HighPoint RocketRAID 4500 Series User manual

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RocketRAID 4500 Series
SAS/SATA 6Gb/s RAID Host Adapters
User’s Guide
Revision: 1.0
Oct. 22, 2012
HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

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Copyright
Copyright © 2012 HighPoint Technologies, Inc. This document contains materials protected by
International Copyright Laws. All rights reserved. No part of this manual may be reproduced, transmitted
or transcribed in any form and for any purpose without the express written permission of HighPoint
Technologies, Inc.
Trademarks
Companies and products mentioned in this manual are for identification purpose only. Product names or
brand names appearing in this manual may or may not be registered trademarks or copyrights of their
respective owners. Backup your important data before using HighPoint's products and use at your own
risk. In no event shall HighPoint be liable for any loss of profits, or for direct, indirect, special, incidental or
consequential damages arising from any defect or error in HighPoint's products or manuals. Information
in this manual is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of
HighPoint.
Notice
Reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information in this manual is accurate. HighPoint
assumes no liability for technical inaccuracies, typographical, or other errors contained herein.

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Table of Contents
1 Features and Specifications ................................................................................................................... 4
2 Physical Specifications........................................................................................................................... 6
3 Kit Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 7
4 Hardware Description and Installation.................................................................................................. 8
4.1 RocketRAID 4522 / 4520 Host Adapter board layout .................................................................... 8
4.2 Connector and Jumper description ............................................................................................... 8
4.3 Installing the RocketRAID 4500 Host Adapter ............................................................................... 9
4.4 Verifying Installation..................................................................................................................... 9
5 RocketRAID 4500 BIOS Utility.............................................................................................................. 10
5.1 BIOS Settings Overview............................................................................................................... 10
5.2 Using the BIOS Utility.................................................................................................................. 10
5.3 BIOS Commands ......................................................................................................................... 11
5.4 Creating RAID Arrays................................................................................................................... 11
5.5 Deleting Arrays ...........................................................................................................................18
5.6 Adding/Remove Spare Disks ....................................................................................................... 18
5.7 Settings....................................................................................................................................... 19
5.8 View ........................................................................................................................................... 21
6 RocketRAID 4500 Driver Installation ................................................................................................... 24
6.1 Driver installation - Microsoft Windows...................................................................................... 24
6.2 Driver installation -Linux and FreeBSD ........................................................................................ 31
7 HighPoint Web RAID Management Software ...................................................................................... 32
7.1 Installing the Web RAID Management Software - Microsoft Windows........................................ 32
7.2 Installing the Web RAID Management Software - Linux .............................................................. 36
7.3 Starting Using the Web RAID Management Software.................................................................. 36
8 Firmware Update ................................................................................................................................ 37
9 Thank You ........................................................................................................................................... 38
10 Customer Support ............................................................................................................................. 39

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HighPoint RocketRAID 4500 PCI-Express 2.0 x8 HBA series
The RocketRAID 4500 series, HighPoint's newest class of 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID HBA's, were designed to
meet the demanding requirements of professional business and media applications, where consistent
performance, data availability and reliability of storage are paramount.
RocketRAID 4500 RAID-on-Chip HBA's are optimized for I/O intensive storage configurations. The
dedicated processor and 512MB of onboard DDR3 cache memory offloads RAID processing from the host
system, ensuring stable and high-performance data transfer. HighPoint's comprehensive storage
Management Suite delivers superior monitoring, maintenance and recovery features to secure critical
data investments against hardware failure.
HighPoint RAID Management HighPoint RAID Management software offers a user friendly interface to
create, manage and maintain your storage solutions. Email notification and remote are some of the
advance features that the RAID Management software has to offer.
1 Features and Specifications
Hardware Specifications
Marvell 88RC9580 RAID-on-Chip Processor
512MB DDR 3 Cache memory with ECC protection
Optional Battery Backup Module (HPTBBU-05)
Up to 6Gb/s per port
8 6Gb/s SAS & SATA ports
PCI Express 2.0 x8 speed
Dual Mini-SAS connectors
Alarm Buzzer
Up to 128 SATA / SAS devices via SAS Expander
SAS Expander support
Backward Compatible with HighPoint RAID HBA
Low Profile
RoHS complaint
Monitor, Alerts and LED Indicators
Hard Drive LED Indicators (Activity and Failed)
SMTP email notification for events and error reporting
Alarm/Buzzer alerts for drive/array failure
SAF-TE (I2C) and SGPIO enclosure management
Advanced RAID Features
RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, JBOD
Redundant RAID Configuration for Array availability
RAID Initialization Types - Background, Foreground and Quick
Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
Online RAID Level Migration (ORLM)
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
Staggered Drive Spin Up
Spin Down Idle Disk
Enhanced data protection with Write Journaling feature
NVRAM keeps tracks I/O transaction logs
S.M.A.R.T Support
Auto Rebuild on spare drive

