Promise Technology UltraTrak100 TX4 User Manual Download

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Appendix A - Technology Background ....................................................................... 41

Introduction to RAID ............................................................................................. 41

RAID 0 – Striping.................................................................................................. 41

RAID 1 – Mirroring................................................................................................ 42

RAID 0+1 – Striping/Mirror ................................................................................... 43

RAID 3 – Block Striping with Parity Drive ............................................................. 44

RAID 5 – Block and Parity Striping ....................................................................... 45

JBOD (Spanning) ................................................................................................. 46

Appendix B - Frequently Asked Questions................................................................. 47

Summary of Contents for UltraTrak100 TX4

Page 1: ...ULTRATRAK100 TX4 AND ULTRATRAK100 TX8 USER MANUAL ...

Page 2: ...se Technology product NOTICE Although Promise Technology has attempted to ensure the accuracy of the content of this manual it is possible that this document may contain technical inaccuracies typographical or other errors Promise Technology assumes no liability for any error in this publication and for damages whether direct indirect incidental consequential or otherwise that may result from such...

Page 3: ...on reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected Consult Promise Techn...

Page 4: ...k Size 10 Choosing a RAID Level 10 Partition and Format the Array 12 Maintenance 13 Drive Status Indicators 13 Meaning of Status Indicators 13 Critical Offline Arrays 13 Rebuilding Synchronizing Fault Tolerant Arrays 14 When a Disk Drive Fails 14 Replacing a Disk Drive Module 14 Drive Replacement 15 Replacing a Power Supply Module TX8 only 16 UltraTrak100 Front Panel Interface 18 The LCD Messages ...

Page 5: ...d 41 Introduction to RAID 41 RAID 0 Striping 41 RAID 1 Mirroring 42 RAID 0 1 Striping Mirror 43 RAID 3 Block Striping with Parity Drive 44 RAID 5 Block and Parity Striping 45 JBOD Spanning 46 Appendix B Frequently Asked Questions 47 ...

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Page 7: ...an expandable capacity of up to eight individual disk drives The standard LVD SCSI interface provides compatibility with any system that utilizes a SCSI interface No vendor unique commands are required for the operation of the disk array Data transfer rates of up to 80 MB sec are supported via the SCSI interface ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION The UltraTrak100 disk array consists of either four TX4 or e...

Page 8: ...m performance in Multi Threaded Operating Systems Front panel LCD and LED indicators Easy setup and quick response to problems ensuring maximum up time and manageability Hot swap feature Allows a defective drive to be replaced without interrupting data accessibility to the host system Hot spare drive Maintains full fault tolerant integrity by automatically rebuilding the data from a failed drive t...

Page 9: ...acking foam from within the UltraTrak100 door The UltraTrak100 and accessories include the following items UltraTrak100 unit External LVD SCSI cable UltraTrak100 User Manual Power cord Two drive carrier keys Screw sets for hard drives Terminator Caution The front panel door of the UltraTrak100 has foam inside it to prevent damage during shipping Remove this packing foam and retain for future use I...

Page 10: ...Drive Carrier IDE data cable to the hard drive see Figure 7 on page 16 5 Lower the hard drive into the Drive Carrier so that the screw holes on the bottom line up 6 Insert screws through the holes in the Drive Carrier and into the bottom of the hard drive Tighten each screw be careful not to over tighten see Figure 6 on page 15 7 Slide the assembled Drive Carrier back into the UltraTrak100 and loc...

Page 11: ...r Switch SCSI Connector Input SCSI Connector Output Terminator Voltage Select Switch Figure 2 Back of UltraTrak100 TX4 see Figure 8 for TX8 Caution To prevent possible damage to the array or system ensure that system power is OFF before connecting the cables SCSI CABLE CONNECTION AND TERMINATION Two 68 pin wide SCSI connectors are provided on the back of the enclosure for connecting the array to t...

Page 12: ...inated When installing the UltraTrak100 disk array on a SCSI bus with other devices make sure the above rules are observed with all devices on the SCSI bus Consult your system and or host adapter manual for additional information on correct termination procedure Caution Improper system operation will occur if the SCSI termination is incorrect Active termination and SCSI 3 compliant cables must be ...

Page 13: ...tch on the back of the power supply is set to your local voltage MAIN POWER SWITCH The power switch is located on the back of cabinet Switch the UltraTrak100 power on by pressing the portion of this switch marked I Switch the power off by pressing the portion of this switch marked O ASSIGN A SCSI ID Each device on a SCSI chain must have a unique ID Do the following to assign the SCSI ID 1 From the...

