Sans Digital ELITERAID ER316FD+B User manual

ELITERAID ER316FD+B
Detailed User’s Manual v 1.0

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About This Manual
Welcome to your Redundant Array of Independent Disks System User’s Guide.
This manual covers everything you need to know in learning how to install or
configure your RAID system. This manual also assumes that you know the basic
concepts of RAID technology. It includes the following information :
Chapter 1 Introduction
Introduces you toDiskArray’s features and general technology concepts.
Chapter 2 Configuring
Quick Setup
Provides a simple way to setup your Disk Array.
Customizing Setup
Provides step-by-step instructions to help you to do setup or re-configure your Disk Array.
Chapter 3 Array Maintenance
Adding Cache Memory
Provides a detailed procedure toincrease cachememory from the default amount of 512MB to higher.
Updating Firmware
Provides step-by-step instructions to help you to update the firmware to the latest version.
Hot Swap Components
Describes all hot swap modules on Disk Array and provides the detailed procedure to replace
them.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 KeyFeatures..........................................................................................................
1.2 RAIDConcepts......................................................................................................
1.3 FibreFunctions.....................................................................................................
1.3.1 Overview.......................................................................................................
1.3.2 Three ways to connect (FC Topologies)................................................
1.3.3 Basicelements..........................................................................................
1.3.4 LUNMasking...............................................................................................
1-2
1-3
1-10
1-10
1-10
1-12
1-13
1.4 ArrayDefinition.......................................................................................................
1-13
1.4.1 RAIDset........................................................................................................
1.4.2 VolumeSet...................................................................................................
1.4.3Easyof Usefeatures..................................................................................
1-13
1-14
1-14
1.4.4 HighAvailability............................................................................................ 1-17
Chapter 2 Configuring
2.1 ConfiguringthroughaTerminal..............................................................................
2.2 Configuring the Subsystem Using the LCDPanel.........................................
2.3 MenuDiagram.......................................................................................................
2.4 Web browser-based Remote RAID management via R-Link ethernet.......
2.5 QuickCreate..........................................................................................................
2.6 RaidSetFunctions...............................................................................................
2.6.1 CreateRaidSet..........................................................................................
2-1
2-9
2-10
2-15
2-17
2-19
2-19
2.6.2 DeleteRaidSet............................................................................................ 2-20
2.6.3 ExpandRaidSet........................................................................................... 2-22
2.6.4 OfflineRaidSet........................................................................................... 2-25
2.6.5 ActivateIncompleteRaid Set................................................................... 2-26
2.6.6 CreateHotSpare........................................................................................ 2-28
2.6.7 DeleteHotSpare......................................................................................... 2-28
2.6.8 RescueRaidSet.......................................................................................... 2-29
2.7 VolumeSetFunction..............................................................................................
2-30

2.7.1 CreateVolumeSet......................................................................................
2.7.2 CreateRaid30/50/60....................................................................................
2.7.3 DeleteVolumeSet......................................................................................
2.7.4 ModifyVolumeSet........................................................................................
2.7.4.1Volume Expansion.......................................................................
2.7.5 VolumeSetMigration..................................................................................
2.7.6 CheckVolumeSet........................................................................................
2.7.7 ScheduledVolumeChecking......................................................................
2.7.8 StopVolumeSetCheck..............................................................................
2.7.9 VolumeSetHostFilters..............................................................................
2.8 PhysicalDrive.........................................................................................................
2.8.1 CreatePass-ThroughDisk........................................................................
2.8.2 ModifyPass-ThroughDisk.........................................................................
2.8.3 DeletePass-ThroughDisk........................................................................
2.8.4 Identify Enclosure....................................................................................
2.8.5 IdentifySelectedDrive.................................................................................
2.9 SystemConfiguration...........................................................................................
2.9.1 SystemConfiguration.................................................................................
2.9.2 FibreChannelConfiguration......................................................................
2.9.2.1View/EditHostNameList...............................................................
2.9.2.2View/EditVolumeSet HostFilters................................................
2.9.3 EthernetConfig................................................................................................
2.9.4 AlertByMailConfig......................................................................................
2.9.5 SNMPConfiguration.....................................................................................
2.9.6 NTPConfiguration........................................................................................
2.9.7 ViewEvents..................................................................................................
2.9.8 GenerateTestEvents.................................................................................
2.9.9 ClearEventsBuffer......................................................................................
2.9.10 ModifyPassword.....................................................................................
2.9.11UpgradeFirmware......................................................................................
2.9.12RestartController......................................................................................
2.10 InformationMenu....................................................................................................
2.10.1RaidSetHierarchy.....................................................................................
2.10.2 System Information .............................................................................
2.10.3HardwareMonitor......................................................................................
2.11 Creating a new RAIDor Reconfiguring an Existing RAID................................
Appendix A Technical Specification...................................................
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A-1

