Compaq 3200 manual Using Fault Tolerance, Expanding or Extending Capacity

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Using Fault Tolerance

Fault tolerance refers to the protection of data if a hardware failure occurs in the storage system. There are several methods for setting a system’s fault tolerance. Understanding each of these methods is important in determining the best method for the particular needs of your storage system. The fault-tolerance methods supported by the Smart Array 3200 Controller and the Array Configuration Utility include:

■Distributed data guarding: RAID 5

■Data guarding: RAID 4

■Drive mirroring: RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 (also called RAID 10)

■No fault tolerance: RAID 0

Further data protection can be achieved by assigning an online spare to any RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 4, or RAID 5 configuration. Refer to Appendix E for more information on fault-tolerance methods. Refer to Chapter 5 for information on using the Array Configuration Utility to configure your system for fault tolerance.

Expanding or Extending Capacity

Changing your storage configuration is easy using the Array Configuration Utility and does not require a data backup and restore cycle, even in fault-tolerant configurations. If you are using Microsoft Windows NT or Novell NetWare operating systems with hot-pluggable drives, storage expansion or extension can be performed online, without shutting down the server’s operating system. Capacity expansion refers to adding capacity and creating new logical drives. Capacity extension refers to increasing the size of an array by adding physical drives and growing an existing drive without adding more logical drives. For more information on storage expansion or extension, see “Running the Array Configuration Utility,” in Chapter 5, and the section, “Adding Storage Capacity” in Appendix E.

Compaq Smart Array 3200 Controller Reference Guide