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Dell OpenManage™ Storage Management User's Guide
The Create Virtual Disk Express Wizard calculates an appropriate virtual disk configuration based on the available space and controller considerations. When using the Express Wizard, you select the RAID level and size for the virtual disk. The wizard selects a recommended disk configuration for you that matches your RAID and size selection.
Before creating a virtual disk, you should be familiar with the information in Considerations Before Creating Virtual Disks. You may also wish to review Choosing RAID Levels and Concatenation.
If you wish to make your own selections for the virtual disk configuration, click Go To Advanced Wizard.
- Click the radio button to select the correct RAID level.
- Depending on the controller, Concatenated enables you to combine the storage capacity of several disks or to create a virtual disk using only a single array disk. See Number of Array Disks per Virtual Disk for information on whether the controller supports a single array disk or two or more when using Concatenated. Using Concatenated does not provide data redundancy nor does it affect the read and write performance.
- Select RAID 0 for striping. This selection groups n disks together as one large virtual disk with a total capacity of n disks. Data is stored to the disks alternately so that they are evenly distributed. Data redundancy is not available in this mode. Read and write performance is enhanced.
- Select RAID 1 for mirroring disks. This selection groups two disks together as one virtual disk with a capacity of one single disk. The data is replicated on both disks. When a disk fails, the virtual disk continues to function. This feature provides data redundancy and good read performance, but slightly slower write performance. Your system must have at least two disks to use RAID 1.
- Select RAID 1-concatenated to span a RAID 1 array across more than a single pair of array disks. RAID 1-concatenated combines the advantages of concatenation with the redundancy of RAID 1. No striping is involved in this RAID type.
- Select RAID 5 for striping with distributed parity. This selection groups n disks together as one large virtual disk with a total capacity of (n-1) disks. When a disk fails, the virtual disk continues to function. This feature provides better data redundancy and read performance, but slower write performance. Your system must have at least three disks to use RAID 5.
- Select RAID 10 for striping over mirror sets. This selection groups n disks together as one large virtual disk with a total capacity of (n/2) disks. Data is striped across the replicated mirrored pair disks. When a disk fails, the virtual disk continues to function. The data is read from the surviving mirrored pair disk. This feature provides the best failure protection, read and write performance. Your system must have at least four disks to use RAID 10.
- Select RAID 50 to implement striping across more than one three-drive span. RAID 50 groups n*s disks as one large virtual disk with a capacity of s*(n-1) disks, where s is the number of spans and n is the number of disks within each span.
- Type a name for the virtual disk in the Name text box.
The virtual disk name can contain only alphanumeric characters as well as spaces,
dashes and underscores. The maximum name length depends on the controller. In
most cases, the maximum length is 15 characters. The name cannot start with a space
or end with a space.
It is recommended that you specify a unique name for each virtual disk. If you have
virtual disks with the same name, it will be hard to differentiate the alerts generated
for these virtual disks.
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Note: The CERC SATA1.5/2s controller does not allow you to specify a name for
concatenated virtual disks. The concatenated virtual disk will be created with a
default name.
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- Type the size for the virtual disk in the Size text box. The virtual disk size must be within the minimum and maximum values displayed near the Size text box. In some cases, the virtual will be slightly larger than the size you specify. The Create Virtual Disk wizard may round up the size of the virtual disk to avoid rendering a portion of the array disk space unusable.
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Note: When creating a virtual disk on the CERC SATA1.5/2s controller, you must specify
the maximum virtual disk size.
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- Click Continue to go to the next screen or Exit Wizard if you wish to cancel.
- Expand the Storage tree object to display the controller objects.
- Expand a controller object.
- Select the Virtual Disks object.
- Click Go To Create Virtual Disk Wizard.
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