Manuals

Defining a Pack
Creating a Pack
Canceling a Pack
Arranging a Pack
Device Information
Defining a System Drive
Creating a System Drive
Toggle Write Policy
Saving the New Configuration
Quitting the New Configuration
Adding to the New Configuration

Use the New Configuration option to configure the DAC960PL for the first time or to do a new configuration on the DAC960PL. A new configuration will overwrite the existing configuration.

When this option is selected from the MAIN MENU, a menu pops up with two options as shown in New Configuration . DEFINE PACK is used to define physical packs and arrange the defined physical packs. DEFINE SYSTEM DRIVE is used to create one or more system drives of the required size, RAID level, and write policy. Both of these options are used for configuring the DAC960PL.

Defining a Pack

Select DEFINE PACK to define physical packs for the DAC960PL. A screen similar to Defining a Pack is displayed. This screen displays a drive matrix on the left-hand side of the screen. A small rectangular box is used to indicate possible drives for the currently selected DAC960PL. A RDY or UNF is displayed in this box on all the disk drives that were detected by this DAC960PL. The drives that are reported as RDY may be used for configuring the DAC960PL, whereas the drives reported as UNF need to be low-level formatted before they can be used. Format a drive by selecting TOOLS in the MAIN MENU and following the instructions found in FORMAT DRIVE. Also, CDR and TAP are displayed in the box for a CD ROM and tape drive, respectively.

On the upper right-hand side of the screen, a pack definition menu appears with four options: CREATE PACK, CANCEL PACK, ARRANGE PACK, and DEVICE INFORMATION. On the lower right-hand side of the screen, a pack information table lists the various packs (PAK), number of drives in the pack (DRVS), and the arranged size of various packs (SIZE). The first time this screen is displayed, this table will be empty, as there are no arranged packs.

Creating a Pack

When CREATE PACK is selected, a small cursor shows up on the drive matrix that allows selection of drives for creating packs, as shown in Creating a Pack . Move the cursor to a drive and press <ENTER> to include the drive in the pack. Move the cursor to another drive (if desired) to include the next drive in the pack, and so on. Once all the desired drives for this pack are included, press <ESC> to finish creating this pack and return to the pack definition menu. When drives are added to the pack, the letters RDY in the drive box will change to ONL to indicate that this drive has been used in a pack. The pack number and stripe order of the drive within the pack are also displayed in the box. For example, A-0 will stand for drive 0 of pack A, and B-3 will stand for drive 3 of pack B.

Select CREATE PACK again to define additional packs.

Make sure all of the drives in a pack are the same size. Otherwise, the size of the drives in a pack will automatically be reduced to the size of the smallest drive in the pack. Use the DEVICE INFORMATION option in the PACK DEFINITION menu, to view the size of the physical drive. See Device Information for more details.

Once all of the drives are defined in packs, the cursor automatically jumps to the ARRANGE PACK option in the PACK DEFINITION menu. The next step is to arrange all of the created packs. See Arranging a Pack for details.

Canceling a Pack

To cancel one of the physical packs of drives on a system configured with multiple physical packs, the packs must be canceled in the reverse order from which the packs were created. For example, if the system was configured with pack A first, pack B second, and pack C third, the user must cancel pack C first, and then pack B, before canceling pack A.

Arranging a Pack

Once all of the packs are created, select ARRANGE PACK to arrange one or more created packs, as shown in Arranging a Pack . When this option is selected, the cursor moves to the drive matrix area and moves among the drives of every pack defined. For each pack to be arranged, move the cursor to a drive of the desired pack to be arranged and press <ENTERRRR to arrange it. When each pack is arranged, the table on the lower right side gets updated with the pack, drive, and size information. Once all of the created packs are arranged, the utility will go back to the screen shown in New Configuration , ready to define the system drives.

Drives belonging to unarranged packs, drives that are not part of any pack, or drives of arranged packs that have not been configured into any system drive will be automatically configured as standby drives.

Once all of the packs are arranged, press <ESCRRR to go to the NEW CONFIGURATION menu. Then select DEFINE SYSTEM DRIVE to proceed. See Defining a System Drive for more details.

