Dell PowerVault MD1000 SAS Solution User manual

A Reference Guide for Optimizing the
Dell™ PowerVault™ MD1000 SAS Solution
Authored By:
SAS Solution Team
April, 2006 rev A01

THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL
INACCURACIES THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND
____________________
Information in this document is subject to change without notice
© Copyright 2006 Dell Inc All rights reserved
Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc is strictly forbidden
Dell, the Dell Logo, PowerVault, PowerEdge and OpenManage are trademarks of Dell Inc Microsoft is a
registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this
document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products Dell disclaims
proprietary interest in the marks and names of others

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)....................................................................................................................................................5
2. RECOMMENDED MAINTENANCE FOR YOUR DELL POWERVAULT MD1000 SAS SOLUTION ......................................... 6
3. DELL’S SAS PRODUCT OFFERING ..................................................................................................................................... 7
SAS Cabling............................................................................................................................................................................8
Physical Drive Support ..........................................................................................................................................................8
3rd Party ardware support...................................................................................................................................................9
Server Support........................................................................................................................................................................9
4. POWERVAULT MD1000 STORAGE ENCLOSURE DETAILS................................................................................................ 9
Enclosure Modes.................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Unified Topology....................................................................................................................................................................9
Split Topology.......................................................................................................................................................................10
Daisy-Chaining Multiple PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosures................................................................................10
PowerVault MD1000 – Common Features and Capabilities............................................................................................11
. PERC /E CONTROLLER - DETAILED FEATURES ............................................................................................................1
Considerations when implementing a RAID Solution........................................................................................................15
Controller Features ................................................................................................................................................................................1
Capacity Requirements...........................................................................................................................................................................17
6. DELL OPENMANAGE SERVER ADMINISTRATOR .............................................................................................................19
Managing the PERC 5/E Controller and the PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosure..................................................19
Using the Create Virtual Disk Wizards ...............................................................................................................................19
Reconfiguring Virtual Disks -- RAID Migration and Capacity Expansion.......................................................................20
Moving Physical Disks and Virtual Disk Configurations – Disk Roaming and Disk Migration .....................................21
Importing Migrated Virtual Disks .......................................................................................................................................22
Upgrading from Dell OpenManage Array Manager .........................................................................................................24
7. STORAGE APPLICATIONS AND COMPONENTS..................................................................................................................2
Identify customer usage model and needs...........................................................................................................................25
Picking a solution based on the application profile............................................................................................................26
Application specific guidelines ............................................................................................................................................27
E-Mail Servers ........................................................................................................................................................................................27
Web Servers.............................................................................................................................................................................................28
Database or Online Transaction Processing Servers...........................................................................................................................29
File Servers..............................................................................................................................................................................................30
Streaming Media Servers........................................................................................................................................................................32
ot Spares.............................................................................................................................................................................33
8. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................33
9. APPENDIX – A: REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................3
10. APPENDIX – B: GLOSSARY........................................................................................................................................... 3
11. APPENDIX – D: REVISION HISTORY.............................................................................................................................3