Page 14: ...en you need to first delete array before you can proceed See page 29 Delete Array for more details 7 With RAID Level selected press SEL 8 Use the and button to select the proper RAID level for your array press SEL to choose the selected RAID level See Choosing a RAID Level on page 10 for help in choosing the proper RAID level 9 Press SEL to create the array or press EXIT to cancel 10 If you electe...

Page 15: ...5 11 Press button to choose the Add Remove Drives feature then press SEL 12 Use the and button to select each drive Press SEL to toggle between adding or removing a drive Press EXIT when done 13 Press SEL to Save Changes 14 Press SEL to create the array or press EXIT to cancel 15 If you pressed SEL to create the array then you should see the message Array has been created 16 Switch the UltraTrak10...

Page 16: ...ixed data blocks such as with some database or video applications then you should choose that size as your Stripe Block Size CHOOSING A RAID LEVEL There are several issues to consider when choosing the RAID Level for your UltraTrak100 array Appendix A Technology Background on page 41 gives some technical insight regarding each RAID choice and the following discussion summarizes some advantages dis...

Page 17: ...istics Advantages Disadvantages High Read data transaction rate Medium Write data transaction rate Good aggregate transfer rate Disk failure has a medium impact on throughput Recommended Applications for RAID 5 File and Application servers WWW E mail and News servers Intranet servers Most versatile RAID level RAID 0 1 Characteristics Advantages Disadvantages Implemented as a mirrored array whose s...

Page 18: ...n a functioning fault tolerant array the hot spare is activated as a member of the array The spare drive effectively takes the place of the failed drive and the RAID system immediately begins to rebuild data on the drive When the rebuild is complete the array is returned to fault tolerant status Once the failed drive is replaced the new drive is automatically recognized as a hot spare in the event...

Page 19: ...installed or the drive has failed Green This will blink on and off to indicate disk activity CRITICAL OFFLINE ARRAYS A fault tolerant array goes critical when a drive is removed or fails Due to the fault tolerance of the array the data is still available and online However once the array goes critical the array has lost its fault tolerance and performance may be adversely affected If the fault was...

Page 20: ...A DISK DRIVE FAILS The UltraTrak100 provides both audible and visual indicators alerting you of a drive failure The following occur when a disk drive fails or goes offline Continuously produces short beeps every two seconds when a drive fails Continuously produces long beeps every 15 seconds when a drive is offline The Array LED on the front panel is yellow The disk drive Status LED inside front p...

Page 21: ...ile reconstruction of the hot spare drive is in progress Wait until the System LED and all the drive LEDs except the failed drive are green before replacing the failed drive Do the following to replace an IDE hard drive 1 Open the Front Panel Door on the UltraTrak100 2 Remove the hard drive you wish to replace from the UltraTrak100 by unlocking the Drive Carrier lock and sliding out the Drive Carr...

Page 22: ...upply indicates that the power supply has failed and should be replaced A power supply failure is also accompanied by an audible alarm NOTE press the Power Supply Alarm Reset button to turn off the alarm Contact your dealer or reseller for additional details and assistance in obtaining a replacement supply These power supplies are accessible from the rear of the unit see Figure 8 The power supply ...

Page 23: ...r supply chassis Only trained and qualified personnel should remove the power supplies SCSI IN SCSI OUT TERM COM 1 O I 115 O I 115 O I SCSI Connector Input SCSI Connector Output Terminator Power Switch Power Select Switch Power Supply Switch Pow er Supply M odule 1 Pow er Supply M odule 2 Power Supply Alarm Reset Figure 8 Back of UltraTrak100 TX8 ...

Page 24: ...stal Display Message Display Panel This is a 24 character by 2 row LCD that displays various setup status and error messages Control Buttons Pressing this button scrolls any available messages up through the LCD and activates a message for the Select button Pressing this button scrolls any available messages down through the LCD and activates a message for the Select button SEL Pressing this butto...

Page 25: ...essage such as shown below is displayed during normal operation of the UltraTrak100 when there are no problems or buttons being pressed Array Functional 30 C 86 F 4500RPM What you can do Array status may be Array Functional Array Critical Array Offline Press SEL Press to enter Configuration menu Press Press to enter Configuration menu Press Press to enter Configuration menu Press EXIT Press to ent...

Page 26: ...he following error information Fan Error Fan speed is 2000RPM or 5500RPM Array Rebuilding xx At least one array is rebuilding Array Synchronizing xx At least one array doing synchronize CONFIGURATION MENU In Configuration mode you may view the status of the UltraTrak100 system and configure both UltraTrak100 hardware and arrays The main configuration menu allows the user to select the following me...

Page 27: ... Stats View Array Information View Enclosure Press or to move these items on the LCD What you can do Press SEL Selects one of the following active functions View Controller Info Moves the display to the View Controller Info menu View Cache Stats Moves the display to the View Cache Stats menu View Array Information Moves the display to the View Array Information menu View Enclosure Moves the displa...