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HotPlug and HotSwap support
Larger than 2 TB drive support
Bootable RAID Array support
Write Back or Write Through Cache support
User friendly Browser-based Management Interface
Easy to use BIOS configuration Tool
Linux Command Line Interface (CLI)-Scriptable configuration tool
Hot key (ctrl-h) boot-up RAID manager via BIOS
Web browser-based RAID management software (Web GUI)
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Operating System Support
Windows Server 2003, 2007, 2008, Vista, 7, 8
Major Linux Distributions
FreeBSD

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2 Physical Specifications
Dimensions:
Size: 167mm x 68mm x 19mm
EMI: FCC Part 15 Class B and CE
Thermal and Atmospheric Characteristics:
Work Temperature Range: +5°C ~ + 55°C
Relative Humidity Range: 5% ~ 60% non-condensing
Storage Temperature: -20°C ~ +80°C
MTBF: 920,585 Hours
Electrical Characteristics:
PCI-E
3.3V
12V
Power
4W max
1W max

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3 Kit Contents
RocketRAID 4522 HBA / RocketRAID 4520 HBA
Quick Installation Guide
HighPoint Software CD
Low-Profile Bracket
Two mini-SAS cables (SFF-8087 to 4* SATA) (RocketRAID 4520 only)

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4 Hardware Description and Installation
4.1 RocketRAID 4522 / 4520 Host Adapter board layout
4.2 Connector and Jumper description
Connector / Jumper description
RocketRAID 4520
RocketRAID 4522
J9
I2C connector
J6
BBU connector
A1, A2
Active LED PIN
N/A
F1, F2
Fail LED PIN
N/A
PORT1, PORT2
Mini-SAS Port (SFF-8087)
Mini-SAS Port (SFF-8088)
Active/FAIL LED PIN connector:
The LED connectors are designed for use with server chassis and backplanes. For more information,
please download the LED connection guide:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/LED_connection.pdf
BBU connector:
RocketRAID 4522
RocketRAID 4520

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This connector is for the optional battery backup unit (HPTBBU-05).
4.3 Installing the RocketRAID 4500 Host Adapter
Note: Make sure the system is powered-off before installing the RocketRAID host adapter.
The RocketRAID 4500 includes both standard and low-profile brackets. It may be necessary to attach the
low-profile bracket in place of the standard bracket, depending upon the chassis design.
1. Open the system chassis and locate an unused PCI-E (2.0 or 1.0) ×8 (or x16) slot.
2. Remove the PCI-E slot cover.
3. Gently insert the RocketRAID 4500 into the PCI-E slot, and secure the bracket to the system chassis.
4. After installing the adapter, attach the hard disks or backplane enclosure to the host adapter using the
mini-SAS cables.
Note: Many server-level chassis include hard-drive hot-swap bays. For these system chassis, cables
are attached to the chassis backplane, rather than directly to each individual hard drive. Consult the
chassis manual for proper installation procedures.
5. Close and secure the system chassis.
4.4 Verifying Installation
Once the host adapter and hard drives have been installed into the chassis, boot-up the system to verify
that the hardware is properly recognized.
1. Power on the system. If the system detects the presence of the adapter, the RocketRAID BIOS Utility
will be displayed during boot up.
2. Press “Ctrl+H” key combination to access the RocketRAID 4500 adapter’s BIOS Utility.

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5 RocketRAID 4500 BIOS Utility
The RocketRAID 4500 controller will display its BIOS screen during the system's boot process. The BIOS
Utility will display information about hard drives attached to the adapter. Make sure all attached drives
are detected by this utility. If any of the hard drives are not detected, power down the system and check
the power and cable connections.
Press “Ctrl+H” key combination to access the RocketRAID 4500 adapter’s BIOS Utility.
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5.1 BIOS Settings Overview
The RocketRAID 4500 controller BIOS utility is an interface that provides management commands and
controller related settings.
(We use the BIOS Interface of RocketRAID 4522 as example. The RocketRAID 4520’s is the same as
RocketRAID 4522.)
5.2 Using the BIOS Utility
The following keys utilized by the RocketRAID 4500 BIOS utility:
Arrow keys –Use these to move between different menu items.
Enter –Open the selected toolbar command/execute the selected command.
Esc –Move back to the previous menu, cancel the selected operation, or exit the BIOS Utility.

