3Ware 9550SX, 9590SE User Manual

User Guide

3ware

Serial ATA RAID Controller

Supports the 9550SX and 9590SE Models

PN 720-0126-04 April 2006

©2004-2006 Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the proper written consent of AMCC, 215 Moffett Park Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.

Trademarks

3ware®, Escalade®, and 3DM® are all registered trademarks of AMCC. The 3ware logo, 3BM, StorSwitch, TwinStor, and R5 Fusion are all trademarks of AMCC. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.

Disclaimer

While every attempt is made to make this document as accurate as possible, AMCC assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, nor does AMCC make any commitment to update the information contained herein.

Table of Contents

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

How this Guide is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v

Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller. . . . . . . . . 1

Product Models and Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

What’s New with 9550SX and 9590SE Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Available RAID Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Determining What RAID Level to Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

3ware Tools for Configura tio n and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

3BM (3ware BIOS Manager) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

3ware CLI (Command Line Interface) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Monitoring, Maintenance, and Troubleshooting Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Chapter 2. Getting Started with Your 3ware RAID Controller . . . . . . 15

Chapter 3. First-Time RAID Configuration Using 3BM. . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Basic Steps for Creating a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Specifying a Hot Spare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Leaving Individual Drives as JBODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Checking the Motherboard Boot Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

What Next? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Chapter 4. Driver Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Driver Installation Under Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Materials Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Creating a 3ware Driver Diskette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Installing the 3ware Driver and Windows on a New Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Installing the Driver on a System that Boots from a Different Device . . . . . . . . . 32

Making Units Managed by a 3ware Controller Available to Windows . . . . . . . . .37

Driver Installation Under Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Obtaining 3ware Linux Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Driver Installation Under Red Hat Linux or Fedora Core 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Driver Installation Under SuSE Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Compiling a 3ware Driver for Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Driver Installation Under FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Obtaining 3ware FreeBSD Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Installing the Driver under FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Chapter 5. 3ware BIOS Manager 2 (3BM 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Starting 3BM 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Exiting the 3BM Configuration Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Working in the 3BM Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

Adjusting BIOS Loading Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Displaying Controller Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Getting Help While Using 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

www.3ware.com i

Chapter 6. 3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Browser Requirements for 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Setting up Mozilla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Installing 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Installing 3DM on a Microsoft Windows system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Uninstalling 3DM under Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Installing 3DM for Linux or FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Uninstalling 3DM under Linux or FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Starting 3DM and Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Starting 3DM under Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Starting 3DM under Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Viewing 3DM Remotely via a Standard Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Working with the 3DM Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3DM Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Viewing Information About Different Controllers in 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Refreshing the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

3DM Screens and What They're Used For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Setting Up 3DM Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Setting and Changing 3DM Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Managing E-mail Event Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Enabling and Disabling Remote Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Setting the Incoming Port # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Setting the Frequency of Page Refreshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

3DM 2 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Controller Summary Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Controller Details Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Unit Information Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Unit Details Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Drive Information Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Drive Details Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Controller Settings Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Scheduling Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Maintenance Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Alarms Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Battery Backup Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

3DM 2 Settings Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Chapter 7. Configuring Your Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Viewing Information About Individual Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Viewing and Seting Controller Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Viewing Controller Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Setting the Auto-Rebuild Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Using Auto-Carving for Multi LUN Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Setting the Size of Volumes Created with Auto-Carving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Enabling and Setting Up Staggered Spin-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Exporting JBOD Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Disabling Write Cache on Unit Degrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Chapter 8. Configuring Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Configuring a New Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Configuration Options When Creating a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Creating a Unit through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Creating a Unit through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Ordering Units in 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Partitioning and Formatting Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

ii 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide

Creating a Hot Spare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

Specifying a Hot Spare through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

Specifying a Hot Spare through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

Naming a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141

Setting Unit Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142

Enabling and Disabling the Unit Write Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143

Setting Auto-Verify for a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145

Setting Continue on Source Error During Rebuild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

Enabling and Disabling Queuing for a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 47

Setting the StorSave Profile for a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149

Changing An Existing Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151

RAID Level Migration (RLM) Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152

Changing RAID Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153

Expanding Unit Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

Informing the Operating System of Changed Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155

Deleting a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157

Deleting a Unit through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157

Deleting a Unit through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

Removing a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

Removing a Unit Through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

Removing a Unit Through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162

Moving a Unit from One Controller to Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163