Page 28: ...tive message line up Press Moves the active message line down Press EXIT Returns to the Configuration mode VIEW CACHE STATS The View Cache Stats mode displays the cache memory size cache block size the cache read hit percentage rate and the cache write hit percentage rate Cache Mem Size 7 MB Cache Blk Size 16 KB Where the values shown are simply examples Cache Read Hit 10 Cache Write Hit 15 Press ...

Page 29: ...izing x Array is Functioning properly The array is in a degraded mode Array is rebuilding x done Array is down Array is synchronizing x done What you can do Press SEL Does nothing Press Moves the active message line up Press Moves the active message line down Press EXIT Returns to the View Status mode VIEW ENCLOSURE The View Enclosure menu displays the following information Temperature 30 C 86 F F...

Page 30: ...stalled disk drives View Drive Assignments RAID Level Stripe Block Size GB Boundary Add Remove Drives Save Changes Define Array Provides a list of assigned arrays Delete Array W ipeout Disk Synchronize Array Disable Buzzer Rebuild Sync Pri Advanced Features Provides a list of assigned arrays See page 25 See page 26 See page 27 See page 29 See page 30 See page 31 ...

Page 31: ...ay menu Delete Array Moves the display to the Delete Array menu Press Moves the active message line up Press Moves the active message line down Press EXIT Returns to the Configuration mode AUTO ARRAY SETUP FUNCTION In Auto Array Setup function if there is only one free drive it will be configured as a RAID 0 array If there are two free drives they will be configured as a RAID 1 array If there are ...

Page 32: ...IVE ASSIGNMENTS The View Drive Assignments mode lists each installed drive by model and identifies its array ID or that it is free if it is not assigned to an array Each drive is displayed on one line 1 MAXTOR Asng In Ary 1 2 IBM Asng In Ary 2 Where the values shown are simply examples 3 MAXTOR Asng In Ary 3 4 IBM Asng In Ary 4 Press or to move these items on the LCD What you can do Press SEL Does...

Page 33: ...dd Remove Drives Save Changes Press or to move these items on the LCD What you can do Press SEL Selects one of the following active functions RAID Level Moves the display to the RAID Level menu Stripe Block Size Moves the display to the Stripe Block Size menu GB Boundary ON Toggles between ON and OFF Add Remove Drives Moves the display to the Add Remove Drives menu Save Changes Moves the display t...

Page 34: ...lects one of the active Stripe Block Size Press Moves the active message line up Active is marked by Press Moves the active message line down Active is marked by Press EXIT Returns to the Define Array menu SAVE CHANGES MENU Press SEL to Create Press EXIT to Cancel What you can do Press SEL Pressing SEL will create the array Press Does nothing Press Does nothing Press EXIT Press EXIT to cancel this...

Page 35: ...ween Free and Assigned Press Moves the active message line up Press Moves the active message line down Press EXIT Returns to the Define Array menu DELETE ARRAY The Delete Array menu allows the user to select an array and delete the configuration information for that array This will also free any drives that have been assigned to that array Array ID 1 Only existing Array IDs are Displayed Array ID ...

Page 36: ...he hard drive that contains array information used exclusively by the UltraTrak100 controller It may be necessary to wipe out a disk if the disk was previously a member of an UltraTrak100 array and you wish to use the disk in a different UltraTrak100 array To wipe out a disk go to the Configuration menu and select Configure Array then select Advance Features and choose Wipe Out Disk 1 MAXTOR Asng ...

Page 37: ...izing simply recalculates redundant data similar to the rebuild process and matches the data on the drive s REBUILD SYNC PRI Assigns the amount of importance that UltraTrak100 gives to rebuilding synchronizing data in the background A High setting assigns most of UltraTrak100 s resources to the rebuild process at the expense of responding to ongoing read write data requests by the operating system...

Page 38: ...d cache is faster than to disk Data normally written to disk is first written into the UltraTrak100 s cache allowing the system CPU to continue with other tasks while the UltraTrak100 handles writing data from it s cache to the array However write back cache data is lost with a system power outage or other event where the data has not yet been saved to disk Setting the Write Cache to Write Thru fo...

Page 39: ...oves the active message line up Active is marked by Press Moves the active message line down Active is marked by Press EXIT Returns to the Configuration menu MODE Select one of the following SCSI ID modes ID Selected LUN Selected toggles between these two when SEL is pressed What you can do Press SEL Selects one of the following active functions ID Select device ID mode LUN Select LUN logical unit...

