Assigning RAID Levels

Only one RAID level can be assigned to each logical drive. The drives required per RAID level is:

RAID

Minimum Number of

Maximum Number of Physical

 

Level

Physical Drives

Drives

 

0

1

15

 

1

2

2

 

3

3

15

 

5

3

15

 

10

4

14

 

30

6

15

 

50

6

15

 

 

 

 

 

Note: The maximum number of physical drives supported by the controller is 15.

Configuring Logical Drives

After you have installed the MegaRAID Express 500 controller in the server and have attached all physical disk drives, perform the following actions to prepare a RAID disk array:

Step

Action

 

1

Optimize the MegaRAID Express 500 controller options for your system.

 

 

 

See Chapter 6 for additional information.

 

2

Perform a low-level format the SCSI drives that will be included in the

 

 

 

array and the drives to be used for hot spares.

 

3

Press <Ctrl> <M> to run the MegaRAID Manager.

 

4

Define and configure one or more logical drives. Select Easy Configuration

 

 

 

in MegaRAID Manager or select New Configuration to customize the

 

 

 

RAID array.

 

5

Create and configure one or more system drives (logical drives). Select the

 

 

 

RAID level, cache policy, read policy, and write policy.

 

6

Save the configuration.

 

7

Initialize the system drives. After initialization, you can install the

 

 

 

operating system.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5 Configuring MegaRAID Express 500

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