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5.3 BIOS Commands
Create –This command is used to open the RAID Creation menu.
Delete –This command will delete the selected RAID array.
Add/Remove Spare –This command is used to assign hard disks to function as spare disks. The controller
is capable of using spare disks to automatically rebuild broken or faulted RAID arrays.
Settings –This command opens the settings menu (To selecting the boot disk/array, staggered drive
spinup etc.)
View –This command is used to view hard disk and RAID information.
Initialize –This command is used to prepare disks for use with RAID arrays. Disks must be initialized
before they can be used to create arrays.
5.4 Creating RAID Arrays
Initializing Disks:
Before creating a RAID array, the disks must be initialized. Disk initialization writes necessary RAID
configuration information to the hard disks. Select the Initialize command from the toolbar, and press
Enter key.

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Highlight the target disks using the arrow keys, then press the Enter key. A numeral will be displayed
before each selected disk. Once all target disks have been selected, press ESC key. The utility will display a
warning, and ask you to press Y (yes) to initialize, or N (no) to cancel. Once initialized, these disks can be
used to create RAID arrays. These disks will be displayed as “Initialized” (under Status).
Warning: Initialization will destroy all pre- existing data on the selected hard disks. Only initialize
disks that do not contain critical data.

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Create Arrays:
Select Create from the toolbar and press Enter key.
1. Use the arrow keys to select the RAID level and press Enter key.
2. Use the arrow keys to highlight the Array Name option and press Enter key. The array name dialogue
box will appear. Use the keyboard to input a new Array Name, and press the Enter key.
Note: the Array Name command is optional –it is not necessary to name the array. The array can be
named at a later time, and the name of the array can be changed at any time.

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3. On the Create menu, use the arrow keys to highlight the Select Devices item and press Enter key. A
device list will appear, and display all available hard disk drives.
4. Highlight the target disks that you want to use, and press Enter key to select them. A numeral will be
displayed before each selected disk. This number designates disk order. After all of the disks have
been selected and press the ESC key to return to the Create Menu.
5. Next, Use the ↓ arrow key to highlight the Capacity (GB) option and press Enter key. The total
available capacity will be displayed. Press Enter key if you wish to use all available space. If you wish to
reserve disk space for additional arrays/single disks, use the keyboard to input the amount of space (in
GB) you wish to set aside for this particular array, and press Enter key.
Note: Multiple arrays can be created using the same set of hard disk drives. The Capacity option
allows you to set aside disk space that be used to create another array, set as a spare disk, or
partitioned to act as a single disk (by the operating system).

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6. For redundant RAID arrays (RAID 1, 5, 10), select the Cache Policy:
Write Back –Provides higher write performance for redundant RAID arrays. Data is at risk when there
is a power failure, system kernel panic and un-responding abnormal conditions.
Write Through –Writes directly to the disks (may reduce the risk of data loss during a critical failure,
but at the cost of lower performance).
7. Sector Size –Also known as “Variable Sector Size”. Use this option if you are using an older 32-bit
Windows operating system. This allows older operating systems to support volumes over 2TB in
size. Do not use if the operating system already supports large volumes (such as GPT).
8. Block Size –64K block stripe size is a good choice of many applications. Other HighPoint RocketRAID
controller 3000/4000 series have adjusted RAID block to fit applications needs.
9. To complete the creation procedure, use the arrow key to highlight the Start Creation item and
press Enter key.
The Window will show 4 options if create RAID 5: Foreground Initialize, Background Initialize, Quick
Initialize and Keep Old Data.

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The Window will show 2 options if create RAID 0: Quick Initialize and Keep Old Data.
Keep Old Data:
This is the default option when creating a RAID array.
A. This option is used to assure data safety and avoid operation errors causing
data lose to the original disk.
B. This option does not initialize the array disk. New disks can be used to create
a RAID without initialization since the disk is empty.
C. This option can be used to recover the disabled RAID array.
Quick Init:
The RAID array will be immediately accessible.

