3Ware 3W-6800 - Escalade 6800 RAID Controller, User Manual

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3ware Disk Array Configuration Utility
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3ware Disk Array
Configuration Utility
The 3ware Disk Array Configuration Utility allows you to create
disk arrays by combining disks, deleting disks or breaking disk
arrays back into their member disks. You can also specify an avail-
able drive as a hot spare. If an array becomes degraded, the hot
spare will automatically be substituted for the faulted drive.
Note:
The BIOS will not be installed if no drives are
attached to the Escalade Storage Switch. The storage
switch shares one IRQ on the PCI bus.
Hot Spare and Hot Swap
Hot Spare is the label given to a drive that is available, active and
designated as a spare. This designated drive is applied automati-
cally when a drive degrades and the array is rebuilt. Hot Swap is the
term applied to the process of swapping out a degraded drive, pro-
grammatically and using 3DM, with a pre-assigned spare.
There are two methods for adding a drive as a spare. You may des-
ignate a drive as a Hot Spare during the BIOS page display, or you
may designate a drive as a Hot Spare through the 3DM configure
page. These two methods are discussed below.
BIOS Screen
When designating spare in the BIOS screen, it is assumed that as
you are creating your array, you are “setting aside” drive(s) as Hot
Spares. This is done by using the S key on the selected drive. Leav-
ing a drive undesignated results in it becoming a JBOD drive.
JBOD drives become available to the operating system as distinct
volumes, and, consequently, they cannot be designated as spares at