Chapter 1
Introduction
The RAID subsystem is a Fibre channel-to-SAS / SATA II RAID (Redundant
Arrays of Independent Disks) disk array subsystem. It consists of a RAID disk
array controller and sixteen (16) disk trays.
The subsystem is a “Host Independent” RAID subsystem supporting RAID lev-
els 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, 6, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD. Regardless of the RAID level the
subsystem is configured for, each RAID array consists of a set of disks which
to the user appears to be a single large disk capacity.
One unique feature of these RAID levels is that data is spread across separate
disks as a result of the redundant manner in which data is stored in a RAID
array. If a disk in the RAID array fails, the subsystem continues to function
without any risk of data loss. This is because redundant information is stored
separately from the data. This redundant information will then be used to re-
construct any data that was stored on a failed disk. In other words, the sub-
system can tolerate the failure of a drive without losing data while operating
independently of each other.
The subsystem is also equipped with an environment controller which is ca-
pable of accurately monitoring the internal environment of the
subsystem such as its power supplies, fans, temperatures and voltages.
The disk trays allow you to install any type of 3.5-inch hard drive. Its
modular design allows hot-swapping of hard drives without interrupting the
subsystem’s operation.

1.1 Key Features
Subsystem Features:
Z Features an Intel IOP341 800Mhz 64-BIT RISC I/O processor
Z Build-in 512MB cache memory, expandable up to 4GB
Z 4Gb Fibre channel, dual loop optical SFP LC (short wave) host port
Z Smart-function LCD panel
Z Supports up to sixteen (16) 1" hot-swappable SAS / SATA II hard drives
Z Redundant load sharing hot-swappable power supplies
Z High quality advanced cooling fans
Z Local audible event notification alarm
Z Supports password protection and UPS connection
Z Built-in R-Link LAN port interface for remote management & event notifica-
tion
Z Dual host channels support clustering technology
Z Real time drive activity and status indicators
RAID Function Features:
Z Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, 6, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD
Z Supports hot spare and automatic hot rebuild
Z Allows online capacity expansion within the enclosure
Z Support spin down drives when not in use to extend service (MAID)
Z Transparent data protection for all popular operating systems
Z Bad block auto-remapping
Z Supports multiple array enclosures per host connection
Z Multiple RAID selection
Z Array roaming
Z Online RAID level migration

1.2 RAID Concepts
RAID Fundamentals
The basic idea of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is to combine
multiple inexpensive disk drives into an array of disk drives to obtain performance,
capacity and reliability that exceeds that of a single large drive. The array of
drives appears to the host computer as a single logical drive.
Six types of array architectures, RAID 1 through RAID 6, were originally defined,
each provides disk fault-tolerance with different compromises in features and
performance. In addition to these five redundant array architectures, it has become
popular to refer to a non-redundant array of disk drives as a RAID 0 array.
Disk Striping
Fundamental to RAID technology is striping. This is a method of combining
multiple drives into one logical storage unit. Striping partitions the storage
space of each drive into stripes, which can be as small as one sector (512
bytes) or as large as several megabytes. These stripes are then interleaved
in a rotating sequence, so that the combined space is composed alternately
of stripes from each drive. The specific type of operating environment deter-
mines whether large or small stripes should be used.
Most operating systems today support concurrent disk I/O operations across
multiple drives. However, in order to maximize throughput for the disk subsystem,
the I/O load must be balanced across all the drives so that each drive can be
kept busy as much as possible. In a multiple drive system without striping, the
disk I/O load is never perfectly balanced. Some drives will contain data files that
are frequently accessed and some drives will rarely be accessed.

By striping the drives in the array with stripes large enough so that each record
falls entirely within one stripe, most records can be evenly distributed across all
drives. This keeps all drives in the array busy during heavy load situations. This
situation allows all drives to work concurrently on different I/O operations, and
thus maximize the number of simultaneous I/O operations that can be performed
by the array.
Definition of RAID Levels
RAID 0 is typically defined as a group of striped disk drives without parity or data
redundancy. RAID 0 arrays can be configured with large stripes for multi-user
environments or small stripes for single-user systems that access long sequential
records. RAID 0 arrays deliver the best data storage efficiency and performance
of any array type. The disadvantage is that if one drive in a RAID 0 array fails, the
entire array fails.

