LSI 2108/2208

SAS MegaRAID
Configuration Utility

USER’S MANUAL
Revision 1.0
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 Preface

Preface

About This Manual

This manual is written for system integrators, PC technicians and
knowledgeable PC users. It provides instructions on how to use the LSI™
2108/2208 MegaRAID ® Configuration Utility to configure RAID settings for
Supermicro motherboards or systems.

Manual Organization
Chapter 1 Provides an overview on the LSI™ 2108/2208 MegaRAID® Software
Utility.
Chapter 2 Provides instructions on how to run the LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID
Utility to configure RAID settings.

Conventions Used in This Manual

Pay special attention to the following symbols for proper installation and to prevent
damage to the system or injury to yourself.

Warning: Important information given to prevent erroneous RAID configuration and to

ensure proper system setup.

Note: Additional information given to ensure correct RAID configuration

setup.

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

Contacting Supermicro
Headquarters
Address: Super Micro Computer, Inc.
980 Rock Ave.
San Jose, CA 95131 U.S.A.
Tel: +1 (408) 503-8000
Fax: +1 (408) 503-8008
Email: [email protected] (General Information)
[email protected] (Technical Support)
Web Site: www.supermicro.com

Europe
Address: Super Micro Computer B.V.
Het Sterrenbeeld 28, 5215 ML
's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 73-6400390
Fax: +31 (0) 73-6416525
Email: [email protected] (General Information)
[email protected] (Technical Support)
[email protected] (Customer Support)

Asia-Pacific
Address: Super Micro Computer, Inc.
4F, No. 232-1, Liancheng Rd.
Chung-Ho 235, Taipei County
Taiwan, R.O.C.
Tel: +886-(2) 8226-3990
Fax: +886-(2) 8226-3991
Web Site: www.supermicro.com.tw
Technical Support:
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 886-2-8228-1366, ext.132 or 139

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 Preface

Notes

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction
1-1 Overview of the LSI 2108/2208 SAS Controller.............................................. 1-1
Features of the LSI 2108/2208 Controller....................................................... 1-1
Functions of the LSI MegaRAID Utility............................................................ 1-3
Drive Features Supported by the LSI MegaRAID Utility................................. 1-3
1-2 RAID Levels Supported by the 2108/2208 Controller..................................... 1-4
RAID 0.............................................................................................................. 1-4
RAID 1.............................................................................................................. 1-4
RAID 10............................................................................................................ 1-5
RAID 5.............................................................................................................. 1-5
RAID 50............................................................................................................ 1-6
RAID 6.............................................................................................................. 1-6
RAID 60............................................................................................................ 1-7
Chapter 2 Configuring the LSI MegaRAID Settings
2-1 Using the LSI MegaRAID Configuration Utility................................................ 2-1
2-2 The LSI MegaRAID Main Screen.................................................................... 2-2
2-3 Advanced Software Options............................................................................ 2-3
2-4 Controller Selection.......................................................................................... 2-3
2-5 Controller Properties........................................................................................ 2-3
2-6 Scan Devices................................................................................................... 2-6
2-7 Virtual Drives.................................................................................................... 2-6
2-8 Drives............................................................................................................... 2-8
2-9 Configuration Wizard........................................................................................ 2-9
Adding a Configuration.................................................................................. 2-10
Configuring Drives Manually...........................................................................2-11
2-10 Logical View................................................................................................... 2-14
Physical View................................................................................................. 2-14
2-11 Events............................................................................................................ 2-15
2-12 Exit................................................................................................................. 2-16

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 Chapter 1: Introduction to the LSI MegaRAID Software Utility

Chapter 1

Introduction

After you have installed hardware components, you must first configure LSI
2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID settings before you install an operating system and
other software drivers.
Note: If you do not wish to configure LSI Software RAID settings, proceed
with the OS installation. For OS installation instructions, refer to related
documents posted on our website at www.supermicro.com.