Unlocking Drives Configured on a 9500S Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164

Moving Units from an 8000 Controller to a 9000 Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164

Moving Legacy JBOD Units to a 9000 Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166

Moving Units from a 9500S to a 9550SX or 9590SE Controller . . . . . . . . . . . .166

Adding a Drive through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168

Removing a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169

Rescanning the Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171

Chapter 9. Maintaining Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Checking Unit and Drive Status through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

Reviewing Alarms and Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Viewing Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Downloading an Error Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176

Viewing SMART Data About a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176

About Background Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177

About Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177

Initialization of Different RAID Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178

Auto Initialization After Power Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179

About Rebuilds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180

About Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

About Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182

About Self-tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

Setting Background Task Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

Scheduling Background Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184

Viewing Current Task Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185

Turning On or Off Use of a Task Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186

Removing a Task Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 87

Adding a New Task Schedule Slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Selecting Self-tests to be Performed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188

Rebuilding Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

Rebuilding a Unit Through 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190

Rebuilding Units through 3BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191

Cancelling a Rebuild and Restarting It with a Different Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194

Verifying Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194

www.3ware.com iii

Locating a Drive by Blinking Its LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Chapter 10. Maintaining Your Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Determining the Current Version of Your 3ware Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Updating the Driver and Firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Updating the 3ware Driver and Firmware Under Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Using the Update Utility With Multiple Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Updating the 3ware Driver Under Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Updating the 3ware Driver Under Red Hat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Updating the 3ware Driver Under SuSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Updating the 3ware Driver Under FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Updating the Firmware Under Linux and FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Viewing Battery Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Testing Battery Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Chapter 11. Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Before Contacting Customer Supp o rt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Problems and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Software Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Problems in 3DM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

AEN Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

AEN Error Message Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

AEN Error Message Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Chapter A. Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Chapter B. Compliance and Conformity Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Federal Communications Commission Radio Frequency Interference Statement 249

Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

European Community Conformity Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Chapter C. Warranty, Technical Support, and Service. . . . . . . . . . . 251

Limited Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Exclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

State Law Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Warranty Service and RMA Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

AMCC Technical Support and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Sales and ordering information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Feedback on this manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

iv 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide

About This Guide

3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide provides instructions for configuring and maintaining your 3ware 9000 series controller.

This guide assumes that you have already installed your controller in your system. If you have not yet done so, see the installation guide that came with your controller. You can download the installation guide from You can download that guide from: http://www.3ware.com/support/userdocs.asp. (Note that there are different installation guides for the 9590SE, the 9550SX, and the 9500S.)

How this Guide is Organized

There are often multiple ways to accomplish the same configuration and maintenance tasks for your 3ware RAID controller. This manual includes instructions for performing tasks using two tools: one at the BIOS level (3ware BIOS Manager 2, or 3BM 2) and one that runs in a browser (3ware Disk Manager 2, or 3DM 2). You can also perform many tasks at the command line, using 3ware’s Command Line Interface (CLI). The CLI is described in a separate manual, available from the 3ware software CD and from 3ware’s website: 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide.

Basic information about using the two tools (3BM 2 and 3DM 2) , such as starting the tool, navigating between screens, and so forth, is described in sections about each of those tools: “3ware BIOS Manager 2 (3BM 2)” on page 55 and “3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2)” on page 65.

Step-by-step instructions for performing specific tasks are organized by tasks throughout other sections of this guide. For example, the instructions for “Configuring a New Unit” on page 128 include information about how to create a unit from 3DM, followed by how to create a unit from 3BM.

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Table 1: Chapters in this Guide

Chapter Description

1. Introduction Provides an overview of product features for the 3ware 9000 series controllers. Includes system requirements and an introduction to RAID concepts and levels.

2. Getting Started Provides a summary of the steps required to install and set up your 3ware RAID controller.

3. First-Time RAID Configuration

Using 3BM

4. Driver Installation Describes how to install drivers for the 3ware

5. 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) Describes the basics of using 3BM.

6. 3ware Disk Manager 2

(3DM 2)

7. Configuring Your Controller Describes how to view details about the

8. Configuring Units Describes how to configure new units and

9. Maintaining Units Describes how to check unit and drive status,

10. Maintaining Y our Controller Describes how to update the driver, move a unit

1 1. Troubleshooting Provides common problems and solutions, and

Provides step-by-step instructions for configuring RAID units if you have just installed the controller.

controller if you have just installed and configured it. Includes information for Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD.

