Promise Technology EX8650, EX4650 Partition and Format the Logical Drive, RAID Level Migration

SuperTrak EX Series User Manual

Whenever possible, having a hot spare drive in your RAID system is good protection against physical drive failure.

Partition and Format the Logical Drive

Like any other type of fixed disk media in your system, a RAID logical drive must also be partitioned and formatted before use. Use the same method of partitioning and formatting on an logical drive as you would any other fixed disk.

See “Appendix A: Partition and Format” on page 203.

RAID Level Migration

To migrate a disk array is to do one or both:

•Change its RAID level

•Increase the number of physical drives (sometimes called expansion)

On SuperTrak, RAID level migration is performed on the disk array but it applies to the logical drives. Migration takes place on an existing Functional disk array without disturbing the existing data. While the disk array is migrating, you can access the data as before. When migration is complete, your disk array will have a different RAID level and/or a larger capacity.

In most cases, you must add one or more physical drives during the migration process. You can never reduce the number of physical drives.

The tables below shows the migration options for a source logical drive according to its RAID level. The available target RAID levels are shown with their requirements.

You must use WebPAM PRO to migrate a disk array. See “Migrating a Disk Array” on page 138.

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