1-1 Overview of the LSI 2108/2208 SAS Controller

The LSI 2108/2208 SAS Controller, based on the RoC (RAID-on-Chip) architecture,
integrates the most advanced SAS and PCI-Express Generation 2 (LSI2108) or
Generation 3 (LSI2208) technologies to offer a cost-effective RAID management
tool for high-end workstations or servers that require high system availability and
data security. By providing a next generation high bandwidth storage capability,
the LSI 2108/2208 Controller excels in I/O transaction and data transferring, and
is ideal for video streaming and data processing applications.
In addition, the LSI 2108/2208 controller is SAS2 or SATA3 based and supports up
to eight ports with transfer rates of up to 6.0 Gb/s (SAS/SATA infrastructure). By
integrating SAS, SATA and hardware RAID support, the LSI 2108/2208 controller
offers small-to-mid sized data centers exceptional flexibility to deliver advanced
data protection and system performance using high-performance SAS, SATA or
solid state devices.

Features of the LSI 2108/2208 Controller

The LSI SAS 2108 Controller supports the following features:
Integrated RAID
• RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10 supported
• RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 50 and RAID 60 supported
PCI-Express to 8-Port SAS/SATA Controller with data rates of 8.0 GT/s for
PCI-E 3.0 and 5.0 GT/s for PCI-E 2.0

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High Performance
• Single PowerPC core at 800 MHz (LSI2108 only), 512MB Write Cache
• Dual PowerPC cores at 800 MHz (LSI2208 only), 1GB Write Cache
6Gb/s SAS Interface
• 8-port SAS/SATA controller
• 1.5 Gb/s, 3 Gb/s, and 6 Gb/s SAS/SATA data transfer rates supported
• Spread Spectrum Clocking supported
• SSP, SMP (Symmetric Multiple Processing), STP (Spanning Tree Protocol),
and SATA (Serial-ATA) protocols supported

• SAS and SATA devices supported

• T-10 data protection
PCI-Express 2.0 / 3.0
• PCI-E x8 with a transfer rate of up to 8.0/5.0 GT/s per lane, full duplex
• End-to-End CRC (ECRC) and Advanced Error Reporting (AER) supported
Power Management Support
• Sleep and Standby power mode support for SATA
• Programmable SAS link power down
Network Communication
• I C support for enclosure management and debugging
2

• UART interface for debugging

SFF-8485 SGPIO (Serial General Purpose I/O) Specification Compliant

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Functions of the LSI MegaRAID Utility

• Support for BIOS Boot Specification (BBS) (if supported by the system BIOS)
• Support for Enhanced Disk Drive Specification
• Support for Enable/Disable BIOS Boot
• Support for Hot-plug and Hot Auto Rebuild (during a hot plug event and the
physical drive is forced off-line)

Drive Features Supported by the LSI MegaRAID Utility

The following drive features are supported by the LSI MegaRAID Software utility:
• Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 50 and RAID 60
• Online mirror rebuilding
• Online consistency checking
• Array system management
• Error logging and notification
• Automatic resume of rebuilding on restart
• Support for manual rebuilding
• Auto-configuration support of newly-added physical drive
• Support for global hotspare
• Array initialization support
• Logical drive available immediately after creation
• Stripe size of 1024 KB supported

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1-2 RAID Levels Supported by the 2108/2208 Controller

The LSI Embedded MegaRAID Software Configuration Utility adds RAID functions
to enhance system efficiency and data security by supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID
10, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 50 and RAID 60. .
Note: A maximum of 16 physical disk drives is supported for RAID.

RAID 0
RAID 0 (Integrated Striping) can greatly enhance hard disk I/O performance by strip-
ing data across all disk drives in an array or drive group. This RAID configuration
does not provide data redundancy, but it offers the best RAID performance and a
high bandwidth. The following illustration provides a visual example of a RAID 0
drive group.

Drive A Drive B

Segment 1 Segment 2
Segment 3 Segment 4
Segment 5 Segment 6
Segment 7 Segment 8

RAID 0 Example

RAID 1
RAID 1 (Integrated Mirroring) allows data to be simultaneously written to multiple
drives. This RAID configuration increases data integrity by providing redundancy,
but requires twice the amount of data storage capacity. RAID 1 requires 2 drives.
The following illustration provides a visual example of a RAID 1 drive group.

