Compaq HSZ80 manual Introduction, 2Creating Storagesets

3–2Creating Storagesets

Introduction

Storagesets are implementations of RAID technology, also known as a Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Every storageset shares one important feature: each one looks like a single storage unit to the host, regardless of the number of drives it uses.

You can create storage units by combining disk drives into storagesets, such as stripesets, RAIDsets, and mirrorsets, or by presenting them to the host as single-disk units, as shown in Figure 3–1.

■Stripesets (RAID 0) combine disk drives in serial to increase transfer or request rates.

■Mirrorsets (RAID 1) combine disk drives in parallel to provide a highly-reliable storage unit.

■RAIDsets (RAID 3/5) combine disk drives in serial—as do stripesets—but also store parity data to ensure high reliability.

■Striped mirrorsets (RAID 0+1) combine mirrorsets in serial and parallel to provide the highest throughput and availability of any storage unit.

Controllers can support the number of RAIDsets as listed in Table 3–1.

For a complete discussion of RAID, refer to The RAIDBOOK—A Source Book for Disk Array Technology.