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1. Introduction
A complete enterprise storage solution involves various software and hardware components A
given storage project can be addressed using several approaches Therefore, it is essential to
identify optimum storage solutions for different applications
Selecting the right storage components not only impacts the effectiveness of a given application
but may also improve the performance of the entire IT infrastructure which relies on that storage
See table 1 for examples of key storage components
Table 1: E amples of the components in a typical storage solution
Storage Solution Components Examples
Physical Storage Device Technology Storage Expansion Enclosure (e g , PowerVault
MD1000)
Interconnect Technology 3 Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
Host System Interface Technology Non-RAID (HBA) or RAID controllers (e g PowerEdge
Expandable Raid Controller)
Management Capabilities Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
As with many IT solutions, storage deployments can be assessed using numerous criteria, each
with varying levels of importance In general, the effectiveness of a given storage solution should
be measured using the following attributes:
• Reliability – The solution remains functional and ensures that data is unaltered
• Availability – Data remains accessible by the application
• Serviceability – The hardware has easy access to assemblies/components, allowing easy
maintenance and replacement
• Redundancy – The hardware provides redundancy for both the data storage, as well as
for the hardware management capabilities
• Performance
o Bandwidth Utilization – Data throughput / available Bandwidth
o IOPS – I/Os per second
• Data Protection – Data is protected against catastrophic system failure or components
failure
• Scalability – Storage capacity can be expanded as the application necessitates
• Cost – Measured in total lifetime cost, acquisition cost, or $ per Gigabyte
An optimal storage solution addresses all key attributes to a greater or lesser extent depending on
their relative importance This paper presents a study of the technological, functional and
behavioral differences of the storage solution components and measures them against the
attributes listed above Understanding each component with respect to these attributes will help in
making informed decisions about the optimal solution for a given storage application

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The paper presumes that the reader has a basic understanding of different RAID levels and
interconnect technologies – such as Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and PCI Express In this paper,
we will focus on Serial Attached SCSI storage technology, specifically for Dell’s PowerVault
MD1000 storage expansion enclosure and Dell’s PERC 5/E RAID controller Other storage
technologies such as SCSI or Fibre Channel, as well as topologies such as Network Attached
Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN) are outside the scope of this document All storage
applications will be treated independent of any specific host system or server
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
The SCSI (Small Computing System Interface) protocol originated more than 20 years ago and is
used in the majority of server storage needs (e g storage that is internal to a server or physically
connected to a server in an external disk expansion enclosure) The market prevalence of SCSI
has created economies of scale making it one of the most affordable storage interconnect
technologies available today Many businesses rely on SCSI physical disks to help deliver
extremely cost-effective and reliable storage In fact, SCSI physical disks have advanced over the
years offering increased performance and more sophisticated features with each iteration
However, given the inherent limitations of its parallel architecture, the current version of SCSI
physical disks, U320 or Ultra320, will be the last version of the traditional SCSI technology
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a major iteration of SCSI technology and introduces a host of
benefits when compared to older SCSI technology including,
Dramatic improvement in bandwidth performance
• The first generation of SAS will support 3 0 Gbps (or 300 MB/sec) per “lane”
• Ultra320 SCSI is the shared-bus architecture SAS introduces a point to point topology
enabling systems with many physical disks to scale bandwidth far beyond the bandwidth
capacity of Ultra320 SCSI
Figure 1: Parallel U320 SCSI bus versus point to point Serial Attached SCSI connection
• SAS introduces the concept of port aggregation to storage interconnects External storage
devices can connect via a x4 (“by four”)wide-lane Cabling aggregates four SAS lanes, each
operating at 3 0 Gbps, for a full external connection bandwidth of up to 12 0 Gbps on a single
connector
Up to 3.0 Gbps per link
Up to320 MBps

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Figure 2: Bandwidth improvement with SAS port aggregation
Improved capacity scalability
• SAS allows for port expansion, enabling the ability to “daisy-chain” storage enclosures for
dramatic improvements in capacity scalability With Ultra320 SCSI, systems were limited to a
maximum of 16 devices on a single SCSI channel This typically translated to maximum of 14
physical disks connected to a single SCSI channel on a RAID controller With SAS expansion,
a single SAS port can be expanded out to multiple SAS devices (similar to how Ethernet hubs
can expand a single Ethernet connection into multiple devices)
Other important changes to keep in mind about SAS:
• SAS continues to use the SCSI command sets for driver & software compatibility
• SAS is not backwards compatible with Parallel SCSI
. Recommended Maintenance for your Dell PowerVault MD1000 SAS Solution
Dell strives to provide the best possible customer experience for all of our enterprise server and
storage products Proper maintenance of your solution is essential to help ensure that the
equipment remains in optimal working condition Dell recommends the following suggested
maintenance activities
Keep firmware/drivers/utilities up to date
In general, Dell posts planned maintenance updates for firmware twice a year To stay current
with the latest updates, customers can subscribe to Dell notification tools Click the following link
to sign up for technical updates
One parallel SCSI cable
Up to 320MB s
performance
One
x4
SAS cable
Up to 12.0 Gbps performance

