AMCC 9550SXU16MLB10 - Itec User manual

3ware®
Serial ATA RAID Controller
Supports the 9000 Series
PN 720-0114-01
March 2005
User Guide

Copyright
©2004-2005 AMCC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the proper written consent of AMCC, 455 West Maude Ave., Sunnyvale, CA
94085.
Trademarks
3ware, Escalade, and 3DM are all registered trademarks of AMCC. The
3ware logo, 3BM, StorSwitch, TwinStor, and R5 Fusion are all trademarks of
AMCC. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.
Disclaimer
AMCC assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document,
nor does AMCC make any commitment to update the information contained
herein.

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About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
How this Guide is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Product Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What’s New With the 3ware 9000 Series Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Available RAID Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Determining What RAID Level to Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3ware Tools for Configuration and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3BM (3ware BIOS Manager) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3ware CLI (Command Line Interface) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Monitoring, Maintenance, and Troubleshooting Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Getting Started with Your 3ware RAID Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Starting 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Working in the 3BM Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Displaying Advanced Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Getting Help While Using 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Exiting the 3BM Configuration Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Browser Requirements for 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Setting up Mozilla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Installing 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Installing 3DM on a Microsoft Windows system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Uninstalling 3DM under Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Installing 3DM for Linux or FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Uninstalling 3DM under Linux or FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Starting 3DM and Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Starting 3DM under Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Starting 3DM under Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Viewing 3DM Remotely via a Standard Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Working with the 3DM Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3DM Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Viewing Information About Different Controllers in 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Refreshing the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3DM Screens and What They're Used For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Setting Up 3DM Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Setting and Changing 3DM Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Managing E-mail Event Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Enabling and Disabling Remote Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Setting the Incoming Port # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Table of Contents

ii 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Setting the Frequency of Page Refreshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3DM 2 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Controller Summary Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Controller Details Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Unit Information Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Unit Details Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Drive Information Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
SMART Details About Drive at Particular Port Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Controller Settings Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Scheduling Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Maintenance Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Alarms Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Battery Backup Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3DM 2 Settings Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Configuring Your Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Viewing Information About Different Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Viewing Controller Policies in 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Setting Policies for a Controller through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Exporting JBOD Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Enabling and Setting Up Staggered Spinup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Disabling Write Cache on Unit Degrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Multi LUN Support and Auto-Carving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Configuring Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Configuring Units in 3DM via the Maintenance Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Configuring Units in 3BM via the main 3BM Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Creating a New Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Creating a Unit through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Creating a Unit through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Ordering Units in 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Partitioning and Formatting Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Creating a Hot Spare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Specifying a Hot Spare through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Specifying a Hot Spare through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Enabling and Disabling the Unit Write Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Enabling and Disabling the Unit Write Cache through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Enabling or Disabling the Write Cache through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Setting Unit Policies through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Changing An Existing Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
RAID Level Migration (RLM) Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Changing RAID Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Expanding Unit Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Informing the Operating System of Changed Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Deleting a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Deleting a Unit through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Deleting a Unit through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Removing a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Removing a Unit Through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Removing a Unit Through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Moving a Unit from One Controller to Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Unlocking Drives Configured on a 9000 Series Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Adding a Drive through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Removing a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Rescanning the Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Naming a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

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Maintaining Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Checking Unit and Drive Status through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Reviewing Alarms and Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Viewing Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Downloading an Error Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Viewing SMART Data About a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
About Background Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
About Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Initialization of Different RAID Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Auto Initialization After Power Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
About Rebuilds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
About Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
About Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
About Self-tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Setting Background Task Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Scheduling Background Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Viewing Current Task Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Turning On or Off Use of a Task Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Removing a Task Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Adding a New Task Schedule Slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Selecting Self-tests to be Performed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Rebuilding Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Rebuilding a Unit Through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Rebuilding Units through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Cancelling a Rebuild and Restarting It with a Different Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Verifying Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Verifying a Unit through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Verifying a Unit through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Maintaining Your Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Determining the Current Version of Your 3ware Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Updating the Driver and Firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Updating the 3ware Driver and Firmware Under Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Using the Update Utility With Multiple Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Updating the 3ware Driver Under Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Updating the 3ware Driver Under Red Hat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Updating the 3ware Driver Under SuSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Updating the 3ware Driver Under FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Viewing Battery Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Testing Battery Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Troubleshooting: Problems and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Before Contacting Customer Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Problems in 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Hardware Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Software Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Screen Display Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
AEN Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Appendix A. Compliance and Conformity Statements . . . . . . . . . . 185
Federal Communications Commission Radio Frequency Interference Statement 185
Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
European Community Conformity Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Appendix B. Warranty, Technical Support and Service . . . . . . . . . . 187

iv 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Limited Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Exclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
State Law Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Obtaining Warranty Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
AMCC Technical Support and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Sales and ordering information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Feedback on this manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

