Manuals

Each DAC960PL disk array controller installed in the system can have up to 7 drives per channel. These drives can be logically partitioned into virtually unlimited combinations. This process is accomplished by using the DAC utility.

These are the basic steps for using the DAC utility in an existing or new installation:

1. Power on the system and the drives connected to the DAC960PL controller.

2. Boot MS-DOS and run the DAC utility from a diskette.

3. Configure one or more physical packs.

4. Configure one or more system drives with required RAID levels and write policies.

5. Save the configured information.

6. Initialize all the system drives configured above. Once this process is complete, the host operating system may be installed. Most operating systems will require a special driver for the DAC960PL to work. Basic MS-DOS operations are supported through the onboard BIOS.

NOTE: SCSI drives are low-level formatted at the factory. Reformatting through the DAC960PL is generally not recommended. However, SCSI drives may be low-level formatted using the DAC utility.

As a convention, all the screens displayed by the DAC utility use the last row on the screen to inform the user of the action that needs to be taken. In addition, a few screens have highlighted information boxes that inform the user about possible actions. A highlighted rectangular area, with text enclosed in double lines, is also displayed to warn or inform the user of actions that are not possible or forbidden.

Wherever any selection needs to be done, the cursor will only move between the valid choices, skipping all the invalid choices. Throughout the utility, a title window on the top of the screen will display the title, version number, and date. In addition, the currently selected controller's name, slot number, and firmware version are displayed.