RAID 1 RAID 1

Drive A Drive B Drive C Drive D

Segment 1 Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 2

Duplicate Duplicate
Segment 3 Segment 3 Segment 4 Segment 4
Duplicate Duplicate

RAID 1 Example

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RAID 10
RAID 10, a combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0, provides superb system performance
and system security. RAID 10 mirrors small blocks of data to a series of RAID 1
drive groups. Then the first RAID 1 drive in a drive group duplicates its data to the
second drive. RAID 10 requires a minimum of 4 drives. Any additional drives must
be be added in pairs (6 drives, 8 drives, etc). The following illustration provides a
visual example of a RAID 10 virtual drive group.

RAID 0

RAID 1 RAID 1

Drive A Drive B Drive C Drive D

RAID 10
Segment 1 Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 2
Duplicate Duplicate
Segment 3 Segment 3 Segment 4 Segment 4
Duplicate Duplicate

RAID 10 Example

RAID 5
RAID 5 provides high data throughput by implementing block-level striping with par-
ity data distributed across all drives. A RAID 5 configuration can survive the loss of
a single drive failure because the parity drive can be used to re-create the missing
data. RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives. The following illustration provides a visual
example of a RAID 5 virtual drive group with three drives.

RAID 5

Drive A Drive B Drive C

Segment 1 Segment 2 Parity (1,2)

Segment 3 Parity (3,4) Segment 4
Parity (5,6) Segment 5 Segment 6

RAID 5 Example

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RAID 50
RAID 50 is a combination of RAID 5 and RAID 0. This type of drive group is called
a spanned drive group because data is striped across multiple RAID 5 drive groups.
RAID 50 requires at least 6 drives. The following illustration provides a visual ex-
ample of a RAID 50 virtual drive group.
RAID 0

RAID 5 RAID 5

Drive A Drive B Drive C Drive D Drive E Drive F

RAID 50
Segment 1 Segment 2 Parity (1,2) Segment 3 Segment 4 Parity (3,4)
Segment 6 Parity (5,6) Segment 5 Segment 8 Parity (7,8) Segment 7
Parity (9, 10) Segment 9 Segment 10 Parity (11, 12) Segment 11 Segment 12

RAID 50 Example

RAID 6
Similar to RAID 5, RAID 6 also provides block-level striping with parity data distrib-
uted across all drives, except that there are two parity blocks per stripe instead of
just one. A RAID 6 configuration can survive the loss of any two drives in a virtual
drive without losing data and requires a minimm of 3 drives. The following illustra-
tion provides a visual example of a RAID 6 virtual drive group.
Note: In the following RAID 6 illustration, the P drives represent the RAID
5 parity scheme. The Q drives represent the second set of parity drives.

RAID 6

Drive A Drive B Drive C Drive D Drive E Drive F

Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 Segment 4 Parity (P1-P4) Parity (Q1-Q4)

Segment 6 Segment 7 Segment 8 Party (P5-P8) Parity (Q5-Q8) Segment 5
Segment 11 Segment 12 Parity (P9-P12) Party (Q9-Q12) Segment 9 Segment 10
Segment 16 Parity (P13-P16) Parity (Q13-Q16) Segment 13 Segment 14 Segment 15
Parity (P17-P20) Parity (Q17-Q20) Segment 17 Segment 18 Segment 19 Segment 20

RAID 6 Example

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RAID 60
RAID 60 combines the features of RAID 6 and RAID 0. RAID 60 implements
distributed parity (two independent parity bloks per stripe in a RAID set) and disk
striping.The dual parity allows RAID 6 to survive two drive failures in each RAID 6
set without losing data. RAID 60 requires at least 8 drives. The following illustration
provides a visual example of a RAID 60 virtual drive group.
Note: In the following RAID 6 illustration, the P drives represent the RAID
5 parity scheme. The Q drives represent the second set of parity drives.