Describes the basics of using 3DM and includes a reference of all the 3DM pages.

controller, check its status, and change configuration settings that affect the controller and all associated drives.

spares, change existing configurations, and set unit policies.

review alarms and errors, schedule background maintenance tasks, and manually start them, when necessary or desirable. Includes explanations of initialization, verify, rebuild, and self-tests.

from one controller to another, and replace an existing 3ware controller with a new one. Also includes information about checking battery status on a BBU (Battery Backup Unit).

explains error messages.

A. Glossary Includes definitions for terms used throughout

B. Compliance and Conformity

Statements

C. Warranty, Technical Support,

and Service

vi 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

this guide. Provides compliance and conformity statement.

Provides warranty information and tells you how to contact technical support.

Conventions

The following conventions are used through this guide:

• 3BM and 3BM 2 both refer to the 3ware BIOS Manager, version 2.

• 3DM and 3DM 2 both refer to the 3ware Disk Manager, version 2.

• In the sections that describe using 3DM, current contr oller is used to refer

to the controller which is currently selected in this drop-down list.

• Unit refers to one or more disks configured through 3ware to be treated by

the operating system as a single drive. Also known as an array. Array and unit are used interchangeably throughout this manual.

• Boldface is used for buttons, fields, and settings that appear on the screen.

•

Monospace font is used for code and to indicate things you type.

Conventions

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viii 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

3ware 9550SX and 9590SE controllers are part of the AMCC 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA family of controllers.

This chapter introduces the features and concepts of the 9000 series as a whole, and the 9550SX and 9590SE models in particular. It includes the following sections:

• “Product Models and Features” on page 1

• “What’s New with 9550SX and 9590SE Models” on page 2

• “System Requirements” on page 3

• “Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels ” on page 5

• “Determining What RAID Level to Use” on page 9

Product Models and Features

The 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA family of controllers includes the models shown in Table 2.

Table 2: 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA Controller Models

Series 4-port 8-port 12-port 16-port

9500S

9550SX 9550SX-4LP 9550SX-8LP 9550SX-12

9590SE 9590SE-8ML 9590SE-12ML 9590SE-16ML

a. LP indicates a low-profile controller card b. MI indicates a multilane SFF-8470 connector c. ML indicates a multilane SFF-8087 connector

9500S-4LP

9500S-8 9500S-8MI

9500S-12 9500S-12MI

9550SX-12MI

9550SX-

16ML

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

Features of the 3ware 9000 series controllers include:

• Advanced RAID features for greater data protection and management.

• Support for battery backup provides added data protection in the event of

a power outage. (Battery Backup unit sold separately)

• Support for RAID units greater than 2 terabytes with 64-bit LBA support.

• An enhanced firmware platform allows future upgrades.

• AMCC’ s remote management software, 3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM®2)

simplifies storage configuration and management through a web browser.

What’s New with 9550SX and 9590SE Models

The 9550SX and 9590SE models in 3ware’s 9000 series of RAID controllers have the following features and benefits:

• 200% faster than the industry-leading 3ware 9500S RAID controller

• PCI-X (for 9550SX) or PCI Express (for 9590SE) connectivity

• 7th generation StorSwitch(TM) technology

• Support for 3Gbps and Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

• StorSave II profiles let you set the desired level of protection versus

performance for a unit

• Drive Locate allows you to easily identify a drive by blinking the LED

associated with it when you have a chassis that supports it

• Improved BIOS control lets you determine the level detail to display at

power-up

• Ability to define the size of the boot volume.

• Ability to define a carving size to be used when carving units into

volumes.

2 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

System Requirements

3ware RAID controllers require the following

•

A workstation-class or server-class motherboard

Notes:

While the 3ware 9550SX RAID controller can be installed in both 64-bit PCI and PCI-X slots, not all slots give equal performance.

The 3ware 9550SX Controller performs best when installed in a PCI-X 133MHz 64-bit slot. However, it can also operate at 66MHz or 100MHz.