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http://support dell com/support/topics/global aspx/support/notifications/en/index?c=us&l=en&s
=gen
Enable Background Read Patrol
Background Read Patrol, a function of the RAID controller, is an automatically scheduled
background task that scans and helps resolve possible physical disk errors that may lead to
physical disk failure and result in data integrity issues Dell recommends implementing Background
Read Patrol in all configurations
See section 5 for details
Schedule and run periodic consistency checks / Background Initialization (BGI)
Consistency checks / BGI are performed by many RAID controllers to verify that all stripes in a
redundant virtual disk are consistent and to automatically correct stripes where inconsistencies are
found BGI is a consistency check that automatically runs on all redundant arrays Depending on
workload, Dell recommends that consistency checks should be run manually on the virtual disks at
least once every month to help ensure data integrity Consistency checks and Background Read
Patrol are complementary and both should be used
See section 5 for details
Enable Hot Spares
Hot spare functionality provides extra security, availability and redundancy by automatically
replacing a failed disk in a RAID group and allowing the rebuild of the degraded array to begin
immediately Dell PERC controllers support Hot Spare functionality and it is recommended
whenever possible
See section 5 for details
Document your configuration and keep the documentation current
Documenting your configuration facilitates faster and easier recovery should a failure occur Make
sure to include RAID levels, physical disks included in your virtual disks, firmware and driver
versions and usage of hot spares in your documentation
Perform periodic physical inspection of your connections and cabling
Damaged cables and loose connections may cause functional issues with your storage solution
Dell recommends a physical equipment audit two times a year or anytime after re-cabling or re-
deploying your storage hardware
3. Dell’s SAS Product Offering
The PowerVault MD1000 is a feature-optimized storage expansion enclosure which utilizes the
latest industry standard storage interconnect technology, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) This 3U
enclosure supports between 2 and 15 physical SAS drives Along with Dell’s host-based RAID
controller, PERC 5/E, the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure introduces new levels of
performance, capacity, and scalability Major features of the PowerVault MD1000 and PERC 5/E
solution include:

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Performance
• Support for 3 0 Gbps SAS physical disks (both 10,000 and 15,000 RPM)
• External cable supports a SAS x4 wide-lane to achieve a total interface bandwidth of up to
12 0 Gbps connection to the host controller
• Host interconnect with the PERC 5/E host-based controller
• Support for RAID level 0
Availability
• Support for RAID levels 1, 5, 10 and 50
• Redundant, hot pluggable power supplies with integrated cooling fan modules
• Redundant enclosure management modules (EMMs)
• Hot pluggable physical disks
Scalability/E pandability
• Support for daisy-chaining up to three PowerVault MD1000 expansion enclosures per PERC
5/E connection
• Supports between 2 and 15 physical SAS drives
• Supports 36GB, 73GB, 146GB, and 300 GB 3 5-inch SAS physical disks
Ease-of-Use
• Common management software with PowerEdge™ servers through Dell OpenManage Server
Administrator
PERC 5/E is the RAID controller used to connect the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure to
one or two PowerEdge servers It supports 3 Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) as the storage
interconnect technology and PCI Express (PCI-E) as the host-based interconnect technology The
“E” in PERC 5/E stands for “External” because the PERC 5/E controller supports only physical
disks that attach to a server externally
The PERC 5/E controller offers:
• Intel IOP333 I/O processor based on Intel XScale Microarchitecture
• 256MB of customized DDR2 400MHz, Error-Correcting Code (ECC) cache memory
• 3 Gbps maximum speed for each SAS lane
• Two external x4 (“by four”) SAS ports, each aggregating 4 SAS lanes for a total bandwidth per
port of 12 0 Gbps
• x8 PCI E host interface for a total bandwidth of 32 0 Gbps
• Up to 72 hours of intelligent, transportable, battery-backed, cache memory
For detailed information on the PERC 5/E controller, see section 6
SAS Cabling
The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure and the PERC 5/E controller both support industry
standard 3 0 Gbps SAS cables in 1m, 2m, and 4m cable lengths Each cable supports x4 SAS
connectors to deliver up to 12 0 Gbps of total bandwidth from the host to the enclosure Only Dell-
qualified cables are supported for connecting the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure to the
PERC 5/E controller
Physical Drive Support
The PowerVault MD1000 storage expansion enclosure supports the latest SAS physical disks,
currently specified as 3 0 Gbps SAS SAS solutions from Dell include both 10,000 RPM and
15,000 RPM spindle speeds and a variety of capacities to allow customers the maximum flexibility

