Lenovo ThinkServer RD230, Software User'S Manual

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2-2 Introduction to RAID
Your drives must be organized into virtual drives in a drive group and
they must be able to support the RAID level that you select. Below are
some common RAID functions:
•
Creating hot spare drives
•
Configuring drive groups and virtual drives
•
Initializing one or more virtual drives
•
Accessing controllers, virtual drives, and drives individually
•
Rebuilding failed drives
•
Verifying that the redundancy data in virtual drives using RAID level
1, 5, 6, 10, 50, or 60 is correct
•
Reconstructing virtual drives after changing RAID levels or adding a
drive to a drive group
•
Selecting a host controller to work on
2.4 Components and Features
RAID levels describe a system for ensuring the availability and
redundancy of data stored on large disk subsystems. See
Section 2.5,
“RAID Levels,” for detailed information about RAID levels. The following
subsections describes the components of RAID drive groups and RAID
levels.
2.4.1 Physical Array
A physical array is a group of drives. The drives are managed in
partitions known as virtual drives.
2.4.2 Virtual Drive
A virtual drive is a partition in a drive group that is made up of contiguous
data segments on the drives. A virtual drive can consist of an entire drive
group, more than one entire drive group, a part of a drive group, parts of
more than one drive group, or a combination of any two of these
conditions.