Ciprico 6500 manual Format, Sector Size Data Fill Start

Chapter 3 Display/Operation Panel

FORMAT Page 3 - 19

FORMAT

SECTOR SIZE

DATA FILL

START

From )81&7,216(/(&7, use the left/right arrow keys to select )250$7 (“Menu Structure (4 of 5—Format & Drives)” on page 3-9).

Each disk in the array is written with a special “system sector” during formatting that holds information about the array. For this reason, an array must be formatted before it can be used. All arrays are formatted completely before shipment. You must format the array only if, on power-up or reset, you see a display similar to the following, which indicates that drives 9, 6, 5, and 4 in the array are unformatted.

Note If this type of display appears, format drives as described in Chapter 4 of this guide.

The sector size options for 6500 arrays, expressed in bytes per sector, are 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192. Factory default setting is 512.

This option writes a pattern to the data disks in the array, generates parity data, and writes the parity data to the parity disk. If you do not choose to use data fill, you may get an inter-drive parity error if you perform a read operation before2))a write operation after format. The settings for this option are 21and

. When set to 21, the array writes data to the drives in order to initialize the parity drive. The default setting is 21.

This selection must be set to <(6before you press SELECT in order to format the array.

6500 Disk Array User’s Guide 21020690 B