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About This Guide
3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide provides
instructions for configuring and maintaining your 3ware controller.
This guide assumes that you have already installed your controller in your
system. If you have not yet done so, see 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID
Controller Installation Guide for instructions.
How this Guide is Organized
There are often multiple ways to accomplish the same configuration and
maintenance tasks for your 3ware RAID controller. This manual includes
instructions for performing tasks using two tools: one at the BIOS level
(3ware BIOS Manager, or 3BM) and one that runs in a browser (3ware Disk
Manager 2, or 3DM 2). You can also perform many tasks at the command
line, using 3ware’s Command Line Interface (CLI). The CLI is described in a
separate manual, available from the 3ware software CD and from 3ware’s
website: 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide.
Basic information about using the two tools (3BM and 3DM), such as starting
the tool, navigating between screens, and so forth, is described in sections
about each of those tools: “3ware BIOS Manager (3BM)” on page 19 and
“3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2)” on page 27.
Step-by-step instructions for performing specific tasks are organized by tasks
throughout other sections of this guide. For example, the instructions for
“Creating a New Unit” on page 85 include information about how to create a
unit from 3DM, followed by how to create a unit from 3BM.

About This Guide
23ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Table 1: Sections in this Guide
Section Description
Introduction Provides an overview of product features for
the 3ware 9000 series controllers. Includes
system requirements and an introduction to
RAID concepts and levels.
Getting Started Provides a summary of the steps required to
install and set up your 3ware RAID controller.
3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) Describes the basics of using 3BM.
3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM 2) Describes the basics of using 3DM and
includes a reference of all the 3DM pages.
Configuring Your Controller Describes how to view details about the
controller, check it’s status, and change
configuration settings that affect the controller
and all associated drives.
Configuring Units Describes how to configure new units and
spares, change existing configurations, and set
unit policies.
Maintaining Units Describes how to check unit and drive status,
review alarms and errors, schedule background
maintenance tasks, and manually start them,
when necessary or desirable. Includes
explanations of initialization, verify, rebuild, and
self-tests.
Maintaining Your Controller Describes how to update the driver, move a unit
from one controller to another, and replace an
existing 3ware controller with a new one. Also
includes information about checking battery
status on a BBU (Battery Backup Unit).
Troubleshooting Provides common problems and solutions, and
explains error messages.
Glossary Includes definitions for terms used throughout
this guide.
Appendices Provides compliance and conformity
statements, warranty information, and tells you
how to contact technical support.

www.3ware.com 3
Conventions
The following conventions are used through this guide:
3BM refers to the 3ware BIOS Manager
3DM refers to the 3ware Disk Manager, version 2.
In the sections that describe using 3DM, current controller is used to refer
to the controller which is currently selected in this drop-down list.
Unit refers to one or more disks configured through 3ware to be treated by
the operating system as a single drive. Also known as an array. Array and
unit are used interchangeably throughout this manual.
Boldface is used for buttons, fields, and settings that appear on the screen.
Monospace font is used for code and to indicate things you type.

About This Guide
43ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

www.3ware.com 5
Introducing the 3ware 9000
Series Controller
This chapter includes the following sections:
“Product Features” on page 5
“What’s New With the 3ware 9000 Series Controller” on page 6
“System Requirements” on page 6
“Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels” on page 8
“Determining What RAID Level to Use” on page 12
Product Features
The 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA family includes 9500S-4LP,
9500S-8, 9500S-12, 9500S-8MI, 9500S-12MI.
Features of the 3ware 9000 series controllers include:
Advanced RAID features for greater data protection and management.
Support for battery backup provides added data protection in the event of
a power outage. (Battery Backup unit sold separately)
Support for RAID units greater than 2 terabytes with 64-bit LBA support.
An enhanced firmware platform allows future upgrades. Anticipated
upgrades include Enclosure Management Services (EMS).
AMCC’s remote management software, 3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM®2)
simplifies storage configuration and management via a web browser.

Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller
63ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
What’s New With the 3ware 9000 Series
Controller
Enhancements and changes in version 9.2 of the 9000-series controllers
include the following:
MultiLUN support with auto-carving of units greater than 2 terabytes into
2 terabyte volumes
RAID Level Migration (RLM) and Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
Unit naming and unit serial number support
Improved write performance in writes with multiple concurrent streams
using Stream Fusion technology.
Extended drive and unit status information.
System Requirements
3ware RAID controllers require the following
A workstation-class or server-class motherboard which meets the
following criteria:
PCI slots that comply with PCI 2.2 or above standards.
PCI slot that meets the Plug and Play and PC99 specifications.
Note: For all 3ware 9000 series models, install the card in a 64-bit,
66 MHz PCI or PCI-X slot for best performance.
Drives
Depending on the particular model, the 3ware RAID controller may be
connected to up to two, four, eight, or twelve SATA drives using the
supplied interface cables.
Drives must meet serial ATA 150 (SATA-1)or serial ATA 300 (SATA 2)
Gb/s standards. Drives may be of any capacity or physical form factor.
The length of shielded and unshielded interface cables may not exceed
1M (39”) for serial ATA controllers.
Operating System
3ware RAID controllers may be used with:
Windows 2000 (SP3 or newer), Windows XP (SP1 or newer),
Windows Server 2003, both 32-bit and 64-bit x64
Red Hat Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86
SuSE Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x64

System Requirements
www.3ware.com 7
Other versions of Linux using the open source Linux driver
FreeBSD
Other Requirements
Adequate air flow and cooling
Adequate power supply for drives
3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager) displays information in a browser. It requires
the following:
Internet Explorer 5.5 and later or Mozilla 1.2 or later
JavaScript must be enabled
Cookies must be enabled
For best viewing, screen resolution should be 1024 x 768, with 16-bit
color or more
For a complete listing of features and system requirements, refer to the 9000
Series Datasheet, available from the website at http://w.3ware.com/products/
serial_ata9000.asp.

Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller
83ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels
3ware RAID controllers use a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)
to increase your storage system’s performance and provide fault tolerance
(protection against data loss).
The following concepts are important to understand when working with a
RAID controller:
Arrays and Units. In the storage industry, the term “array” is used to
describe two or more disk drives that appear to the operating system as a
single unit. When you work with 3ware software, “unit” is the term used
to refer to an array of disks that is configured and managed through the
3ware software. Single-disk units can also be configured in the 3ware
software.
Mirroring. Mirrored arrays write data to paired drives simultaneously. If
one drive fails, the data is preserved on the paired drive. Mirroring
provides data protection through redundancy. In addition, mirroring using
a 3ware RAID controller provides improved performance because
3ware’s TwinStor technology reads from both drives simultaneously.
Striping. Striping across disks allows data to be written and accessed on
more than one drive, at the same time. Striping combines each drive’s
capacity into one large volume. Striped disk arrays achieve highest
transfer rates and performance at the expense of fault tolerance.
Distributed Parity. Parity works in combination with striping on RAID 5
and RAID 50. Parity information is written to each of the striped drives,
in rotation. Should a failure occur, the data on the failed drive can be
reconstructed from the data on the other drives.
Hot Swap. The process of exchanging a drive without having to shut
down the system. This is useful when you need to exchange a degraded
drive or a bad drive in a redundant array.
Array Roaming. The process of swapping out or swapping in a
configured unit without having to shut down the system. This is useful if
you need to move the unit to another controller.
Disk Roaming. The process of removing a unit from a controller and
putting it back later, either on the same controller, or a different one, and
having it recognized as a unit. The disks may be can be attached to
different ports than they were originally attached to, without harm to the
data. The disks may be attached to the same ports or different ports on the
controller.
For definitions of other terms used throughout the documentation, see the
“Glossary” on page 179.

