Compaq ProLiant Clusters HA/F100, Administrator'S Manual, Page: 67 / 207

Designing the Compaq ProLiant Clusters HA/F100 and HA/F200 2-33
Compaq Confidential – Need to Know Required
Writer: Bryan Hicks Project: Compaq ProLiant Clusters HA/F100 and HA/F200 Administrator Guide Comments:
Part Number: 380362-003 File Name: c-ch2 Designing the Compaq ProLiant Clusters HAF100 and HAF200.doc Last Saved On: 8/24/00 12:00 PM
Array Configuration
The Compaq Array Configuration Utility (ACU) is used to initially configure
the array controller, reconfigure the array controller, add additional disk drives
to an existing configuration, and expand capacity. The capacity expansion
feature provides the ability to add storage capacity to a configured array
without disturbing the existing data and to add a new physical drive to the
array.
An array is created by grouping disk drives together to share a common
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) fault tolerance type. For
example, in a single RA4000/4100 storage system containing eight 18.2 GB
drives, you could configure two of the drives in a RAID 1 mirrored array and
the remaining six drives as a RAID 5 Distributed Data Guarding array.
Each array must be divided into at least one volume (up to a maximum of
eight volumes per array). Each volume is presented to the operating system as
an independent disk drive and can be independently controlled by the cluster
software. Using the previous example, you could configure the two-drive
RAID 1 array as a single volume (for example, drive F), and the six-drive
RAID 5 array as two volumes (for example, drives G and H). Because the
operating system views these as independent disks, it is possible for cluster
Node 1 to control drive G, while cluster Node 2 controls drives F and H.
More information regarding cluster disk configuration can be found in the
Compaq TechNote, Planning Considerations for Compaq ProLiant Clusters
Using Microsoft Cluster Server, located on the Compaq website
(
http://www.compaq.com).
This capability provides a high level of flexibility in configuring your
RA4000/4100 storage system. However, minimize the number of volumes
configured in each array to improve performance. To achieve optimal
performance, each array should contain a single volume. In some cases (such
as for the Microsoft clustering software quorum drive), it may be desirable to
add a second, smaller volume to an array.