Adaptec CDP-00277-01-A Installation And User Manual

Also see for ASR-71605: User guide

Contents

3 About Your RAID ControllerThis chapter provides an overview of the features of your Adaptec RAID controller.Standard RAID Controller Features• Support for SAS disk drives, SATA/SATA II disk drives, and SATA and SAS Solid State Drives (SSDs)• Flash ROM for updates to controller firmware, BIOS, and the Adaptec RAID Configuration utility• Disk drive hot-swapping• Event logging and broadcasting, including email notification messages• Multiple options for creating and managing RAID arrays—A browser-based software application(maxView Storage Manager), a BIOS-based utility (ARC), a command line utility (ARCCONF) (seeManaging Your Storage Space on page 54)• Native command queuing (NCQ), which lets disk drives arrange commands into the most efficientorder for optimum performance• Support for disk drive enclosures with SES2 enclosure management hardware• Support for a flash backup module (see Adding a Flash Backup Module on page 16)• Support for Adaptec maxCache™ SSD read and write caching (see Modifying Cache Settings on page73)Note: Adaptec maxCache is supported on Adaptec Series Q controllers only.• Power-management of disk drives in your storage space to reduce cooling and electricity costs (seeModifying Power Management Settings on page 73)• Audible alarm• I/O statistics loggingArray-level Features• Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, RAID 50, and simple volumes• Support for hybrid RAID 1 and RAID 10 arrays comprised of hard drives and Solid State Drives (SSDs)• Support for hot spares (global and dedicated)• Support for automatic failover, so arrays are automatically rebuilt when a failed drive is replaced(applies to redundant arrays in SES2- or SAF-TE-enabled disk drive enclosures only)• Optimized disk utilization, which ensures that the full capacity of all disk drives can be used, even ifthe disk drives vary in size• Online capacity expansion, so you can increase the capacity of an array without recreating it• Support for array migration from one RAID level to anotherAdvanced Data Protection Suite• Copyback Hot Spare—You can use this feature to move data from a hot spare back to its originallocation after a failed disk drive is replaced.• Striped Mirror (RAID 1E)—A RAID 1 Enhanced array is similar to a RAID 1 array except that data isboth mirrored and striped, and more disk drives can be included.• Dual Drive Failure Protection (RAID 6)—A RAID 6 array is similar to a RAID 5 array except that itincludes two independent sets of parity data instead of one.• Dual Drive Failure Protection (RAID 60)—A RAID 60 array is similar to a RAID 50 array except that itincludes four independent sets of parity data instead of two.Adding a Flash Backup ModuleThis table shows the flash backup module (or “zero maintenance cache protection”) supported by yourAdaptec RAID controller. To purchase a flash backup module, refer to the Adaptec Web site atwww.adaptec.com.16Proprietary and Confidential to PMC-Sierra, Inc.Document No.: CDP-00277-01-A Rev. A, Issue:Serial Attached SCSI RAID Controllers Installation and User's Guide