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Technical white paper | HP Z640 Workstation
Creating RAID Arrays on the SATA and sSATA controllers
RAID arrays on SATA and sSATA controllers can be created through Option ROM (OROM) at power on, UEFI driver within
3rd Party Option ROM Management
from the BIOS
Startup Menu
, DOS utilities, EFI shell utilities, Windows command
line utilities, or from a graphical user interface (GUI) within the Windows OS.
1. Pre-OS RAID creation through the Option ROM (OROM)
In order to use the OROM for configuration of RAID arrays, the
Option ROM Launch Policy
in BIOS must be set to
All
Legacy
. This is the default as shipped configuration and can be changed in BIOS Setup under
Advanced > Option ROM
Launch Policy
.
To access the OROM, press Ctrl-I as soon as you see Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise - <controller name>
Option ROM, where controller name is the name of the controller (either SATA or sSATA) where you want to set up the
RAID array.
The OROM will only display at power on if there are two or more RAID capable devices attached to the controller, or a
single device is attached that contains RAID metadata. In the later case, the OROM will show that the RAID is failed or
degraded.
Once in the OROM, you can Create RAID Volumes, Delete RAID Volumes, Reset Disks to Non-RAID, or Exit. The keys
available for use are listed at the bottom of the screen.
Example: RAID volume creation on the SATA or sSATA controllers through OROM.
a) Use the
Up/Down
arrows to navigate to “1. Create RAID Volume” if not already selected.
b) Enter the desired volume name and press
Tab
or
Enter
.
c) Use the
Up/Down
arrows to scroll through available RAID levels. A description of the level will appear in the “HELP”
box. Select the desired RAID level and press
Tab
or
Enter
.
d) Press
Enter
to open the “SELECT DISKS” window.
e) Use the
Up/Down
arrows to highlight a desired disk and press
Space
to select the disk. Press
Enter
after you have
selected all of the disks that you want to be included in the RAID.
f) If you are creating a RAID array that is striped, you can use the
Up/Down
arrows to change strip size if desired. Press
Enter
when done.
g) Capacity will be automatically calculated for you based on the RAID type. The capacity shown may be around 95%
of the actual available capacity. In a mirrored array, the reserved space helps to ensure that a failed drive can be
replaced with another drive of the same listed capacity even if the actual capacity is slightly less than the listed
capacity. Press
Enter
to accept the default capacity.
h) Press
Enter
to create the volume.
Similarly a user can Delete RAID volumes or reset disks to Non-RAID status by following the on screen prompts and using
the keys listed at the bottom of each screen.
