Dell MD3200, MD3220 manual Introduction to Storage Arrays

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Introduction to Storage Arrays

An enclosure containing physical disks accessed through RAID controller modules is called a storage array. A storage array includes various hardware components, such as physical disks, RAID controller modules, fans, and power supplies, gathered into enclosures.

One or more host servers attached to the storage array can access the data on the storage array. You can also establish multiple physical paths between the host(s) and the storage array so that loss of any single path (for example, through failure of a host server port) does not result in loss of access to data on the storage array.

The storage array is managed by MDSM running on a:

•Host server—On a host server system, MDSM and the storage array communicate management requests and event information using SAS connections.

•Management station—On a management station, MDSM communicates with the storage array either through an Ethernet connection to the storage array management port or through an Ethernet connection to a host server. The Ethernet connection passes management information between the management station and the storage array using SAS connections.

Using MDSM, you can configure the physical disks in the storage array into logical components called disk groups and then divide the disk groups into virtual disks. Disk groups are created in the unconfigured capacity of a storage array. Virtual disks are created in the free capacity of a disk group.

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Introduction