Information about LSI Integrated RAID
The LSI Integrated RAID solution includes the following RAID features:
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Integrated Mirroring, which provides RAID 1 features.
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Integrated Mirroring and Striping, which provides RAID 10 features.
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Integrated Mirroring Enhanced, which provides RAID 1 Enhanced (RAID 1E) features.
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Integrated Striping, which provides RAID 0 features.
For more information, see
The LSI Fusion-MPT firmware supports Integrated Mirroring volumes, Integrated Mirroring and Striping volumes, Integrated Mirroring Enhanced volumes, and Integrated Striping volumes. You can create up to two Integrated RAID volumes on each LSI SAS2 controller.
The LSI Integrated RAID firmware uses the same device drivers as the standard LSI Fusion-MPT-based controllers, which eliminates the need for complex backup software or expensive RAID hardware. To conserve system resources, the Integrated RAID firmware operates independently from the operating system.
The LSI SAS2 BIOS Configuration Utility makes it easy to configure mirrored and striped volumes. The Integrated RAID solution is currently available as an optional component of the Fusion-MPT architecture on LSI SAS2 controllers.
The LSI Integrated RAID solution has the following features:
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Support for up to ten disks per Integrated RAID volume, with one or two volumes on each SAS2 controller. Each controller can support 14 volume drives, including one or two hot spare disks
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Support for two-disk Integrated Mirroring volumes (RAID 1).
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Support for online capacity expansion (OCE) for RAID 1 volumes. OCE allows you to increase the size of a RAID 1 volume by replacing the disk drives with higher-capacity drives.
Note
OCE is not supported with the 1064E-based controller.
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RAID volume creation, which meets the needs of most internal RAID installations.
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Easy installation and configuration.
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Support for booting from any kind of Integrated RAID volume.
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Ability to operate without special operating system-specific software.
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High reliability and data integrity as follows:
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Nonvolatile write journaling.
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Physical disks in a volume are not visible to the operating system (OS) or to application software.
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Low host CPU and PCI bus utilization
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Processing power provided by Fusion-MPT architecture:
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Shared-memory architecture that minimizes external memory requests.
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Device hardware and firmware that contain the Fusion-MPT architecture functionality.
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The Integrated RAID host interface uses the message-passing interface that gives the host OS access to the RAID volumes and to additional non-RAID physical disks.
The Integrated RAID firmware supports metadata, which describes the logical drive configuration stored on each member disk of a volume. After initialization, the firmware queries each member disk to read the metadata and verify the configuration. The firmware reduces the usable disk space for each member disk when it creates the volume, which makes room for the metadata.
The Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) monitors disk drives for signs of future disk failure and generates an alert if it detects such signs. The Integrated RAID firmware polls each physical disk in the volume at regular intervals. If the firmware detects a SMART code on a physical disk in the volume, it processes the SMART data and stores it in a log. The volume does not support SMART directly because it is only a logical representation of the physical disks in the volume.
The Integrated RAID BIOS uses the LSI Fusion-MPT interface to communicate to the SAS2 controller and firmware, which includes reading the Fusion-MPT configuration to access the parameters that define behavior between the SAS2 controller and the devices that connect to it. The Fusion-MPT drivers for all supported operating systems implement the Fusion-MPT interface to communicate with the controller and firmware.