9590SE RAID controllers must be installed in a PCI Express slot (x4, x8, or x16).

•Drives

System Requirements

Depending on the particular model, the 3ware RAID controller may be connected to up to four, eight, twelve, or sixteen SATA drives using the supplied interface cables.

Drives must meet serial ATA 150 (SATA-1)or serial ATA 300 (SATA 2) Gb/s standards. Drives may be of any capacity or physical form factor.

The length of shielded and unshielded interface cables may not exceed 1M (39”) for Serial ATA controllers.

• Operating System

3ware RAID controllers may be used with:

• Windows 2000, Windo ws XP, W ind ows Server 2003, bo th 32-bit and

64-bit x86

• Red Hat Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

• SuSE Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

• Fedora Core

• Other versions of Linux u sing the open source Linux driver (see the

Release Notes for the latest versions)

• FreeBSD, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

• Other Requirements

• Adequate air flow and cooling

• Adequate power supply for drives

3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager) displays information in a browser. It requires the following:

• One of these browsers:

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

• Internet Explorer 5.5 and later

• Mozilla 1.2 and later

• Firefox 1.02 and later

• Netscape 7 and later

• JavaScript must be enabled

• Cookies must be enabled

• For best viewing, screen resolution should be 1024 x 768, with 16-bit

color or more

For a complete listing of features and system requirements, refer to the 9550SX Series Datasheet or the 9590SE Series Datasheet, available from the website at

http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata9000.asp.

4 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels

3ware RAID controllers use a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) to increase your storage system’s performance and provide fault tolerance (protection against data loss).

The following concepts are important to understand when working with a RAID controller:

•

Arrays and Units. In the storage industry, the term “array” is used to

describe two or more disk drives that appear to the operating system as a single unit. When you work with 3ware software, “unit” is the term used to refer to an array of disks that is configured and managed through the 3ware software. Single-disk units can also be configured in the 3ware software.

•

Mirroring. Mirrored arrays write data to paired drives simultaneously. If

one drive fails, the data is preserved on the paired drive. Mirroring provides data protection through redundancy . In addition, mirroring using a 3ware RAID controller provides improved performance because 3ware’s TwinStor technology reads from both drives simultaneously.

Striping. Striping across disks allows data to be written and accessed on

•

more than one drive, at the same time. Striping combines each drive’s capacity into one large volume. Striped disk arrays achieve highest transfer rates and performance at the expense of fault tolerance.

•

Distributed Parity. Parity works in combination with striping on RAID 5

and RAID 50. Parity information is written to each of the striped drives, in rotation. Should a failure occur, the data on the failed drive can be reconstructed from the data on the other drives.

•

Hot Swap. The process of exchanging a drive without having to shut

down the system. This is useful when you need to exchange a degraded drive or a bad drive in a redundant array.

•

Array Roaming. The process of swapping out or swapping in a

configured unit without having to shut down the system. This is useful if you need to move the unit to another controller.

•

Disk Roaming. The process of removing a unit from a controller and

putting it back later, either on the same controller, or a different one, and having it recognized as a unit. The disks may be can be attached to different ports than they were originally attached to, without harm to the data. The disks may be attached to the same ports or different ports on the controller.

For definitions of other terms used throughout the documentation, see the “Glossary”.

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

Available RAID Configurations

The following RAID levels and configurations are available for drives attached to a 3ware RAID controller:

• RAID 0

• RAID 1

• RAID 5

• RAID 10

• RAID 50

• Single Disk

• JBOD

• Hot Spare

RAID 0

Provides striping, but no mirroring or redundancy of any kind. Striped disk arrays achieve high transfer rates because they can read and write data on more than one drive simultaneously. The stripe size is configurable in the 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) and in the 3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2). Requires a minimum of two drives.

When drives are configured in a striped disk array (see Figure 1), large files are distributed across the multiple disks using RAID 0 techniques.

Striped disk arrays give exceptional performance, particularly for data intensive applications such as video editing, computer aided design and geographical information systems.

RAID 0 arrays are not fault tolerant. The loss of any drive results in the loss of all the data in that array, and can even cause a system hang, depending on your operating system. RAID 0 arrays are not recommended for high availability systems unless additional precautions are taken to prevent system hangs and data loss.