Device Information

The Device Information option displays information about any drive connected to the DAC960PL. When this option is selected, the cursor will jump to the drive matrix area. Move the cursor to the drive whose information is to be viewed and press <ENTERRRR. The selected drive's information is displayed in the lower right side as shown in Device Information . Press a key to move to the drive matrix box. Select another drive to view its device information, or press <ESC> to return to PACK DEFINITION menu.

The DEVICE INFORMATION window displays the device's vendor name, model number, firmware revision, and size as reported by the SCSI inquiry and read-capacity commands.

Defining a System Drive

Select the DEFINE SYSTEM DRIVE option to define one or more system drives. When this option is selected, a screen similar to Creating a System Drive appears. This screen displays two tables on the left side of the screen. On the right side, a system drive definition menu appears with two options: CREATE SYSTEM DRIVE and TOGGLE WRITE POLICY.

The top left table lists all the arranged packs and their sizes. The bottom left table lists all the defined system drives, their size, RAID level, and write mode (or write policy). If this is a new configuration, then this table will be empty as there are no defined system drives. As the system drives are defined, entries are added to this table.

The size as specified in the arranged pack table will be the sum of the formatted capacity of the drives in the pack (see note below). The size as specified in the system drive table will be the actual size of the system drive, taking into consideration the RAID level and redundancy overhead. The size of the system drive is what the various operating systems will see and be able to use.

NOTE: If the drives in a pack are not of the same size, then the size of the entire pack is the product of the number of drives in the pack multiplied by the size of the smallest drive in the pack.

Creating a System Drive

When CREATE SYSTEM DRIVE is selected, the first arranged pack is selected and a RAID LEVEL window similar to the one in Selecting a RAID Level is displayed in the lower right portion of the screen. A cursor moves among the options, but will only move to a valid RAID level as per the number of drives in the selected pack (that is, the stripe width of the pack).

Once the RAID level is selected, a screen similar to Entering System Drive Size is displayed. An ENTER SIZE window opens up in the lower right portion of the screen. This window will display the maximum possible size for the system drive to be defined.

Type in an appropriate size and press <ENTER> to proceed. A screen similar to Confirming a System Drive is displayed, showing two windows. The one in the middle on the right describes the system drive being created. A confirmation window is shown below the first window. Select NO if the system drive is not to be created.

When YES is selected, the system drive is created, and a screen similar to System Drive Settings is displayed. Note that the system drive table, on the bottom left side, is updated with this system drive entry. The write modes of all of the created system drives default to WRITE THRU. They can be changed later by selecting the TOGGLE WRITE POLICY option in the SYSTEM DRIVE DEFINITION menu. Also, note that spanning a system drive across packs is automatically taken care of when the user enters the size of the system drive to be created.

To define additional system drives, select the CREATE SYSTEM DRIVE option again and proceed as above. If no more space is available, a message to that effect is displayed. System Drives and Packs shows a screen with eight system drives defined from two packs.

Toggle Write Policy

If the write policy of any of the defined system drives is to be changed, select the TOGGLE WRITE POLICY option from the system drive definition menu. The cursor will jump to the write mode column in the system drive table. For each desired system drive, move the cursor to that system drive and press <ENTER> to toggle the write mode between WRITE THRU and WRITE BACK. Once the write policy is changed on all the desired system drives, press <ESC> to return to the system drive definition menu.

Saving the New Configuration

Once all of the system drives are defined, press <ESC> to return to the NEW CONFIGURATION menu. Press <ESC> here and a confirmation window similar to the one in Saving the Configuration will be displayed. When YES in the SAVE CONFIGURATION? window is selected, the configuration is saved to the flash EEPROM. This completes the configuration process. The next thing to do will be to initialize all of the new system drives. See Initializing a System Drive.

Quitting the New Configuration

When NO in the SAVE CONFIGURATION? window is selected, the currently defined configuration is entirely discarded and the utility returns to the MAIN MENU.

Adding to the New Configuration

When <ESC> is pressed in the SAVE CONFIGURATION? window, the currently defined configuration is not discarded and the utility returns to the NEW CONFIGURATION menu. The user can now continue with the configuration process.