User manual TYAN NVRAID

[. . . ] NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ForceWare Software Version 2. 0 A NVIDIA Corporation September 3, 2004 NVIDIA Applications NVIDIA RAID User's Guide Version 2. 0 Published by NVIDIA Corporation 2701 San Tomas Expressway Santa Clara, CA 95050 Notice ALL NVIDIA DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS, REFERENCE BOARDS, FILES, DRAWINGS, DIAGNOSTICS, LISTS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS (TOGETHER AND SEPARATELY, "MATERIALS") ARE BEING PROVIDED "AS IS. " NVIDIA MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE WITH RESPECT TO THE MATERIALS, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. However, NVIDIA Corporation assumes no responsibility for the consequences of use of such information or for any infringement of patents or other rights of third parties that may result from its use. No license is granted by implication or otherwise under any patent or patent rights of NVIDIA Corporation. Specifications mentioned in this publication are subject to change without notice. [. . . ] The Select Disks to Initialize window appears. Figure 2. 24 Select Disks to Initialize Page The disks listed depend on how many arrays you have configured 4 Click Next. The Select Disks to Convert window appears. Figure 2. 25 Select Disks to Convert Page 34 NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ­ Version 2. 0 A CHAPTER 2 Setting Up Your RAID Configuration 5 Check the disk in the list if you want to make the array a dynamic disk, then click Next. The Completing the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard window appears. Figure 2. 26 Completing the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard Page NVIDIA Corporation 35 CHAPTER 2 Setting Up Your RAID Configuration 6 Click Finish. The Computer Management window appears. Figure 2. 27 Computer Management Window The actual disks listed will depend on your system. In Figure 2. 27, there is a 111 GB unallocated partition (which is the total combined storage of two 60 GB HD). Right click "Unallocated space", select "New Partition. . . " and follow the Wizard instrucrtions. After the drive has been formatted, it is ready for use. 36 NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ­ Version 2. 0 A C HAPTER USING THE NVRAIDMAN UTILITY About the NVIDIA RAID Management Utility The NVIDIA RAID software ships with an application called NVRAIDMAN. This chapter describes the NVRAIDMAN tasks in the following sections: · Viewing RAID Array Configurations View an array configuration (mirrored, striped, mirrored-striped, JBOD, or any supported combination) · Setting Up a Spare RAID Disk · View free and/or dedicated free disks · Designate a free disk to a particular array · Rebuilding a RAID Array · Rebuild a broken mirrored array · Watch the progress of rebuilding of an array · Only applies to RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 arrays · Creating RAID Arrays · Deleting a RAID Array · Morphing From One RAID Array to Another · Hot Plug Array NVIDIA Corporation 37 CHAPTER 3 Using the NVRAIDMAN Utility Viewing RAID Array Configurations To view your RAID configuration from Windows, launch the NVIDIA RAID Management utility by double-clicking NVRAIDMAN. The RAID configuration information appears in the right-side pane, as shown in Figure 3. 1. Figure 3. 1 NVRAID Management Utility Window The following are examples of the information displayed for the various RAID levels. While the details of your own configuration will likely vary from what is shown, the examples serve to illustrate the basic differences between the RAID levels. NVIDIA RAID Mirrored Array Figure 3. 2 shows an example of a two hard drive mirrored array using identical 34. 4 GB1 SATA hard drives (WD360GB), where one drive is configured as Primary and the other drive is configured as Secondary. The total hard disk space used is 34. 4 GB. Figure 3. 2 NVRAIDMAN Mirrored Array Information 1. 1 GB = 1, 073, 741, 824 bytes 38 NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ­ Version 2. 0 A CHAPTER 3 Using the NVRAIDMAN Utility NVIDIA RAID Striped Array Figure 3. 3 shows an example of a two hard drive striped array using identical 34. 48 GB SATA hard drives (WD360GB), where one drive is configured as Primary and the other drive is configured as Secondary. The total disk space used is 68. 95GB. Figure 3. 3 NVRAIDMAN Striped Array Information NVIDIA RAID Mirrored-Stripe Array Figure 3. 