Array Configuration

[Scott Watkins]

Hi all,
My company just purchased a ML530 w/10 drives and a 2 channel 6x series Smart Array Controller. I would like to know if its possible to configure the following using the default ACU:

disk 1 & 2 - RAID1 (mirror the OS)
disk 3,4,5,6,7 - RAID5 (Databases)
disk 8 & 9 - RAID 1 (mirror log files)
disk 10 - SPARE

Thanks in advance!

[Doug de Werd]

shouldn't be any problem. just configure it that way in the ACU

Thanks,
Doug

[Gordon Leonard]

This is not an optimum configuration. Best performance would be obtained by adding one more disk then taking disk 1-10 and creating ONE array [Note you could also use one less disk the array must contain an even number if disk]. From this you should create your arrays (Size and RAID type). Use disk 11 as a hot spare.

This will provide maximum performance since the bottleneck to storage is the hard disk.

General rule of thumb:
Load balance across all channels (you can RAID across channels not cards)
Use as many drives as possible to create and array
Create Logical drive from the array set.

[Scott Watkins]

I should have stated, this is for Exchange Server 2003. Which I understand runs best with this configuration... thoughts?

[Doug de Werd]

You might find some useful info on the HP Active Answers web site

http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/Render/1,1027,6183-6-100-225-1,00.htm

Thanks,
Doug

[Gordon Leonard]

All HP Smart controllers support Virtual RAID.

Your confusing Array and RAID.

Using an EVEN number of drives create an ARRAY.

*Then*

Create your logical drives (enter the size and the RAID type â 0, 1, 5, 5ADG).

**Example**
Drive 1 â 100MB
Drive 2 â 100MB
Drive 3 â 100MB
Drive 4 â 100MB

Add 1-4 to ARRAY A (400MB RAW Space)

Create Logical Drive (Logical Drive 1, 50MB RAID 1).

You now have ARRAY a with 300MB RAW space and one drive 50MB-RAID 1 (50MB mirror requires 100MB RAW).

Now you can create a Logical drive with X space using RAID 5.

You have just created 2 virtual RAID sets â you do not need to tie physical drives to RAID sets. This allows for maximum performance since I use ALL the drives for