RAID 1, also known as disk mirroring, is simply a pair of disk drives that store
duplicate data but appear to the computer as a single drive.Although striping is
not used within a single mirrored drive pair, multiple RAID 1 arrays can be striped
together to create a single large array consisting of pairs of mirrored drives. All
writes must go to both drives of a mirrored pair so that the information on the
drives is kept identical. However, each individual drive can perform simultaneous,
independent read operations. Mirroring thus doubles the read performance of a
single non-mirrored drive and while the write performance is unchanged. RAID 1
delivers the best performance of any redundant array type. In addition, there is
less performance degradation during drive failure than in RAID 5 arrays.

RAID 3 sector-stripes data across groups of drives, but one drive in the group is
dedicated to storing parity information. RAID 3 relies on the embedded ECC in
each sector for error detection. In the case of drive failure, data recovery is
accomplished by calculating the exclusive OR (XOR) of the information recorded
on the remaining drives. Records typically span all drives, which optimizes the
disk transfer rate. Because each I/O request accesses every drive in the array,
RAID 3 arrays can satisfy only one I/O request at a time. RAID 3 delivers the
best performance for single-user, single-tasking environments with long records.
Synchronized-spindle drives are required for RAID 3 arrays in order to avoid
performance degradation with short records. RAID 5 arrays with small stripes
can yield similar performance to RAID 3 arrays.
Under RAID 5 parity information is distributed across all the drives. Since there
is no dedicated parity drive, all drives contain data and read operations can be
overlapped on every drive in the array. Write operations will typically access one
data drive and one parity drive. However, because different records store their
parity on different drives, write operations can usually be overlapped.

RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5 in that data protection is achieved by writing parity
information to the physical drives in the array. With RAID 6, however, two sets of
parity data are used. These two sets are different, and each set occupies a
capacity equivalent to that of one of the constituent drives. The main advantages
of RAID 6 is High data availability – any two drives can fail without loss of critical
data.

Dual-level RAID achieves a balance between the increased data availability
inherent in RAID 1 and RAID 5 and the increased read performance inherent in
disk striping (RAID 0). These arrays are sometimes referred to as RAID 0+1 or
RAID 10 and RAID 0+5 or RAID 50.
In summary:
Z RAID 0 is the fastest and most efficient array type but offers no fault-
tolerance. RAID 0 requires a minimum of two drives.
Z RAID 1 is the best choice for performance-critical, fault-
tolerant environments. RAID 1 is the only choice for fault-tolerance if no
more than two drives are used.
Z RAID 3 can be used to speed up data transfer and provide fault-tolerance
in single-user environments that access long sequential records. However,
RAID 3 does not allow overlapping of multiple I/O operations and requires
synchronized-spindle drives to avoid performance degradation with short
records. RAID 5 with a small stripe size offers similar performance.
Z RAID 5 combines efficient, fault-tolerant data storage with
good performance characteristics. However, write performance and
performance during drive failure is slower than with RAID 1. Rebuild
operations also require more time than with RAID 1 because parity
information is also reconstructed. At least three drives are required for
RAID 5 arrays.
Z RAID 6 is essentially an extension of RAID level 5 which
allows for additional fault tolerance by using a second independent
distributed parity scheme (two-dimensional parity). Data is striped
on a block level across a set of drives, just like in RAID 5, and a
second set of parity is calculated and written across all the drives; RAID
6 provides for an extremely high data fault tolerance and can sustain
multiple simultaneous drive failures. Perfect solution for mission critical
applications.

RAID Management
The subsystem can implement several different levels of RAID technology.
RAID levels supported by the subsystem are shown below.
RAID
Level
Description Min
Drives
0Block striping is provide, which yields higher performance than with
individual drives. There is no redundancy. 1
1Drives are paired and mirrored. All data is 100% duplicated on an
equivalent drive. Fully redundant.
2
3Data is striped across several physical drives. Parity protection is
used for data redundancy.
3
5Data is striped across several physical drives. Parity protection is
used for data redundancy.
3
6Data is striped across several physical drives. Parity protection is
used for data redundancy. Requires N+2 drives to implement
because of two-dimensional parity scheme
4
0 + 1 Combination of RAID levels 0 and 1. This level provides striping
and redundancy through mirroring.
4
30 Combination of RAID levels 0 and 3. This level is best implemented on
two RAID 3 disk arrays with data striped across both disk arrays. 6
50 RAID 50 provides the features of both RAID 0 and RAID 5. RAID 50
includes both parity and disk striping across multiple drives.
RAID 50 is best implemented on two RAID 5 disk arrays with data
striped across both disk arrays.
6
60
RAID 60 combines both RAID 6 and RAID 0 features. Data is striped
across disks as in RAID 0, and it uses double distributed parity as
in RAID 6. RAID 60 provides data reliability, good overall performance
and supports larger volume sizes.
RAID 60 also provides very high reliability because data is still available
even if multiple disk drives fail (two in each disk array)
8