Figure 1. RAID 0 Configuration Example

6 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels

RAID 1

Also known as a mirrored array. Mirroring is done on pairs of drives. Mirrored disk arrays write data to two drives using RAID 1 algorithms (see Figure 2). This gives your system fault tolerance by preserving the data on one drive if the other drive fails. Fault tolerance is a basic requirement for mission critical systems like web and database servers.

3ware uses a patented technology, TwinStor®, on RAID 1 arrays for improved performance during sequential read operations. With TwinStor technology, read performance is twice the speed of a single drive during sequential read operation.

The adaptive algorithms in TwinStor technology boost performance by distinguishing between random and sequential read requests. For the sequential requests generated when accessing large files, both drives are used, with the heads simultaneously reading alternating sections of the file. For the smaller random transactions, the data is read from a single optimal drive head.

Figure 2. RAID 1 Configuration Example

RAID 5

Combines striping data with parity (exclusive OR) to restore data in case of a drive failure. This array type provides performance, fault tolerance, high capacity, and storage efficiency. Requires a minimum of three drives.

Parity information is distributed across all drives rather than being concentrated on a single disk (see Figure 3). This avoids throughput loss due to contention for the parity drive.

RAID 5

0 parity

A Blocks

1 parity

B Blocks C Blocks D Blocks

2 parity

Figure 3. RAID 5 Configuration Example

3 parity

4 parity

E Blocks

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

RAID 10

This array is a combination of RAID 1 with RAID 0. Striped and mirrored arrays for fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of four drives to use both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques.

When drives are configured as a striped mirrored array, the disks are configured using both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques, thus the name RAID 10 (see Figure 4). A minimum of four drives are required to use this technique. The first two drives are mirrored as a fault tolerant array using RAID 1. The third and fourth drives are mirrored as a second fault tolerant array using RAID 1. The two mirrored arrays are then grouped as a striped RAID 0 array using a two tier structure. Higher data transfer rates are achieved by leveraging TwinStor and striping the arrays.

In addition, RAID 10 arrays offer a higher degree of fault tolerance than other types of RAID levels (such as RAID 1 and RAID 5), since the array can sustain multiple drive failures without data loss. For example, in a twelve drive RAID 10 array, up to six drives can fail (half of each mirrored pair) and the array will continue to function. Please note that if both halves of a mirrored pair in the RAID 10 array fail, then all of the data will be lost.

Figure 4. RAID 10 Configuration Example

RAID 50

This array is a combination of RAID 5 with RAID 0. This array type provides fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of six drives.

Several combinations are available with RAID 50. For example, on a 12-port controller, you can have a gro uping of 3, 4, or 6 drives. A grouping of 3 means that the RAID 5 arrays used have 3 disks each; four of these 3-drive RAID 5 arrays are striped together to form the 12-drive RAID 50 array.

In addition, RAID 50 arrays offer a higher degree of fault tolerance than other types of RAID levels (such as RAID 1 and RAID 5), since the array can sustain multiple drive failures without data loss. For example, in a twelve drive RAID 50 array , up to one drive in each RAID 5 set can fail and the array will continue to function. Please note that if two or more drives in a RAID 5 set fail, then all of the data will be lost.

8 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels

Single Disk

A single drive that has been configured as a unit through 3ware software. (3BM, 3DM 2, or CLI). Like disks in other RAID configurations, single d isks contain 3ware Disk Control Block (DCB) information and are seen by the OS as available units.

Single drives are not fault tolerant and therefore not recommended for high availability systems unless additional precautions are take to prevent system hangs and data loss.

JBOD

A JBOD is an unconfigured disk attached to your 3ware RAID controller. JBOD configuration is no longer supported in the 3ware 9000 series. AMCC recommends that you use Single Disk as a replacement for JBOD, to take advantage of advanced features such as caching, OCE, and RLM.

JBOD units are not fault tolerant and therefore not recommended for high availability systems unless additional precautions are taken to prevent system hangs and data loss.

Hot Spare

A single drive, available online, so that a redundant array can be automatically rebuilt in case of drive failure.

For additional information about RAID levels, see the article “RAID Primer” on the 3ware website, at:

http://www.3ware.com/products/pdf/RAID_Primer.pdf.

