Dell MD3600I, MD3620I Disk Group Operations, Virtual Disk Operations Limit, RAID Level Migration

The storage array tracks the cycle for each disk group independent of other disk groups on the controller and creates a checkpoint. If the media verification operation on a disk group is preempted or blocked by another operation on the disk group, the storage array resumes after the current cycle. If the media verification process on a disk group is stopped due to a RAID controller module restart, the storage array resumes the process from the last checkpoint.

Virtual Disk Operations Limit

The maximum number of active, concurrent virtual disk processes per RAID controller module installed in the storage array is four. This limit is applied to the following virtual disk processes:

•Background initialization

•Foreground initialization

•Consistency check

•Rebuild

•Copy back.

If a redundant RAID controller module fails with existing virtual disk processes, the processes on the failed controller are transferred to the peer controller. A transferred process is placed in a suspended state if there are four active processes on the peer controller. The suspended processes are resumed on the peer controller when the number of active processes falls below 4.

Disk Group Operations

RAID Level Migration

You can migrate from one RAID level to another depending on your requirements. For example, fault-tolerant characteristics can be added to a stripe set (RAID 0) by converting it to a RAID 5 set. MDSM provides information about RAID attributes to assist you in selecting the appropriate RAID level. You can perform a RAID level migration while the system is still running and without rebooting, which maintains data availability.

Planning: MD3600i Series Storage Array Terms and Concepts

45