IBM ServeRAID, User Reference

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Contents
Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
How this book is organized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Notices that are used in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
IBM ServeRAID Support CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Supported operating systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Part 1. Installation and configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1. Product information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Option package contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Controller features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Connector locations
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chapter 2. Installing and cabling a ServeRAID controller . . . . . . . . 11
Using a ServeRAID controller in a server with Active PCI features . . . . . . 11
Installing the ServeRAID-4 controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Installing the ServeRAID-5i controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chapter 3. Understanding RAID technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Stripe-unit size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Selecting a RAID level and tuning performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Supported RAID levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Drive-state descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Chapter 4. Configuring ServeRAID controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Obtaining ServeRAID updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Updating BIOS and firmware code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Configuring the ServeRAID controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Viewing your configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Getting assistance
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 5. Installing ServeRAID device drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Chapter 6. Configuring two ServeRAID controllers in a failover
environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Hardware requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Installation guidelines and restrictions
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Preparing the active controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Preparing the passive controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Completing the failover environment installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Part 2. Utility programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Chapter 7. Using the ServeRAID Mini-Configuration program . . . . . . 67
Accessing the Mini-Configuration program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Viewing the controller status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Viewing the configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Using the advanced configuration functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Chapter 8. Installing and using the IPSSEND command-line program . . . 71
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2002
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