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For the latest information on support for specific physical disks, see the Dell Storage web site at:
http://www us dell com/storage/
3
rd
Party Hardware support
To help provide the best possible customer experience, Dell supports only hardware purchased
direct from Dell for the PowerVault MD1000 and PERC 5/E controller Dell-developed server and
storage solutions include many thousands of person-hours of engineering testing and validation to
help ensure the highest product quality For example, physical disks purchased direct from Dell
may include features not generally available to the rest of the industry As such, Dell supports only
Dell tested and qualified hardware Hardware purchased direct from Dell carries the full Dell
system limited warranty1 and helps ensure full compatibility Materials purchased from 3rd party
vendors for use in Dell systems are not covered under Dell’s limited warranty and may not deliver
an acceptable customer experience
Server Support
The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure and PERC 5/E solution are supported on the
PowerEdge 1850, 2850, 6800, and 6850 servers
4. PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosure Details
Enclosure Modes
The enclosure can be set to either unified or split mode through the use of a two-position switch
located on the front panel of the enclosure The enclosure can be configured into the selected
mode only at power up Any changes to the mode switch made while the enclosure is powered on
will not take effect until the enclosure is powered off and back on again
Note: Any time you power on the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure, ensure the mode switch
is set in the desired position If the position of the switch changes inadvertently, data loss could
occur as the controller may recognize an inaccurate number of attached physical disks versus the
previous mode In order to cycle power on your MD1000, all attached servers, must be turned off
Unified Topology
In unified mode, a single server has access to all fifteen physical disks in the PowerVault MD1000
storage enclosure through a single SAS cable The unified mode can also provide a single server
access to a maximum of forty five physical disks by daisy-chaining up to three enclosures from a
single host port The main advantage of unified mode is that it provides a high degree of physical
disk scalability
1
For a copy of our guarantees or limited warranties, please write Dell USA L P , Attn: Warranties, One Dell Way, Round
Rock, TX 78682 For more information, visit www dell com/warranty

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Split Topology
In split mode, the enclosure is divided into two logical enclosures; with each host connection
accessing its own set of physical disks The primary Enclosure Management Module (EMM)
(located on the left side of the enclosure when viewed from the rear), accesses physical disk slots
7 through 14 The secondary EMM accesses physical disk slots 0 through 6 To connect a server
to an enclosure in split mode, the In port of each EMM should be attached to a connector of a
PERC 5/E controller The Out port of an EMM in split mode is disabled, since enclosure daisy-
chaining is not supported in this mode
Split mode is useful in deployments where a single PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure help
provide limited amounts of storage each for two different servers
Note: In split mode, each host server can see its own physical disks (e g drive , physical disk 0 – 6
or 7 – 14) but not the other server’s physical disks
Note: Split mode does not support daisy-chaining
Note: A system with a single EMM set in split mode will function properly, but the server will only
be able to see the physical disks that are connected to the EMM
Dual Hosts
Figure 3: Split mode configuration
Daisy-Chaining Multiple PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosures
In unified mode, up to three enclosures may be daisy-chained together from a single PERC 5/E
controller port A maximum of six PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosures (3 enclosures per port)
may be connected to a single PERC 5/E controller (Note: Although this is a supported
configuration, one should consider total solution availability before attaching this quantity of storage
to a single-controller solution ) When connecting multiple enclosures, the first enclosure is
connected to the PERC 5/E controller via the In port of the primary EMM The second enclosure is
connected from the Out port of the primary EMM on the first enclosure to the In port of the primary
EMM on the second enclosure The connection is made with a standard SAS cable The third
enclosure is connected in the same manner as the second enclosure

