To create an array:
1. Select menu "Manage|Array".
2. Click the Create Array button. The create array page will appear.
Figure 1 Create Array
3. Choose the array type you want to create from the drop-down list.
4. Enter a name for the array.
5. If you are creating a redundant array, choose an initialization option for the array.
Note: An un-initialized RAID1 or RAID1/0 array can still provide redundancy in case of a disk failure. A RAID5 array, however, is not fault-tolerant until initialization is finished.
6. If you are creating RAID5, specify a cache policy for the array:
Write-back
When the write-back setting is selected, writes to the array are cached. This will result in higher performance but data loss may occur in case of a power failure.
Write-through
When the write-through setting is selected, writes to the array are always passed to the disks. Subsequence reads may still be completed from the cache if appropriate.
7. Select disks from the Available Disks list.
8. Enter a capacity for the array, or use the default value (the maximum capacity for the array).
9. Click Create. If you have specified an initialization option, the initialization process will start automatically.
To delete an array:
1. Select menu "Manage | Array".
2. Click the Maintenance button. Array Information dialog will appear.
Figure 2 Array Information
3. Click the Delete button.
Note: An array in use by operating system cannot be deleted. It's recommended to dismount any file systems on the array in operating system before deleting an array.
When an array member in a redundant array fails, the array become broken. A broken array can be automatically rebuilt using hot-spare disks; however, if you have no spare disks configured, you can still rebuild the array by adding a new disk to it. To add a disk to a broken array:
1. Select menu "Manage | Array".
2. Click the Maintenance button.
3. Click the Add Disk button.
4. If the disk is successfully added to the array, rebuild process will start automatically.
For a RAID 1 or RAID1/0 array, verify process compares the data of one mirror pair with the other. For RAID 5, verify process calculates RAID5 parity and compares it to the parity data on the array. Verification checks each sector on a drive. Periodic verification of an array allows the disk drive firmware to take corrective actions on problem areas on the disk, minimizing the occurrence of uncorrectable read and write errors.
To verify an array:
1. Select menu "Manage | Array".
2. Click the Maintenance button.
3. Click the Verify button.
4. Verify process will start.
When a redundant array becomes critical state, a rebuilding is needed. Rebuild process for an array generally starts automatically. If you have aborted a rebuild process, you can start it manually. To rebuild an array:
1. Select menu "Manage | Array".
2. Click the Maintenancebutton.
3. Click the Rebuild button.
4. Rebuild process will start.
With the OCE/ORLM function, you can migrate an array from one RAID level to another RAID level and/or expand the array dynamically, even under I/O load. This function implements Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration with more flexibility.
To expand/migrate an array:
1. Select menu "Manage | Array".
2. Click the Maintenance button.
3. Select the target array type.
3. Click the OCE/ORLM button.
4. The OCE/ORLM page will appear. The interface is similar to array creation wizard. You can specify the new configuration for the array just like creating a new array.
Note:
1) You cannot migrate an array to another array with smaller capacity.
2) During expanding/migrating progress, the redundancy level of the array will be the lowest of the source and target arrays; e.g. if you migrate a RAID1 array to a RAID0 array, the array will be non-redundant before the migrating progress finishes.
3) An expanding/migrating process can be paused and continued later; however, you should always stop the expanding/migrating progress from the RAID Management software. Unexpected system crash will result in data loss on an expanding/migrating array.
To rename an array:
5. Select menu "Manage | Array".
6. Click the Maintenance button.
7. Enter a new name for the array.
8. Click the Rename button.
Note: An array with running background tasks cannot be renamed.