RAID 0

RAID 6 RAID 6

Drive C Drive D Drive E Drive F Drive G Drive H

Drive A Drive B

RAID 60 Segment 1 Segment 2 Parity (P1-P2) Segment 3 Segment 4 Parity (Q3-Q4) Parity (P3-P4)
Parity (Q1-Q2)
Segment 8 Parity (Q3-Q4) Segment 7 Segment 6 Parity (Q5-Q6) Parity (P5-P6) Segment 5
Parity (P3-P4)
Parity (Q11-Q12) Parity (P11-P12) Segment 12 Parity (Q9-Q10) Parity (P9-P10) Segment 9 Segment 10
Segment 11
Parity (P15-P16) Segment 15 Parity (Q15-Q16) Parity (P13-P14) Segment 13 Segment 14 Parity (Q13-Q14)
Segment 16

RAID 60 Example

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Notes

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 Chapter 2: Configuring the LSI MegaRAID Settings

Chapter 2

Configuring the LSI MegaRAID Settings

This chapter provides instructions on how to configure MegaRAID settings for the
LSI 2108/2208 SAS controller. If you do not wish to configure LSI Software RAID
settings, skip this section and go directly to OS Installation. For OS installation
instructions, please refer to our web site at www.supermicro.com.
Note: To use the drives connected to the 2108/2208 controller, a RAID
must be created. If using drives like in JBOD, each single drive must be
created as a RAID 0 individually.

Note: For system stability, do not use both SAS and SATA drives in the
same array.

2-1 Using the LSI MegaRAID Configuration Utility

Follow the steps below to configure arrays and logical drives.
1. Power on the system.

2. Press <CTRL> and <H> to enter the LSI MegaRAID Configuration Utility after
the controller is initialized. The Adapter Selection screen displays, as shown
below.

Adapter Selection

3. In the Adapter Selection screen, choose LSI SAS 2108/2208 then select Start
to display the MegaRAID main screen.

Note: To make a selection, use the mouse or use the <Tab> key to navi-
gate between the selectable items on the screen and press <Enter> to
confirm. If your USB Keyboard/Mouse is not supported by the MegaRAID
BIOS Config Utility, enter the BIOS Setup Utility and enable Port 64/60
Emulation support (Advanced > Chipset Config > South Bridge Config >
Port 64/60 Emulation).

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

2-2 The LSI MegaRAID Main Screen

LSI Configuration Utility Main Screen

On the left side of the LSI MegaRAID main screen is a list of configurable items.
To configure the settings for an item, use the mouse or press the <Tab> key to
select the item and press <Enter>. The main screen includes the following items:
• Advanced Software Options
• Controller Selection
• Controller Properties
• Scan Devices
• Virtual Drives
• Drives
• Configuration Wizard
• Logical View/Physical View
• Events
• Exit

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2-3 Advanced Software Options

The MegaRAID advanced software options enable enhanced features and function-
ality that may not be available in the standard controller configuration. Advanced
software options are not a standard feature and are not provided by Supermicro.
For more information on this feature, go to:
www.lsi.com/products/storagesw/Pages/LSIAdvancedSoftwareLicensing.aspx

2-4 Controller Selection

If your system has multiple MegaRAID controllers installed, choose Controller Se-
lection from the MegaRAID configuration utility main page to return to the Adapter
Selection screen (see page 2-1) and view or select a different controller.

2-5 Controller Properties

This feature allows you to configure the properties settings of a controller installed on
the adapter card. Follow the instructions below to configure the controller settings.

1. From the MegaRAID configuration utility main page, use the mouse or the
<Tab> key to select Controller Properties to display the Controller Information
screen (shown below). This screen displays information about the selected
controller such as Serial Number, WebBIOS Version, Firmware Version, Drive
Count, and Memory Size.

Controller Information

2. Select Next to view additional controller information.

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3. Select Next again to display the Controller Properties screen (shown below).

Controller Properties

4. The Controller Properties screen allows you to view and configure the follow-
ing items:

Note: Select Next to see additional configurable items.