1.3 Fibre Functions
1.3.1 Overview
Fibre Channel is a set of standards under the auspices of ANSI (American
National Standards Institute). Fibre Channel combines the best features from
SCSI bus and IP protocols into a single standard interface, including high-
performance data transfer (up to 400 MB per second), low error rates, multiple
connection topologies, scalability, and more. It retains the SCSI command-set
functionality, but use a Fibre Channel controller instead of a SCSI controller to
provide the network interface for data transmission. In today’s fast-moving com-
puter environments, Fibre Channel is the serial data transfer protocol choice
for high-speed transportation of large volumes of information
between workstation, server, mass storage subsystems, and peripherals.
Physically, the Fibre Channel can be an interconnection of multiple communi-
cation points, called N_Ports. The port itself only manages the connection
between itself and another such end-port which, which could either be part of
a switched network, referred to as a Fabric in FC terminology, or a point-to-
point link. The fundamental elements of a Fibre Channel Network are Port and
node. So a node can be a computer system, storage device, or Hub/Switch.
This chapter describes the Fibre-specific functions available in the
Fibre channel RAID controller. Optional functions have been implemented for
Fibre channel operation only available in the Web browser-based RAID
manager. The LCD and VT-100 can’t configure the options available for
Fibre channel RAID controller.
1.3.2Three ways to connect (FC Topologies)
A topology defines the interconnection scheme. It defines the number of de-
vices that can be connected. Fibre Channel supports three different logical or
physical arrangements (topologies) for connecting the devices into a network:
a Point-to-Point
a Arbitrated Loop(AL)
a Switched (Fabric)

The physical connection between devices varies from one topology to another.
In all of these topologies, a transmitter node in one device sends information to
a receiver node in another device. Fibre Channel networks can use any combi-
nation of point-to-point, arbitrated loop(FC_AL), and switched fabric topologies
to provide a variety of device sharing options.
Point-to-point
A point-to-point topology consists of two and only two devices connected by N-
ports of which are connected directly. In this topology, the transmit Fibre of
one device connects to the receiver Fibre of the other device and vice versa.
The connection is not shared with any other devices. Simplicity and use of
the full data transfer rate make this Point-to-point topology an ideal extension
to the standard SCSI bus interface. The point-to-point topology extends SCSI
connectivity from a server to a peripheral device over longer distances.
Arbitrated Loop
The arbitrated loop (FC-AL) topology provides a relatively simple method of
connecting and sharing resources. This topology allows up to 126 devices or
nodes in a single, continuous loop or ring. The loop is constructed by daisy-
chaining the transmit and receive cables from one device to the next or by
using a hub or switch to create a virtual loop. The loop can be self-contained
or incorporated as an element in a larger network. Increasing the number of
devices on the loop can reduce the overall performance of the loop because
the amount of time each device can use the loop is reduced. The ports in an
arbitrated loop are referred as L-Ports.
Switched Fabric
A switched fabric a term is used in a Fibre channel to describe the generic
switching or routing structure that delivers a frame to a destination based on
the destination address in the frame header. It can be used to connect up to
16 million nodes, each of which is identified by a unique, world-wide name.
In a switched fabric, each data frame is transferred over a virtual point-to-
point connection. There can be any number of full-bandwidth transfers occur-
ring through the switch. Devices do not have to arbitrate for control of the

network; each device can use the full available bandwidth.
A fabric topology contains one or more switches connecting the ports in the
FC network. The benefit of this topology is that many devices (approximately
2-24) can be connected. A port on a Fabric switch is called an F-Port (Fabric
Port). Fabric switches can function as an alias server, Multicast
server, broadcast server, quality of service facilitator and directory server as
well.
1.3.3 Basic elements
The following elements are the connectivity of storages and Server compo-
nents using the Fibre channel technology.
Cables and connectors
There are different types of cables of varies lengths for use in a Fibre Chan-
nel configuration. Two types of cables are supported : Copper and optical
(fiber). Copper cables are used for short distances and transfer data up to 30
meters per link. Fiber cables come in two distinct types: Multi-
Mode fiber (MMF) for short distances (up to 2km), and Single-
Mode Fiber(SMF) for longer distances (up to 10 kilometers). The
controller default supports two short wave multi-mode fibre optical SFP
connector.
Fibre Channel Adapter
Fibre Channel Adapter is devices that connect to a workstation, or server and
control the electrical protocol for communications.
Hubs
Fibre Channel hubs are used to connect up to 126 nodes into a logical loop.
All connected nodes share the bandwidth of this one logical loop. Each port
on a hub contains a Port Bypass Circuit(PBC) to automatically
open and close the loop to support hot plug.
Switched Fabric
Switched fabric is the highest performing device available for interconnecting
large numbers of devices, increasing bandwidth, reducing congestion
and providing aggregate throughput. .
Each device connected to a port on the switch, enabling an on-demand con-

