting a Transfer Width ................................................163