Cisco UCS Server Configuration Utility User Guide

RAID Configuration Page Components

This section describes the RAID Configuration page and contains the following topics:

• Physical Disks Table
• Logical Disks Table

Physical Disks Table

The Physical Disks table in the RAID Configuration page lists the following:

• ID—The identifying number of the physical disk.
• Slot—The slot in which the physical disk belongs.
• State—The status of the disk. For more information about the various disk states, go to Table 7-1 .
• Size—The size of the physical disk.
• Device Speed—The disk access speed of the controller.
• Link Speed—The link speed of the controller.
• Logical Disk—The logical disk to which the physical disk belongs to.

Table 7-1 describes the various disk status conditions.

Logical Disks Table

The logical disks pane in the RAID Configuration page displays the information about the logical disks.

Table 7-2 explains the RAID array attributes.

Configuring RAID Arrays

Only unconfigured good disks can be used for RAID configuration. Disks that are already part of RAID are not available for RAID configuration.

To create custom or multiple RAID arrays, follow these steps:

Step 1 Click Server Configuration in the left navigation pane and then click RAID configuration.

The RAID Configuration page displays with the list of physical disks and logical disks.

Step 2 Click the Configure RAID icon on the top-right of the page.

The RAID Configuration page appears.

Step 3 From the RAID level drop-down list, select one of the following RAID levels:

• Automatic Setup without Redundancy
• Automatic Setup with Redundancy

Note The automatic setup with or without redundancy overrides all the existing RAID arrays.

• Single-Level RAID Configuration
• Nested RAID Configuration

Step 4 Click Create Array.

Note The Create Array button is enabled only if the minimum required number of drive groups are created.

A progress bar is displayed and then a RAID Configuration dialog box appears depicting the completion of a RAID configuration.

Step 5 Click OK.

The RAID Configuration page appears. You can view the following:

• The drive group information is displayed in the Logical Disks table.
• The physical disks information is displayed in the Physical Disks table.
• The status of the physical disks that are part of the drive group changes to Online and the status of the backup physical disk changes to Hot spare.

Automatic Setup without Redundancy

Automatic setup without redundancy requires one or more hard drives. UCS-SCU creates RAID 0 with this option.

Note This option does not work, if number of HDDs are more than thirty-two.

Table 7-3 shows the default values that are displayed for automatic setup without redundancy.

Note The common parameters, except for total size, are the default values for the controller.

Automatic Setup with Redundancy

Automatic setup with redundancy is the default RAID configuration option. This configuration requires at least two physical drives to be available. If two physical disks are not available, the default RAID configuration would be automatic setup without redundancy.

Note This option does not work, if number of HDDs are more than thirty-two.

Table 7-4 shows the default values that are displays.

Note The common parameters, except for total size, are the default values for the controller.

Single-Level RAID Configuration

To configure single level RAID, follow these steps:

Step 1 From the RAID drop-down list, select a RAID level (0 or 1 or 5 or 6).

The Drive Groups pane appears with a list of physical disks and drive groups. For more information about a physical disk, hover the cursor over the physical disk until the tooltip is displayed.

Step 2 From the Physical Disks list, select the physical disks that you want to include in the Drive Groups list.

Table 7-5 displays the minimum number of physical disks required for each of the RAID levels.

Step 3 Click Create Drive Group.

Note The Create Drive Group button remains disabled until the minimum number of physical disks for a RAID level is selected.

The selected physical disks are included in the Drive Groups list.

Note The Delete Drive Group button remains disabled until a drive group is created.

Step 4 From the Physical Disks list, choose a drive to be a hot spare drive or a standby drive.

Step 5 From the Stripe Size list, choose a stripe size for the RAID level.

Step 6 From the Read Policy list, choose a read pol icy for the RAID level.

Step 7 From the Write Policy list, choose a write policy for the RAID level.

Step 8 From the Cache Policy list, choose a cache policy for the RAID level.

Step 9 In the Size (MB) text field, enter the size of the logical disk in MB.

Nested RAID Configuration

Nested RAID levels have primary and secondary RAID levels. You need to create a minimum of two drive groups in nested RAID levels and the drive groups should have the same number of physical disks.

To configure nested RAID levels, follow these steps:

Step 1 From the RAID drop-down list, select a nested RAID level.

The Drive Groups pane appears with a list of physical disks and drive groups. For more information about a physical disk, hover the cursor over the physical disk until the tooltip is displayed.

Step 2 From the Physical Disks list, select the physical disks that you want to include in the Drive Groups list.

Table 7-6 displays the minimum number of physical disks and data groups required.

Step 3 Click Create Drive Group.

Note The Create Drive Group button remains disabled until the minimum number of physical disks for a RAID level is selected.

The selected physical disks are included in the Drive Groups list.

Note The Delete Drive Group button remains disabled until a drive group is created.

Step 4 From the Stripe Size list, choose a stripe size for the RAID level.

Step 5 From the Read Policy list, choose a read pol icy for the RAID level.

Step 6 From the Write Policy list, choose a write policy for the RAID level.

Step 7 From the Cache Policy list, choose a cache policy for the RAID level.

Step 8 In the Size (MB) text field, enter the size of the logical disk in MB.

Clearing RAID Arrays

You can use the RAID Configuration page to delete all the created virtual disks or specific disks to free up the disk space.

This section contains the following topics:

• Deleting All the Virtual Disks
• Deleting Single or Multiple Disks

Deleting All the Virtual Disks

To clear up all the disks, follow these steps:

Step 1 Click Server Configuration in the left navigation pane and then click RAID configuration.

The RAID Configuration page displays with the list of physical disks and logical disks.

Step 2 Click the Clear Configuration icon on the top-right of the page.

The RAID Configuration dialog box appears.

Step 3 Click Yes to confirm the operation.

All the virtual disks under Logical Disks are cleared and the state of the hard disks change to Unconfigured Good.

Deleting Single or Multiple Disks

In single RAID levels and nested RAID levels, if the number of unconfigured good physical disks is less than the minimum disks required for the selected RAID level, a RAID Configuration dialog box appears specifying that logical disks need to be deleted to free up the physical disks.

To clear up the logical disks, follow these steps:

Step 1 Click Yes in the RAID Configuration dialog box that appears.

A Delete Logical Disks dialog box appears.

Step 2 Select the logical disk to be deleted. The physical disks that are part of the logical disk is displayed at the bottom of the dialog box.

Note If you delete a logical disk, all the information stored in the disk will be inaccessible.

Step 3 Click Delete.