Page 40: ... and 15 0 1 Selected 2 15 Press or to move these items on the LCD What you can do Press SEL Selects one of the following active functions from a list of numbers between 1 and 15 Selects the SCSI ID The word Selected appears next to the selected ID Press Moves the active message line up Active is marked by Press Moves the active message line down Active is marked by Press EXIT Returns to the Config...

Page 41: ...Promise OnlineTM Web Site http www promise com technical documents drivers utilities etc USA Tech Support Center E mail Support support promise com Fax Technical Support 408 452 9163 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical Support 408 452 1180 7 30 5 00pm M F Pacific Standard Time If you wish to write us for support Promise Technology Inc Attn Technical Support 1460 Koll Circle Suite A San Jos...

Page 42: ...pport Promise Technology Inc Attn Technical Support 2F No 30 Industry E Rd IX Science Based Industrial Park Hsin Chu Taiwan R O C China Office E mail Support support china promise com Fax Technical Support 86 0 10 6872 3940 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical Support 86 0 10 6872 3942 9 00 6 00pm China Time If you wish to write us for support Promise Technology China Attn Technical Support...

Page 43: ...et forth above Promise Technology disclaims any warranties expressed or implied by statute or otherwise regarding the product including without limitation any warranties for fitness for any purpose quality merchantability non infringement or otherwise Promise Technology makes no warranty or representation concerning the suitability of any product for use with any other item You assume full respons...

Page 44: ...tial indirect incidental or punitive damages whether in contract tort or otherwise notwithstanding the failure of the essential purpose of the foregoing remedy and regardless of whether Promise Technology has been advised of the possibility of such damages Promise Technology is not an insurer If you desire insurance against such damage you must obtain insurance from another party ...

Page 45: ...roduct covered by the warranty do not ship cables manuals diskettes etc with a copy of your proof of purchase to PROMISE TECHNOLOGY INC Customer Service Dept Attn RMA __________ 1460 Koll Circle San Jose CA 95112 You must follow the packaging guidelines for returning products Use the original shipping carton and packaging Include a summary of the product s problem s Write an attention line on the ...

Page 46: ...te for your use and will interface with your equipment without malfunction or damage You are also responsible for backing up your data before installing any product and for regularly backing up your data after installing the product Promise Technology is not liable for any damage to equipment or data loss resulting from the use of any product ...

Page 47: ...ollowing outline breaks down the properties for each type of RAID array RAID 0 STRIPING When a disk array is striped the read and write blocks of data are interleaved between the sectors of multiple drives see Figure A1 Performance is increased since the workload is balanced between drives or members that form the array Identical drives are recommended for performance as well as data storage effic...

Page 48: ...her mirrored drive continues to function This is called Fault Tolerance Moreover if a spare drive is present the spare drive will be used as the replacement drive and data will begin to be mirrored to it from the remaining good drive Figure A2 RAID 1 mirrors identical data to two drives Due to the data redundancy of mirroring the drive capacity of the array is only the size of the smallest drive F...

Page 49: ...isk array drive pairs are striped together with one pair mirroring the first pair The data capacity is similar to a standard mirroring array with half of the total storage capacity dedicated for redundancy An added plus for using RAID 0 1 is that in many situations such an array offers double fault tolerance Double fault tolerance may allow your data array to continue to operate depending on which...

Page 50: ...ion The adjustable block size of the RAID 3 array allows for performance tuning based on the typical I O request sizes for your system The block size must be set at the time it is created and cannot be adjusted dynamically Generally RAID Level 3 tends to exhibit lower random write performance due to the heavy workload going to the dedicated parity drive for parity recalculation for each I O The ca...

Page 51: ...s the physical drives along with the block data Having the parity data striped across all the physical drives in this manner removes the random write performance bottleneck of RAID 3 The total capacity of a RAID 5 array is calculated the same as a RAID 3 array Figure A5 RAID 5 stripes all drives with data and parity information ...

Page 52: ... if the drives are of different capacities Spanning stores data onto a drive until it is completely filled then proceeds to store data on to the next drive in the array There are no performance or fault tolerance array features in this type of array When a disk member fails the entire array is offline Figure A6 Spanning uses full capacity of drives ...

Page 53: ...rted array configuration Q Can I take a drive used in an UltraTrak100 array and access it directly with a different controller such as the one integrated on the motherboard A Yes but only under certain configurations The following array configurations will allow the drive s to be accessed individually on another controller mirror RAID 1 or single drive striped RAID 0 Multiple drives striped will n...

Page 54: ...nt and does not provide any means of addressing individual hard drives through the int 13h interface used by FDISK In order to access drives on the UltraTrak100 from MSDOS at all you must first create a RAID array Q Why can t I see the array I just created in the Windows NT 2000 Disk Administrator A Since Windows NT 2000 does not yet support any method of dynamically adding and or removing logical...

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