Determining What RAID Level to Use

Select the RAID configuration to use based on the applications to be used on the system, whether performance or data protection is of primary importance, and the number of disk drives available for use.

Review the information under “Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels” on page 5 to determine the type of RAID configuration most appropriate for your needs and use the tables below to determine what RAID levels are available, based on your particular controller model and the number of available drives.

The RAID configurations available to you are determined by the number of ports on your controller, and the number of drives attached to those ports. You can configure all drives in one unit, or you can configure multiple units, if you have enough drives.

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

Table 3: Possible Configurations Based on # of Drives

# Drives Possible RAID Configurations

1 Single drive or hot spare 2 RAID 0 or RAID 1 3RAID 0

RAID 1 with hot spare RAID 5

4 RAID 5 + hot spare

RAID 10 Combination of RAID 0, RAID 1, single disk

5 RAID 5 + hot spare

RAID 10 + hot spare Combination of RAID 0, RAID 1, hot spare, for single disk

6 or more RAID 50

Depending on the number of drives, a RAID 50 may contain from 2 to 4 subunits. For example, with 12 drives, possible RAID 50 configurations include 2 subunits of 6, 3 subunits of 4, or 4 subunits of 3. With 10 drives, a RAID 50 will contain 2 subunits of 5 drives each. With 16 drives, a RAID 50 will contain 2 subunits of 8 drives or 4 subunits of 4 drives.

Combination of RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, hot spare, and single disk

Drive Capacity Considerations

The capacity of each drive is limited to the capacity of the smallest drive in the array. The total array capacity is defined as follows:

Table 4: Drive Capacity

RAID Level Capacity

RAID 0 (number of drives) X (capacity of the smallest drive) RAID 1 capacity of the smallest drive RAID 5 (number of drives - 1) X (capacity of the smallest drive)

RAID 10 (number of drives / 2) X (capacity of smallest drive)

10 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Storage efficiency increases with the number of disks: storage efficiency = (number of drives -1)/(number of drives)

Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels

Table 4: Drive Capacity

RAID Level Capacity

RAID 50 (number of drives - number of groups of drives) X (capacity of the

smallest drive)

Through drive coercion, the capacity used for each drive is rounded down so that drives from differing manufacturers are more likely to be able to be used as spares for each other. The capacity used for each drive is rounded down to the nearest GB for drives under 45 GB (45,000,000,000), and rounded down to the nearest 5 GBytes for drives over 45 GB. For example, a 44.3 GB drive will be rounded down to 44 GBytes, and a 123 GB drives will be rounded. down to 120 GBytes. For more information, see the discussion of drive coercion under “Creating a Hot Spare” on page 139.

Support for Over 2 Terabytes

Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux 2.4, and FreeBSD 4.x, do not currently recognize unit capacity in excess of 2 TB.

If the combined capacity of the drives to be connected to a unit exceeds 2 Terabytes (TB), you can enable auto-carving when you configure your units.

Auto-carving divides the available unit capacity into multiple chunks of 2 TB or smaller that can be addressed by the operating systems as separate volumes. The carve size is adjustable from 1024 MB to 2048 MB (default) prior to unit creation.

If a unit over 2 TB was created prior to enabling the auto-carve option, its capacity visible to the operating system will still be 2TB; no additional capacity will be registered. To change this, the unit has to be recreated.

For more information, see “Using Auto-Carving for Multi LUN Support” on page 121.

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

3ware Tools for Configuration and Management

3ware software tools lets you easily configure the drives attached to your 3ware RAID controller, specifying which drives should be used together as a RAID unit and the type of RAID configuration you want, and designating hot spares for use if a drive degrades.

3ware provides several tools for use in configuring and managing units attached to the 3ware controller:

• 3BM (3ware BIOS Manager)

• 3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager)

• 3ware CLI (Command Line Interface)

3BM (3ware BIOS Manager)

3BM is a BIOS level tool for creating, deleting, and maintaining disk arrays, rebuilding arrays, designating hot spares, and setting controller policies. 3BM is the tool most frequently used to configure units immediately after installation of the controller, but can also be used after installation to maintain the controller and associated drives.

For general information about working with 3BM, see Chapter 5, “3ware BIOS Manager 2 (3BM 2),”.