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Figure 4: Ma configuration on a single PERC 5/E controller port
Figure 5: Ma configuration on a single PERC 5/E controller (both ports connected)
PowerVault MD1000 – Common Features and Capabilities
Regardless of the topology, the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure provides a set of common
features and capabilities
World Wide Name (WWN) Assignment
The SAS standard requires that all devices on a SAS domain have a unique address, called a
World Wide Name or WWN The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure complies with the SAS
standard For more information on WWN assignment, please refer to the SAS Specification
referenced in Appendix A

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Mixing Physical Disk Capacities
By supporting the mixing of physical disk of different sizes within an enclosure, the PowerVault
MD1000 storage enclosure enables optimal matching of physical disk type to the requirements of
multiple applications Mixing of physical disk sizes is supported but not recommended within a
single RAID group The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure supports 36 GB, 73 GB, 146 GB,
and 300 GB capacities for SAS When operating in a RAID configuration, the lowest capacity
physical disk defines the RAID virtual disk size For example, a RAID 1 configuration with two
different sized physical disks, one 36 GB and another 146 GB physical disk, will be limited to 36
GB If the same two physical disks were configured in RAID 0 configuration, the virtual disk size
would be limited to 73 GB (the equivalent of two 36 GB physical disks in RAID 0 configuration)
Mixing Physical Disk Spindle Speeds
Mixing different physical disk spindle speeds is supported, but not recommended within a single
RAID group The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure supports 10,000 and 15,000 RPM
spindle speeds Depending upon the RAID configuration, the lowest spindle speed may dictate the
maximum performance of the RAID group
SCSI Enclosure Services (SES)
The EMM continuously monitors environmental variables such as temperature and voltage The
PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure works in conjunction with Dell OpenManage Server
Administrator to set trigger thresholds that warn the user when these variables exceed safe
operating levels The enclosure will automatically power down when these environmental variables
exceed a critical threshold level in order to avoid potential equipment damage Both local visual
indicators (e g LEDs) and audio alerts are triggered when faults are detected The audio alerts on
the enclosure are disabled by default, but can be enabled using Server Administrator The
following SES functions are provided by the EMMs in the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure:
• Enclosure shelf faults detection
• Physical disk Power/Fault/Offline status
• Power supply status and shutdown capabilities
• Fan speed status and control
• Temperature monitoring
• Over/under temperature shutdown capabilities
• Alarms (local audible and visual LED indicators)
Hot Plugging
• The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure is designed for hot plugging certain
components to help prevent damage when pulling or replacing Hot plugging is a concept
which allows for the safe removal and replacement of components while the power is still
on Hot plugging allows server applications and disk activities to continue uninterrupted,
while maintenance or repair actions take place Additional steps may be required for
physical disks to become usable See the RAID controller User’s Guide for more
information
• Hot Pluggable Devices
o Physical disk (all Disk I/O activities must be halted first)
o Power supply module/ cooling fan module
Note: Hot plugging of SAS cables is not supported