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A. This option will delete all content on the disks.
B. This option will not perform disk array initialization. When new HDD’s are
used this option can be ignored since the there is no data on the hard disks.
Popup the warning window when you select the option on RAID 5.
Foreground:
The RAID array is not accessible until disk array initialization is completed.
A. This option will delete all content on the disks.
B. The initialization time will be shorter time compared to the "Background"
option. The logical disks will not be reported to the OS until the initialization is
complete.
Background:
The RAID array is accessible while disk initialization is being performed.
A. This option will delete all content on the disks.
B. The initialization time will be longer when compared to "Foreground" but the
logical drives can be used during the initialization process.
10. Press the Y(yes) key to create the array, or N (no) key to cancel the creation process. If you press
the Y, BIOS will show the following window.

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5.5 Delete Arrays
Highlight the Delete command from the toolbar, and press Enter key.
The BIOS utility will display a list of available RAID arrays. Select the array you wish to delete, and press
Enter key.
The utility will display a warning message. Press Y(yes) to delete the array, or select N(no) to cancel.
Warning: All data stored on the array will be lost –do not delete if the array contains critical data.
5.6 Add/Remove Spare Disks
This Add/Remove Spare command is used to assign a hard disk to act as a Spare Disk. Spare Disks are used
to automatically rebuild Redundant RAID arrays (RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, 50) in the case of disk failure. As with
creating RAID arrays, disks must be initialized before they can be used as spares. To set a hard disk to act
as a Spare Disk, use the arrow keys to select the target disk from the list of initialized disks, and press
Enter key. To remove the Spare Disk setting from a hard disk, highlight the spare disk, and press Enter key.

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Generally, single disks are designated to act as spares (disks that are not configured into RAID arrays).
However, in some instances, disks that are members of RAID arrays may also be designated to act as a
spare. If the disks in question are part of a RAID array that did not utilize the full available capacity at the
time of creation, these disks may be used as spares. For example: a RAID 0 array was created between two
200GB hard disks, but only 200GB of space (out of a grand total of 400GB), was assigned to that array. In
this example, 200GB of disk space remains unallocated. This unallocated space would allow these disks to
be set as spares for a separate redundant array that falls into the same capacity range (200GB).
5.7 Settings
To access the Settings menu, highlight the Settings command from the toolbar, and press Enter key. There
are Select Boot Device and Parameter Setting options in the menu.
Select Boot Device –select which disk or array will act as the boot disk, if the motherboard BIOS instructs
the card to act as the boot device.
Parameter Setting –This menu includes various controller related settings and features.

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Staggered spinup:
The default value of this option is disabled. Enabling this setting will instruct
the card to power up the hard disks, sequentially (one disk approximately
every 2 seconds). Not all disk support this setting –consult the disk
documentation for more information.
Warning: Western Digital hard disks do not support this setting. Enabling
this setting is not recommended. If enabled, these disks may not be
detected by non-RAID controller.
Number of drives per
spinup:
You can select the number of hard disk per spinup.
Delay between
spinup (seconds):
Interval time between two continuous spinup.
Spindown Idle Disk
(minutes):
Hard drives can be instructed to spin down when there is no disk activity for a
set period of time. You are free to specify the interval –from 10 to 240
minutes.
Continue Rebuilding
on Error:
Bad sectors can cause a RAID rebuild to stop. This option will ignore bad
sector reading and let the rebuild process continue. This can cause data
inconsistency in the future. By enabling this option it is recommended to view
the Event log and look for HDD bad sector events. If bad sectors are found, it
is then recommended that the HDD with bad sectors be fixed then reconnect
the HDD back to the HBA
Rebuild Priority:
This option is provided for redundant arrays. This setting determines how HBA
resources should be directed towards repairing broken RAID arrays.
Single BCV entry:
This setting may be useful for some motherboards, when booting from a disk
or array attached to the RocketRAID HBA.
When this setting is enabled (and if the card hosts several logical disks) only
the first disk will be reported to the motherboard BIOS.
INT 13 support:
INT13 is the HBA’s boot function. It can be Enabled or Disabled.
Stop on error:
Enabled by default. If disabled, the host adapter BIOS menu will bypass array
or device errors when booting the system.
Auto Rebuild:
If enabled, any new disk attached to the HBA will be used to rebuild the
critical RAID array.
Note: The new disk needs to be equal to or larger than the minimum
capacity among the remaining disk members of the array.