Item Description
Battery Backup This item indicates if a backup battery is installed in the
system. If installed, select Present to view the battery
details.
Coercion Mode Select a desired setting for the coercion mode. The op-
tions are None, 128MB-way, and 1GB-way.
Set Factory Select Yes to load factory default settings. Select No if
Default you do not want to use the factory default settings.
S.M.A.R.T Enter a number (in seconds) for the interval between the
Polling first and the next S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis,
and Reporting Technology) Polling.
Cluster Mode A cluster is a group of servers that connects to a common
set of clients and can access the same data storage.
Select Disabled to disable cluster support. Select Enabled
to enable cluster support.
Alarm Control Use this item to enable, disable, or silence the onboard
alarm.

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Item Description
Rebuild Rate The rebuild rate determines the percentage of system re-
sources that will be applied toward rebuilding a drive that
has failed. Enter a number between 1 and 100 to control
the rebuild rate.
Patrol Read A patrol read monitors physical disks to find and resolve
Rate any problems that may result in disk failure. Enter a num-
ber between 0 and 100 for the patrol read rate.
BGI Rate The BGI (Background Initialization) Rate determines the
rate at which virtual drives are initialized in the back-
ground. Enter a number between 0 and 100.
Cache Flush Enter a value in the field to specify (in seconds) how often
Interval the system will flush the cache memory.
CC Rate The CC (Check Consistency) Rate determines the rate at
which consistency check scans are performed on a disk to
determine if data is corrupted. Enter a number between 0
and 100.
Spinup Drive Enter a number to control the amount of drives that spin up
Count at one time.
Reconstruction The reconstruction rate determines the rate at which a
Rate virtual drive is reconstructed. Enter a number between 0
and 100.
Spinup Delay After the RAID controller completes initialization, the spinup
delay is the initial amount of seconds that pass before the
first disk interrogation request is sent to the array.
NCQ Enable NCQ (Native Command Queuing) to increase
the performance of an HDD by allowing it to optimize the
operation sequence in retrieving outstanding requests and
executing read/write commands.
Spin Down This item indicates how long a spin-down drive will wait
Delay Time before the next command is executed
Stop CC On Select Yes to stop a consistency check when an error is
Error encountered.
Schedule CC Use this item to schedule a consistency check.
Maintain PD Enable this feature to track bad PDs (Physical Disk) across
Fail History reboot.
Stop on Error Enable this feature to stop system POST if an error is
detected.
Controller This item enables the controller BIOS. The default is
BIOS Enabled.
Disk Activity Enable this option if you want disk activity indicated by a
green activity LED. The disks must be installed in an enclo-
sure for this option to work.

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Item Description
Emergency Specify whether to use GHS (Global Hot Spares) or UG
Spare (Unconfigured Good) drives as emergency spares.
Emergency for Select to enable or disable this feature. The default is
SMARTer disabled.
Link Speed Use this item to manage the link speed between the con-
troller and a drive that is connected to the controller.
Data Protection Use this item to enable or disable data protection.
SSD Caching Use this item to manage SSD caching on virtual drives.

After all settings have been configured, select Submit to implement the changes
or select Reset to reset the settings.

2-6 Scan Devices

From the configuration utility main screen, use the mouse or the <Tab> key to select
Scan Devices. This feature checks the physical and virtual drives for any changes
in drive status. Any changes in drive status are displayed in the drive descriptions.

2-7 Virtual Drives

This feature displays all virtual drives detected in the system and allows you to
perform an action on the drive selected.

1. From the configuration utility main screen, use the <Tab> key or the mouse to
select Virtual Drives and press <Enter>. The following screen displays.

Virtual Drives

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2. In the window on the right, select a virtual drive and perform one of the fol-
lowing actions:

• Fast Initialize: Initializes the selected drive by writing zeros to the first sector of
the drive, then continue the initialization in the background after system boot.

• Slow Initialize: Initializes the selected drive by writing zeros to the entire drive
volume. This process can take hours or days to complete, depending on the
drive size.

• Check Consistency: Verify that redundancy data is correct and available for
arrays or disk groups using RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, or 60. If a difference in data
is found, MegaRAID WebBIOS assumes that the data is accurate and automati-
cally corrects the parity value.