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External SAS Cables
Depending on the enclosure topology, one or two external SAS cables may be attached between
the host system(s) and the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure SAS cables use four active 3
Gbps SAS lanes in a single cable to deliver an aggregate of 12 0 Gbps connection All PowerVault
MD1000 SAS cables purchased from Dell have been tested and comply with the ANSI SAS 1 0
standard Dell supports using only Dell-provided cables
External SAS Connector Types
SAS uses a 25-pin connector whose specification is governed by the SFF-8470 specification For
more information, refer to the specification referenced in Appendix A
Regardless of the topology, the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure also provides some
common capabilities as listed below:
Redundancy Capabilities
• Management Redundancy
With two EMMs installed, the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure’s internal enclosure
functions on the PowerVault MD1000, such as temperature regulation, LED control, and
alarm control, are maintained in the event of an EMM failure However, even with dual
EMMs installed, enclosure status will not be reported to the host in the event of an EMM
failure
• Power Supply and Cooling Redundancy
The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure requires that both power supplies be installed
for normal operation The system can operate using a single power supply for a limited
time in the event a power supply fails or is removed for service
The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure provides four individually controlled fans, two
installed in each power supply The unit is thermally designed to continue operating in the
event of one fan blower failure (3+1 cooling redundancy) In the event of a fan failure, the
power supply containing the failed fan must be replaced

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Reliability Capabilities
• Thermal Reliability
A fully-redundant PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure contains four digital temperature
sensors, two on the backplane and one on each EMM In conjunction with the SES
processor, the temperature sensors provide device protection against adverse thermal
conditions The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure is designed to operate within an
ambient temperature range of 10°C (50°F) to 35°C (95°F) When either of the backplane
sensors detects temperature below 3°C (37 4°F) or above 55°C (131°F), the SES
processor notifies the host of a critical temperature situation This triggers the host to
perform a graceful shutdown of the enclosure within three minutes In the event that the
host is unable to initiate the enclosure shutdown process or a host is not connected to the
enclosure, the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure has an embedded thermal
shutdown feature This is activated by the SES processor in either of the following cases:
o Either of the backplane temperature sensors detects temperature below -2°C
(28 4°F) or above 60°C (140°F)
o Temperature sensor on an EMM detects temperatures below -2°C (28 4°F) or
above 65°C (149°F)
The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure shuts down within 5 seconds of the activation
of an embedded thermal shutdown
PowerVault MD1000 Serviceability Capabilities
• All the major PowerVault MD1000 components are easily accessible and replaceable
even when in a rack
• The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure is equipped with LED indicators for visual
status reporting on the status of internal components
• The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure’s audible alarm notifies users of critical/non-
critical status (for details, see PowerVault MD1000 Hardware Owners Manual) Status is
also reported to the host system’s management tool, Server Administrator (for details, see
the OpenManage User’s Guide )

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5. PERC 5/E Controller - Detailed Features
PERC 5/E is the RAID controller used to connect the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure with
PowerEdge servers It supports 3 Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) as the storage interconnect
technology and PCI -E as the host-based interconnect technology PERC 5/E controller supports
RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10 and 50
Considerations when implementing a RAID Solution
The selection of a RAID solution in any environment is governed by several aspects including
controller and capacity requirements Each of these factors is discussed in detail in the following
sections
Controller Features
The Server Administrator is the recommended application for configuring and managing the
PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure Apart from the Server Administrator software, the BIOS
configuration utility (<CTRL> <R>) may be used to perform pre-OS configuration and fault
recovery Some of the key features of the PERC 5/E controller are listed here:
• Virtual Disk Initialization
PERC 5/E controller is capable of performing initialization on the virtual disk(s) by either
writing 0’s to a portion of the physical disk (fast initialization) or to the entire physical disk
(full initialization) Full initialization guarantees that any legacy data is cleared and all
sectors are healthy
• Background Patrol Read
Background Patrol Read is an automatically scheduled background task that scans and
resolves possible physical disk errors that may lead to physical disk failure and result in
data integrity issues Dell recommends implementing Background Patrol Read in all the
configurations
• Consistency Check/Background Initialization (BGI)
Consistency checks / BGI are performed by PERC 5/E controller to verify that all stripes in
a redundant virtual disk are consistent and to automatically correct stripes where
inconsistencies are found BGI is a consistency check that automatically runs on all
redundant arrays Depending on workload, Dell recommends that consistency checks are
run manually on virtual disks at least once every month to ensure data integrity Running a
consistency check is complement to running Patrol Read and both should be used