Understanding RAID
www.3ware.com 9
Available RAID Configurations
The following RAID levels and configurations are available for drives
attached to a 3ware RAID controller:
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
RAID 50
Single Disk
JBOD
Hot Spare
RAID 0
Provides striping, but no mirroring or redundancy of any kind. Striped disk
arrays achieve high transfer rates because they can read and write data on
more than one drive simultaneously. The stripe size is configurable in the
3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) and in the 3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2).
Requires a minimum of two drives.
When drives are configured in a striped disk array (see Figure 1), large files
are distributed across the multiple disks using RAID 0 techniques.
Striped disk arrays give exceptional performance, particularly for data
intensive applications such as video editing, computer aided design and
geographical information systems.
RAID 0 arrays are not fault tolerant. The loss of any drive results in the loss of
all the data in that array, and can even cause a system hang, depending on
your operating system. RAID 0 arrays are not recommended for high
availability systems unless additional precautions are taken to prevent system
hangs and data loss.
Figure 1. RAID 0 Configuration Example
RAID 1
Also known as a mirrored array. Mirroring is done on pairs of drives.
Mirrored disk arrays write data to two drives using RAID 1 algorithms (see

Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller
10 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Figure 2). This gives your system fault tolerance by preserving the data on
one drive if the other drive fails. Fault tolerance is a basic requirement for
mission critical systems like web and database servers.
3ware uses a patented technology, TwinStor®, on RAID 1 arrays for
improved performance during sequential read operations. With TwinStor
technology, read performance is twice the speed of a single drive during
sequential read operation.
The adaptive algorithms in TwinStor technology boost performance by
distinguishing between random and sequential read requests. For the
sequential requests generated when accessing large files, both drives are used,
with the heads simultaneously reading alternating sections of the file. For the
smaller random transactions, the data is read from a single optimal drive head.
Figure 2. RAID 1 Configuration Example
RAID 5
Combines striping data with parity (exclusive OR) to restore data in case of a
drive failure. This array type provides performance, fault tolerance, high
capacity, and storage efficiency. Requires a minimum of three drives.
Parity information is distributed across all drives rather than being
concentrated on a single disk (see Figure 3). This avoids throughput loss due
to contention for the parity drive.
Figure 3. RAID 5 Configuration Example
RAID 10
This array is a combination of RAID 1 with RAID 0. Striped and mirrored
arrays for fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of four
drives to use both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques.
RAID 5
A Blocks
0 parity
A4
A3
A2
A1 1 parity
B4
B3
B2 2 parity
C4
C3
C1
3 parity
D4
D2
D1
4 parity
E3
E2
E1
B0 C0 D0 E0
B Blocks C Blocks D Blocks E Blocks

Understanding RAID
www.3ware.com 11
When drives are configured as a striped mirrored array, the disks are
configured using both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques, thus the name RAID
10 (see Figure 4). A minimum of four drives are required to use this
technique. The first two drives are mirrored as a fault tolerant array using
RAID 1. The third and fourth drives are mirrored as a second fault tolerant
array using RAID 1. The two mirrored arrays are then grouped as a striped
RAID 0 array using a two tier structure. Higher data transfer rates are
achieved by leveraging TwinStor and striping the arrays. RAID 10 is available
on the four, eight, and twelve port 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controllers.
Figure 4. RAID 10 Configuration Example
RAID 50
This array is a combination of RAID 5 with RAID 0. This array type provides
fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of six drives.
Several combinations are available with RAID 50. For example, on a 12-port
controller, you can have a grouping of 3, 4, or 6 drives. A grouping of 3 means
that the RAID 5 arrays used have 3 disks each; four of these 3-drive RAID 5
arrays are striped together to form the 12-drive RAID 50 array.
Single Disk
A single drive that has been configured as a unit through 3ware software.
(3BM, 3DM 2, or CLI). Like disks in other RAID configurations, single disks
contain 3ware Disk Control Block (DCB) information and are seen by the OS
as available units.
Single drives are not fault tolerant and therefore not recommended for high
availability systems unless additional precautions are take to prevent system
hangs and data loss.
JBOD
A JBOD is an unconfigured disk attached to your 3ware RAID controller.
JBOD configuration is no longer supported in the 3ware 9000 series. AMCC
recommends that you use Single Disk as a replacement for JBOD, to take
advantage of advanced features such as caching, OCE, and RLM.

Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller
12 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
JBOD units are not fault tolerant and therefore not recommended for high
availability systems unless additional precautions are taken to prevent system
hangs and data loss.
Hot Spare
A single drive, available online, so that a redundant array can be
automatically rebuilt in case of drive failure.
For additional information about RAID levels, see the article “RAID Primer”
on the 3ware website, at: http://www.3ware.com/products/pdf/
RAID_Primer.pdf.
Determining What RAID Level to Use
Select the RAID configuration to use based on the applications to be used on
the system, whether performance or data protection is of primary importance,
and the number of disk drives available for use.
Review the information under “Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels”
on page 8 to determine the type of RAID configuration most appropriate for
your needs and use the tables below to determine what RAID levels are
available, based on your particular controller model and the number of
available drives.
The RAID configurations available to you are determined by the number of
ports on your controller, and the number of drives attached to those ports. You
can configure all drives in one unit, or you can configure multiple units, if you
have enough drives.
Table 2: Possible Configurations Based on Number of Drives
# Drives Possible RAID Configurations
1Single drive or hot spare
2RAID 0 or RAID 1
3RAID 0
RAID 1 with hot spare
RAID 5
4RAID 5 + hot spare
RAID 10
Combination of RAID 0, RAID 1, single disk
5RAID 5 + hot spare
RAID 10 + hot spare
Combination of RAID 0, RAID 1, hot spare, for single disk

Understanding RAID
www.3ware.com 13
Drive Capacity Considerations
The capacity of each drive is limited to the capacity of the smallest drive in
the array. The total array capacity is defined as follows:
Through drive coercion, the capacity used for each drive is rounded down so
that drives from differing manufacturers are more likely to be able to be used
as spares for each other. The capacity used for each drive is rounded down to
the nearest GB for drives under 45 GB (45,000,000,000), and rounded down
to the nearest 5 GBytes for drives over 45 GB. For example, a 44.3 GB drive
will be rounded down to 44 GBytes, and a 123 GB drives will be rounded.
down to 120 GBytes. For more information, see the discussion of drive
coercion under “Creating a Hot Spare” on page 92.
Support for Over 2 Terabytes
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux 2.4, and FreeBSD 4.x, do not currently
recognize unit capacity in excess of 2 TB.
If the combined capacity of the drives to be connected to a unit exceeds 2
Terabytes (TB), you can enable auto-carving when you configure your units.
6 or more RAID 50
Depending on the number of drives, a RAID 50 may contain from
2 to 4 subunits. For example, with 12 drives, possible RAID 50
configurations include 2 subunits of 6, 3 subunits of 4, or 4
subunits of 3. With 10 drives, a RAID 50 will contain 2 subunits of
5 drives each.
Combination of RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, hot spare, and single disk
Table 3: Drive Capacity
RAID Level Capacity
RAID 0 (number of drives) X (capacity of the smallest drive)
RAID 1 capacity of the smallest drive
RAID 5 (number of drives - 1) X (capacity of the smallest drive)
Storage efficiency increases with the number of disks:
storage efficiency = (number of drives -1)/(number of drives)
RAID 10 (number of drives / 2) X (capacity of smallest drive)
RAID 50 (number of drives - number of groups of drives) X (capacity of the
smallest drive)
Table 2: Possible Configurations Based on Number of Drives
# Drives Possible RAID Configurations

Introducing the 3ware 9000 Series Controller
14 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
Auto-carving divides the available unit capacity into multiple chunks of 2 TB
or smaller that can be addressed by the operating systems as separate
volumes.
For more information, see See “Multi LUN Support and Auto-Carving” on
page 79.
3ware Tools for Configuration and
Management
3ware software tools lets you easily configure the drives attached to your
3ware RAID controller, specifying which drives should be used together as a
RAID unit and the type of RAID configuration you want, and designating hot
spares for use if a drive degrades.
3ware provides several tools for use in configuring and managing units
attached to the 3ware controller:
3BM (3ware BIOS Manager)
3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager)
3ware CLI (Command Line Interface)
3BM (3ware BIOS Manager)
3BM is a BIOS level tool for creating, deleting, and maintaining disk arrays,
rebuilding arrays, designating hot spares, and setting controller policies. 3BM
is the tool most frequently used to configure units immediately after
installation of the controller, but can also be used after installation to maintain
the controller and associated drives.
For general information about working with 3BM, see “3ware BIOS Manager
(3BM)” on page 19.
3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager)
3DM is a daemon (under Linux) and a service (under Windows) which runs in
the background on the controller’s host system, and can be accessed through a
web browser to provide ongoing monitoring and administration of the
controller and associated drives. 3DM supports hot spare and hot swap for
redundant units.
3DM can be used locally (on the system that contains the 9000) or remotely
(on a system connected via a network to the system containing the 9000).
For details about working with 3DM, see “3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2)” on
page 27.