• Properties: Check this item to view and change the properties of the selected
drive (see #3 below).

• Set Boot Drive: Check this item to make the selected drive a bootable drive.
After selecting an action to perform, click Go to perform the action or click Reset
to reset the setting.

3. If you select Properties, the following screen displays.

Virtual Drive Properties

The following information can be viewed/changed in the Properties screen:

Properties: This section displays the properties of the drive. Select Advanced
Properties to display other drive properties.

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Policies: This section allows you to view and change the read, write, disk cache,
BGI, access, and I/O policies on the drive. To change any settings, choose the de-
sired setting from the pull-down menu and select Change to confirm the change.

Operations: This section allows you to perform the following operations on the
virtual drive:
• Delete
• Locate/Stop Locate
• Adv Opers (Advanced Operations)
• Fast/Slow Init (fast/slow initialization)
• CC (Consistency Check)
• Expand
After selecting a desired operation, click Go to perform the operation.

2-8 Drives
This feature displays all physical drives detected on the controller and allows you
to rebuild or view the properties of the selected drive.

1. From the MegaRAID configuration utility main page, use the <Tab> key or the
mouse to select Drives. The following screen displays.

Drives

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2. Highlight a drive and select one of the following items to perform an action.

• Rebuild: Check this item to rebuild the drive selected.

• Properties: Check this item to display the properties of the drive selected.
After you've selected an action to perform, click Go to perform the action. Click
Reset to reset the setting.

2-9 Configuration Wizard

This feature enables you to create a new configuration, add a configuration, or clear
a configuration. The following quick configuration instructions will show you how to
easily and efficiently configure MegaRAID settings.

1. From the configuration utility main page, use the <Tab> key or the mouse to
select Configuration Wizard. The following screen displays.

Configuration Wizard

2. Check one of the following items to perform an action.

• Clear Configuration: Check this item to clear the existing RAID configuration
settings.

• New Configuration: Check this item to delete all RAID configuration settings and
create new a RAID Volume. Data previously stored in the drive will be erased.

Warning: When creating a new RAID volume, all existing RAID arrays will be erased.

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

• Add Configuration: Check this item to keep the existing configuration settings
and to add new settings to the drive. This is a safe operation because there is
no risk of losing data.

After you have checked an item, select Next to proceed with the action or select
Cancel to return to the configuration utility main page.

Adding a Configuration
If you selected Add Configuration, the following screen displays.

Add Configuration

3. Select one of the following configuration methods:

• Manual Configuration: Check this item to manually create drive groups and
virtual drives and manually set their parameters. All drives including configured
drives will display.

• Automatic Configuration: Check this item to allow the LSI SAS RAID Controller
to configure the MegaRAID settings automatically.

- Select a Redundancy option for Automatic Configuration. Select Redundancy

When Possible to configure RAID 1 for systems with only two drives or configure
RAID 5 or RAID 6 if the system has three or more drives. Select No Redundancy
to configure all drives as RAID 0 virtual drives.
- Select whether to enable or disable Data Protection.
Note: RAID 10, 50, and 60 cannot be automatically configured.

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Configuring Drives Manually

1. In the Add Configuration screen, select Manual Configuration and click Next
to begin adding drives. The following screen displays.

Add Drives

2. Select the drives you want to add to the array and click Add to Array. To
undo any drive addition, select the drive and click Reclaim.

3. After all desired drives are added to the drive group, select Accept DG to
create a drive group. Multiple drive groups can be created by adding addi-
tional available drives. When finished creating drive groups, select Next.

4. In the pull-down menu of the Span Definition screen, select the drive group
you want to add to SPAN and click Add to SPAN, then click Next.

Span Definition
Note: For RAID 10, 50, and 60, two or more drive groups must be added
to SPAN.

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5. The Virtual Drive Definition screen displays, as shown below.