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• RAID Level Migration
Changing the RAID level of a virtual disk from the existing level (e g RAID 1) to another
level (e g RAID 5) is called RAID level migration Dell recommends that data in the virtual
disk be backed up before a RAID level migration is initiated Dell also strongly
recommends that the size of the physical disks to which the RAID level is to be migrated is
greater than or equal to the size of the physical disks in the existing virtual disk Dell
supports RAID level migration as follows:
RAID 1 to RAID 0
RAID 0 to RAID 1
RAID 5 to RAID 0
RAID 0 to RAID 5
RAID 1 to RAID 5
• Capacity E pansion
Expanding the capacity of a virtual disk by adding another physical disk is called
capacity expansion Dell supports capacity expansion on all the supported RAID levels
except RAID 1 Dell recommends that the data in the virtual disk be backed up before
capacity expansion is initiated For more details on capacity expansion, see the Dell
PERC 5/E User’s Guide
• Controller Write Cache Policy Options
Write–Back Caching
In write-back caching, data transfer is completed when the controller cache receives all
data from host for the write transaction Write-back caching is faster than write through
caching The main advantage of write-back caching is improved performance since the
controller does not have to wait for an acknowledgement from the physical disk before
proceeding The battery backup unit for the controller is required to enable write-back
caching For more details on write-back caching, see the Dell PERC 5/E User’s Guide
Write-Through Caching
In write-through caching, a data transfer is completed when the disk subsystem receives
all of the data from the host Write-through caching provides additional security because
data must be committed to the physical disk before proceeding There may be a minimal
performance impact since the controller must wait for the physical disk to return a good
status to the controller before proceeding to the next operation
• Hot Spare Support
When a physical disk is assigned to a virtual disk as a hot spare, the PERC 5/E controller
will automatically rebuild the virtual disk using the hot spare in the event of a failed physical
disk This restores the virtual disk to optimal redundancy The hot spare disk must be
equal to or greater than the largest physical disk size within any of the virtual disks Dell
recommends assigning hot spares to redundant virtual disks only, (i e RAID 1, RAID 5,
RAID 10 and RAID 50 )
Global Hot Spare

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A global hot spare is a backup physical disk capable of replacing a failed physical disk in
any virtual disk on PERC 5/E controller The capacity of a global hot spare should be
greater than or equal to the largest physical disk in all the disk groups
Dedicated Hot Spare
A dedicated hot spare is a backup physical disk capable of replacing a failed physical disk
in a specific PERC 5/E virtual disk The capacity of a dedicated hot spare should be
greater than or equal to the largest physical disk in the virtual disk to which it is assigned
Dell recommends assigning dedicated hot spares to all business critical virtual disks
• Disk Roaming
Disk roaming is initiated when the physical disks are changed to different ports on the
same controller The physical disk roaming feature will detect the RAID configuration
from the configuration metadata residing on the physical disk
• Rebuild
The process of restoring the redundancy of a RAID 1, 5, 10 or 50 virtual disk is called
rebuilding The rebuilding process can be initiated manually or automatically Dell
recommends choosing the automatic rebuild option to prevent running in the degraded
mode for an extended period of time
• Mi ed-Size Physical Disk Within RAID 10 or RAID 50
When mixing physical disk sizes in RAID 10 or RAID 50, the controller will not coerce the
larger virtual disks to match the size of the smallest virtual disk PERC 5/E controller will
stripe across all disks until the smallest one is full, then it will continue to stripe across the
remaining disks until the next one is full, and so on until all the available space is used
This process can impact performance as the array fills up, since the numbers of stripes
decreases as disks fill up
Capacity Requirements
The PERC 5/E controller supports up to sixty four virtual disks simultaneously of which each
virtual disk can contain up to thirty two physical disks The maximum number of total virtual
disks that can be supported on each physical disk is sixteen PERC 5 controllers support
virtual disks greater than 2 TB in size, but Dell recommends checking the capacity of the
operating systems to support boot volumes of that capacity
http://www microsoft com/windowsserversystem/storage/getstorfacts mspx
http://www dell com/downloads/global/vectors/2004_2tblun pdf

