Appendix A: SentinelRAID Features
Overview
A-1
Appendix A
SentinelRAID Features
A.1. Overview
The SR controller comes with many different features. Some of these features enhance
the performance of the controller or add configuration flexibility while other features
simplify the installation, maintenance procedures of the controller. This section
highlights some of the features of the SR controller.
A.2. Controller
Features
A.2.1 SCSI-320 I/O Channels
All of the I/O channels on both the controller board and the daughter board are SCSI-320
compatible. These channels can be connected to SCSI-320 host computers and SCSI-320
drives with data transmission rates of up to 320MB/second.
A.2.2 Flexible Configuration
All of the SCSI-320 I/O channels can be configured as host or drive channels. Eight
logical drives can be created from physical drives and eight logical volumes can be
created from one or several logical drives. You may then divide storage capacity by
partitioning each of the logical units into eight portions for a total of 64 partitions.
Various RAID levels can be applied to different logical units with the support of
dedicated or global spare drives.
A.2.3 Expansion
Channel expansion:
With the installation of an optional daughter board, the SR 170
controller can support up to eight SCSI-320 channels.
Capacity expansion:
Logical drive capacity can be expanded either by adding a new
drive or copying and then replacing the original members with drives of larger capacity.
A.2.4 User-friendly Configuration Utilities
There are multiple choices of interfaces or management programs for configuring the
RAID system. Administrators may choose one or more from the LCD front panel,
firmware-embedded configuration utility, and the Java-based GUI RAIDWatch Manager
for local or remote management.