Virtual Drive Definition

In the Virtual Drive Definition screen, configure the following options as needed:

RAID Level: Select the desired RAID level. The available options are:
• RAID 0 (data striping)
• RAID 1 (data mirroring)
• RAID 5 (data striping with parity)
• RAID 6 (distributed parity and disk striping)
• RAID 10 (striped mirroring)
• RAID 50 (striped mirroring)
• RAID 60 (distributed parity with two independent parity blocks per stripe)
Stripe Size: Select the desired stripe size.

Access Policy: Select the desired data access policy.

Read Policy: Select either Always Read Ahead or No Read Ahead. Selecting Al-
ways Read Ahead will improve performance during sequential reads.

Write Policy: Select between the following options:

• Write-Through: Use this option to write data to both the controller cache and
the drive once the data is retrieved.

• Write-Back With BBU: Use this option to write data only to the controller
cache, provided that a battery backup is installed and functional.

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• Always Write-Back: Use this option to write data only to the cache, even if a
battery backup is bad or missing. (This option is not recommended because
cached data will be lost in the event of a power outage.)

IO Policy: The IO Policy applies only to reads on a specific virtual drive and does
not affect the Read Policy or the Write Policy. Select between the following options:
• Cached: Use this option to buffer all IO reads in cache memory.
• Direct: Use this option to simultaneously transfer data to the cache and host.
Drive Cache: This applies to the cache on physical drives in the array. Select
between Enable, Disable, and Unchanged.

Disable BGI: Select whether or not to disable background initialization.

Select Size: Enter a value to set the desired size of the virtual drive. The maximum
capacity that can be set is displayed in the Virtual Drives window (right side of
Virtual Drive Definition screen)

6. When finished configuring the virtual drive options, select Accept then select
Next to proceed to the configuration preview screen (shown below).

Configuration Preview

7. Select Accept to save the configuration. Continue to select Accept in the fol-
lowing screens until you are prompted to initialize the virtual drive.

8. Select Yes when prompted to initialize the drive. Initialization options are
identical to Virtual Drives section (see page 2-6).

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

2-10 Logical View

This feature displays the status of logical drives of the system. From the MegaRAID
utility configuration main page, use the <Tab> key or the mouse to select Logical
View. The following screen displays to indicate the status of logical drives installed
in the system.

Logical View

Physical View
To view physical drives (instead of logical drives) in the main window, select Physical
View in the left pane of the main page to display the status of all physical drives
detected in the system.

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2-11 Events
This feature displays system event information. From the configuration utility main
page, use the <Tab> key or the mouse to select Events. The following screen
displays.

Event Information

Use the left pane of the screen to set the parameters, then select Go to display the
associated events. The parameters are:

First Sequence# / Last Sequence#: The first and last sequence are for display
only. They indicate the range of events that have been captured.

Event Locale: Select the location for the event search. Available locations include:
• Virtual Drive
• Physical Device
• Enclosure
• BBU (Battery Backup)
• SAS (SAS devices)
• Controller
• Configuration
• Cluster

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 LSI 2108/2208 SAS MegaRAID Configuration Utility User's Manual

Event Class: Select the class level for the event search. Available classes include:
• Informational: This type of event is informative only and does not require
user action.

• Warning: This type of event indicates a component that may cause a failure.
• Critical: This type of event affects system stability. User intervention is re-
quired to solve the problem before the system becomes unstable.

• Fatal: This type of event indicates that some component has failed and that
data loss will occur or has occurred.

• Dead: This type of event indicates that a devastating error occurred, result-
ing in controller failure. This error will only be seen if the controller has
been restarted.

Start Sequence#: Based on the range of sequences (events) that are logged, enter
a sequence starting point for the event search.

# of Events (Maximum 248 at a time): Enter the number of events to search

beyond the Start Sequence#. For example, if the Start Sequence# is set at 200
and the # of Events is set at 40, a search will be performed on events 200 - 240.

2-12 Exit
After you have configured RAID settings, return to the main page and use the <Tab>
key or the mouse to select Exit. A screen displays prompting you to confirm exiting.
Select No to return to the LSI RAID Utility. Select Yes to exit, at which point you are
prompted to reboot your system. Press <Ctrl> + <Alt> + <Del> to reboot the system.

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 (Disclaimer continued)

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