Intel RS25NB008, Руководство пользователя

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Intel® RAID Controller RS25NB008 Hardware User’s Guide 25
Support for Hard Disk Drive Devices
The Intel
®
RAID Controller RS25NB008 integrates eight external high-performance
SAS/SATA III ports that support SAS and enterprise-class SATA hard drives. Each port
supports both SAS and SATA devices using the SAS Serial SCSI Protocol(SSP), Serial
Management Protocol (SMP), and Serial Tunneling Protocol (STP). The SSP protocol
enables communication with other SAS devices. STP allows the SAS RAID controller to
communicate with SATA devices using the SATA commands.
SAS Expander Support
The Intel
®
RAID Controller RS25NB008 supports LSI* expanders, Vitesse SAS
expanders, and PMC expanders that are used as a component in Intel and 3rd party
enclosures. Other expanders may be supported post launch, based on market conditions
and customer requirements.
Support for Non-Hard Disk Drive Devices
Selected non-hard drive devices are supported for use with this controller. For information
on support for non-hard drive devices, see this RAID controller’s Tested Hardware and
Operating System List.
Enclosure Management Support
The Intel
®
RAID Controller RS25NB008 supports SES2 enclosure management in-band
to expander-based backplanes.
RAID Functionality and Features
Hierarchy
The fundamental purpose of a RAID system is to present a usable data storage medium
(virtual drive) with some level of redundancy to a host operating system. The Intel
®
RAID firmware is based on the concept of associating physical drives in arrays and then
creating a virtual drive from that array that includes a functional RAID level. To create a
virtual drive and present it to the host operating system, the RAID firmware typically
follows these steps:
1. One or more physical drives are selected and associated as an array.
2. One or more arrays are associated and given a RAID level. This process creates a
virtual drive and provides an option to initialize the virtual drive.
3. The RAID firmware presents the virtual drive to the operating system.