nection to every connected device. Each node on a Switched fabric uses an
aggregate throughput data path to send or receive data.
1.3.4 LUN Masking
LUN masking is a RAID system-centric enforced method of masking multiple
LUNs behind a single port. By using World Wide Port Names (WWPNs) of
server HBAs, LUN masking is configured at the RAID-array level. LUN mask-
ing also allows disk storage resource sharing across multiple independent
servers. A single large RAID device can be sub-divided to serve a number of
different hosts that are attached to the RAID through the SAN fabric with LUN
masking. So that only one or a limited number of servers can see that LUN,
each LUN inside the RAID device can be limited.
LUN masking can be done either at the RAID device (behind the RAID port) or
at the server HBA. It is more secure to mask LUNs at the RAID device, but
not all RAID devices have LUN masking capability. Therefore,in order
to mask LUNs, some HBA vendors allow persistent binding at the driver-level.
1.4 Array Definition
1.4.1 RAID Set
A RAID Set is a group of disks containing one or more volume sets. It has the
following features in the RAID subsystem controller:
1. Up to 128 RAID Sets are supported per RAID subsystem controller.
2. It is impossible to have multiple RAID Sets on the same disks.
A Volume Set must be created either on an existing RAID set or on a group
of available individual disks (disks that are not yet a part of an raid set). If
there are pre-existing raid sets with available capacity and enough disks for
specified RAID level desired, then the volume set will be created in the exist-
ing raid set of the user’s choice. If physical disks of different capacity are
grouped together in a raid set, then the capacity of the smallest
disk will become the effective capacity of all the disks in the raid set.

1.4.2 Volume Set
A Volume Set is seen by the host system as a single logical device. It is orga-
nized in a RAID level with one or more physical disks. RAID level refers to the
level of data performance and protection of a Volume Set. A Volume Set
ca- pacity can consume all or a portion of the disk capacity available in a
RAID Set. Multiple Volume Sets can exist on a group of disks in a RAID Set.
Addi- tional Volume Sets created in a specified RAID Set will reside on all the
physi- cal disks in the RAID Set. Thus each Volume Set on the RAID Set will
have its data spread evenly across all the disks in the RAID Set. Volume Sets
of differ- ent RAID levels may coexist on the same RAID Set.
In the illustration below, Volume 1 can be assigned a RAID 5 level of opera-
tion while Volume 0 might be assigned a RAID 0+1 level of operation.
1.4.3 Easy of Use features
1.4.3.1 InstantAvailability/Background Initialization
RAID 0 and RAID 1 volume set can be used immediately after the creation. But
the RAID 3, 5, 6, 30, 50 and 60 volume sets must be initialized to generate the
parity. In the Normal Initialization, the initialization proceeds as a background
task, the volume set is fully accessible for system reads and writes. The oper-
ating system can instantly access to the newly created arrays without requiring
a reboot and waiting the initialization complete. Furthermore, the RAID volume
set is also protected against a single disk failure while initialing.
In Fast Initialization, the initialization proceeds must be completed before
the volume set ready for system accesses.
1.4.3.2 Array Roaming
The RAID subsystem stores configuration information both in NVRAM and on
the disk drives It can protect the configuration settings in the case of a disk
drive or controller failure. Array roaming allows the administrators the ability to
move a completely raid set to another system without losing RAID configura-

tion and data on that raid set. If a server fails to work, the raid set disk drives
can be moved to another server and inserted in any order.
1.4.3.3 Online Capacity Expansion
Online Capacity Expansion makes it possible to add one or more physical
drive to a volume set, while the server is in operation, eliminating the need to
store and restore after reconfiguring the raid set. When disks are added to a
raid set, unused capacity is added to the end of the raid set. Data on the
existing volume sets residing on that raid set is redistributed evenly across all
the disks. A contiguous block of unused capacity is made available on the
raid set. The unused capacity can create additional volume set. The expan-
sion process is illustrated as following figure.