4 shows an example of a four hard drive mirrored-stripe array. The total storage space is 68. 95 GB because the two upper drives (the drives with the 34. 48 GB size) are first striped, and then they are mirrored onto the 69. 25 GB drives. Figure 3. 4 NVRAIDMAN Stripe Mirroring Array Information NVIDIA RAID Spanning (JBOD) Array Figure 3. 5 shows an example of a two hard drive spanning array. The total disk space used is 68. 95 GB. Figure 3. 5 NVRAIDMAN Spanning Array Information NVIDIA Corporation 39 CHAPTER 3 Using the NVRAIDMAN Utility NVIDIA RAID Mirrored Array and Striped Array Figure 3. 6 shows an example of a two hard drive mirrored array as well as a two hard drive striped array. Figure 3. 6 NVRAIDMAN Mirrored Array and Striped Array Information 40 NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ­ Version 2. 0 A CHAPTER 3 Using the NVRAIDMAN Utility Setting Up a Spare RAID Disk You can designate a hard drive to be used as a spare drive for a RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 array2. NVIDIA RAID supports two types of spare drives: · Free Disk A free disk is a disk that is not part of any RAID array, but can be used by any available RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 array that requires a particular disk when one of its disks crashes or becomes unusable. The process is automatic and doesn't require any user interaction. For example, if you have a system with four hard disks where one disk is used to boot the OS, two hard drives are set up in a mirrored array, and a fourth hard disk is set up as a free disk, then if one of the mirrored array drives fails, the free disk will be automatically assigned to the mirrored array to be used instead of the failed disk. · Dedicated Disk A dedicated free disk is a disk that is assigned to a RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 array and that disk is used by that array only when needed, for example during a system crash where a RAID mirrored drive is broken. The dedicated disk can be used only by the array that it is assigned to and not by any other array, unlike a free disk which can be used by any available RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 array. Note: You must have at least two RAID arrays to use this feature. 2. Spare disks cannot be used for RAID0 or JBOD arrays. NVIDIA Corporation 41 CHAPTER 3 Using the NVRAIDMAN Utility Assigning a Free Disk To mark a disk as free, or not a part of any array, 1 Enter the system BIOS setup and make sure that the drive that you want to mark as free is RAID enabled. 2 Enter the RAID BIOS and make sure that the drive is not part of any array (if one exists). [. . . ] · "Using GHOST with NVIDIA RAID" on page 116 describes how to use disk cloning software with a RAID array. NVIDIA Corporation 111 CHAPTER 5 NVIDIA RAID Application Notes Installing NVIDIA RAID on a New Windows XP Operating System Problem To install NVIDIA® RAID technology on a new Windows XP operating system, a floppy disk with the NVIDIA IDE drivers must be created to enable installation of NVIDIA RAID. Solution To create the NVIDIA IDE drivers floppy disk, the end user must: 1 Copy these files from the NVIDIA nForceTM driver directory (IDE/WinXP or Win2K) onto a formatted floppy disk: · Disk1 · Txtsetup. oem · Nvraid. sys · NvAtaBus. sys 2 Go into the BIOS setup menu and enable RAID a In the BIOS menu, specify which disks should be dedicated to RAID b Exit the BIOS menu and reboot 3 At the RAID ROM screen, press F10 to enter RAID setup a Create a RAID array and add disks to it b Select "Yes" when asked to clear disk data c Reboot system 4 Select F6 when prompted 5 Install the NVIDIA RAID drivers created on the floppy disk. Select both the RAID and IDE drivers from the floppy to enable RAID functionality. 6 Continue with the driver installation process 112 NVIDIA RAID User's Guide ­ Version 2. 0 A CHAPTER 5 NVIDIA RAID Application Notes Windows 2000 Limitation with Bootable RAID Problem In Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2 or previous versions), the end user cannot install this operating system to a bootable RAID volume. Solution There are two solutions to resolve this issue, described as follows: Use the NVRAIDMAN Tool Use the NVRAID Tool (nForce Driver Version 5. xx) to convert the boot volume to a RAID array. The following are step by step instructions: 1 Install Windows 2000 on a selected hard drive. [. . . ]