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Table 2: PERC 5/E controller features
Feature Comment
SAS Technology 3Gbps
Host Bus Interface x8 PCI Express
Internal connectors N/A
External Connectors 2
RAID Levels Supported 0, 1, 5, 10, 50
Cache Size (DIMM) 256MB DDR2
Write Cache Options Write-Through, Write-Back
Read Cache Options Read-Ahead, No Read Ahead
BBU Battery Life Up to 72 hours
Maximum Number of Virtual
Disks Controller 64
Maximum Number of
Physical Drives Virtual Disk 32
Form Factor Full Height, Half-Length PCI
Adapter card
I/O Processor (IOP) Intel IOP333

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6. Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
Dell OpenManage Server Administrator is a management application for configuring PowerEdge
servers The Server Administrator’s configuration abilities for host-based RAID and non-RAID disk
storage are of particular interest for this paper The Server Administrator enables you to perform
controller and enclosure functions from a single, graphical or command line interface The
graphical user interface (GUI) is wizard-driven with features for novice and advanced users and
detailed online help The command line interface is fully-featured and scriptable
The Server Administrator provides SAS support with the PERC 5/E controller and the PowerVault
MD1000 storage enclosure Server Administrator also supports the SCSI and ATA technologies
Managing the PERC 5/E Controller and the PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosure
After installing Server Administrator, the user can expand the storage object in the tree view to
display the storage components attached to the system These components include supported
controllers and enclosures, virtual disks, physical disks, and the connectors (SAS ports and/or
SCSI channels) that comprise the topography of all attached storage
The PERC 5/E controller and the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure are represented in
Server Administrator’s tree view You can select the PERC 5/E object and the PowerVault MD1000
object to display the status and to provide access to PERC 5/E controller and PowerVault storage
enclosure tasks
Using the Create Virtual Disk Wizards
You can create virtual disks using either Server Administrator’s Create Virtual Disk E press or the
Create Virtual Disk Advanced wizard These wizards enable you to quickly configure virtual disk
attributes, such as the RAID level, size, and physical disk selection
The E press wizard displays the RAID levels supported by the controller and enables you to select
the desired RAID level and the disk size for your virtual disk After you select the RAID level, the
E press wizard selects an appropriate physical disk given the size of the physical disks and the
available disk space The E press wizard displays the physical disks it has selected so that you
can confirm the selection before creating the virtual disk
The Advanced wizard allows you to select physical disks and specify additional virtual disk
properties such as the read, write, and cache policies

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Figure 6: Screenshot of Create Virtual Disk Advanced Wizard with Disk Selection Displayed
The Create Virtual Disk E press and Create Virtual Disk Advanced wizards set the virtual disk
initialization to “Fast Initialize” by default After completing the creation of a virtual disk using the
Express or Advanced wizard, the PERC 5/E controller implements the virtual disk configuration on
the selected physical disks and completes a fast initialize
Reconfiguring Virtual Disks -- RAID Migration and Capacity Expansion
Server Administrator supports RAID migration and capacity expansion with the Reconfigure Virtual
Disk wizard This wizard enables you to change a virtual disk’s RAID level or increase its size by
adding one or more physical disks
The possibilities for reconfiguring a virtual disk depend on the capabilities of the RAID controller,
the existing RAID level, and the available physical disks The following table describes the possible
reconfiguration scenarios on the PERC 5/E controller