Infortrend 170 manual Controller Architecture, Global and Local Spares, Hot-swapping of Drives

SentinelRAID 170 Installation and Hardware Reference Manual

A.2.5 Controller Architecture

The controller is developed from Infortrend's PowerPC-500133 ASIC architecture, a third-generation, 64-bit controller design that efficiently eliminates internal bottlenecks. The controller's high performance derives from a state-of-the–art PowerPC® 750CXe RISC microprocessor, which provides a 64-bit 133MHz path to SDRAM. The 500133 integrates SDRAM control, CPU peripheral, dual 64-bit PCI buses, and hardware XOR functions. The ASIC provides 133MHz operating frequency for CPU and DRAM interfaces, and 66MHz for PCI interfaces. Two 64-bit 66MHz PCI buses can operate independently to maximize the performance.

A.3. Fault Tolerance

A.3.1 Global and Local Spares

Both global and local (dedicated) spares are supported. The controller(s) will automatically disconnect from a failed drive and start to rebuild data on the spare drive. The spare drive will then replace the failed drive.

A.3.2 Hot-swapping of Drives

A failed drive can be exchanged without turning off the system or interrupting its smooth operation. Once the failed drive is replaced, the data will be rebuilt in the background. Hot-swapping is supported through the automatic disconnection from a failed drive and the detection of a reserve drive. All of these failure recovery procedures are completely transparent to the host.

A.3.3 S.M.A.R.T. Support

S.M.A.R.T (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is supported with configurable reaction schemes. You may select different reaction schemes for immediate prevention against S.M.A.R.T.-detected errors. Available options include: detect only, clone and replace, and perpetual clone. A faulty drive can be cloned to an active spare upon the discovery of errors.

A.3.4 Other Fault Tolerant Features

Other comprehensive failure management features on the SR controller include:

•Automatic bad-block assignment

•Background rebuilding

•Verify-after-write support on normal writes, rebuild writes, and/or RAID initialization writes

•Regeneration of parity of logical drives in the background

Fault Tolerance A-2