3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager)

3DM is a daemon (under Linux) and a service (under Windows) which runs in the background on the controller’s host system, and can be accessed through a web browser to provide ongoing monitoring and administration of the controller and associated drives. 3DM supports hot spare and hot swap for redundant units.

3DM can be used locally (on the system that contains the 9000) or remotely (on a system connected via a network to the system containing the 9000).

For details about working with 3DM, see “3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2)” on page 65.

3DM 2 is the current version of the 3ware Disk Manager. Throughout this documentation, it is referred to interchangeably as 3DM and 3DM 2.

12 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Monitoring, Maintenance, and Troub leshooting Features

3ware CLI (Command Line Interface)

The 3ware CLI provides the functionality available in 3DM through a Command Line Interface. You can view unit status and version information and perform maintenance functions such as adding or removing drives, and reconfiguring RAID units online. You also use it to remotely administer controllers in a system by first logging into the system.

The 3ware CLI is described in 3ware 9000 Series Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide.

Monitoring, Maintenance, and Troubleshooting Features

Several 3ware RAID controller features aid in monitoring and troubleshooting your drives.

•

SMART Monitoring (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting

Technology) automatically checks a disk drive's health every 24 hours and reports potential problems. This allows you to take proactive steps to prevent impending disk crashes. SMART data is checked on all disk drives (array members, single disks, and hot spares). Monitoring of SMART thresholds can be turned on and off in 3DM. (For details, see “V iewin g SMART Data About a Drive” on page 176.)

•

Staggered Spinup allows drives that support this feature to be powered-

up into the standby power management state to minimize in-rush current at power-up and to allow the controller to sequence the spin-up of drives. Both SATAII OOB and ATA spin-up methods are supported. The standby power management state is persistent after power-down and power-up. You can set the number of drives that will spin up at the same time, and the time between staggers in 3BM (the 3ware BIOS Management utility). For details, see “Enabling and Setting Up Staggered Spin-up” on page 124.

Verification and Media Scans. The verify task verifies all redundant

•

units, and checks for media errors on single disks, spares, JBODS and RAID 0 unit members. If the disk drive is part of a redundant unit, error locations that are found and are deemed repairable are rewritten with the redundant data. This forces the drive firmware to reallocate the error sectors accordingly.

Error Correction. Bad sectors can be dynamically repaired through error

•

correction (Dynamic Sector Repair). Reallocation of blocks will try to be based intelligently on the location of the block in relation to the stripe.

Scheduled Background Tasks. Initialize, rebuild, verify, and self-test

•

tasks can all be run in the background, at scheduled times. This lets you

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Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller

choose a time for these tasks to be run when it will be least disruptive to your system. You can also define the rate at which background tasks are performed, specifying whether I/O tasks should be given more processing time, or background rebuild and verify tasks should be given more processing time.

Write Cache. Write cache can be enabled or disabled using 3BM 2,

•

3DM 2 and CLI. When write cache is enabled, data will be stored in system cache, 3ware controller cache, and drive cache before the data is committed to disk. This allows the system to process multiple write commands at the same time, thus improving performance. However when data is stored in cache, it could be lost if a power failure occurred. With a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) installed, the cache stored on the 3ware controller can be restored.

•

StorSave Profiles allow you to set the level of protection versus

performance that is desired for a unit when write cache is enabled (9550SX and 9590SE controllers only). For more information, see “Setting the StorSave Profile for a Unit” on page 149.

•

Drive Locate. When the I

C port on the controller has been connected to a chassis with a Chassis Control Unit (CCU), you can issue drive locate commands that blink the LEDs for particular drives, so that you can quickly identify what drive needs to be checked or replaced (9550SX and 9590SE controllers only).

•

Auto-Rebuild. For times when you do not have a spare available, setting

the auto-rebuild policy allows rebuilds to occur with an available drive or with a failed drive (9550SX and 9590SE controllers only).

14 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Getting Started with Your 3ware RAID Controller

Setting up your 3ware RAID controller involves these main steps:

• Physically Install the Controller and Drives

• Configure the RAID Unit and Drives

• Install the Driver and Make the Operating System Aware of the New

Drives

• Set Up Management and Maintenance Features Once the controller and drives have been physically installed, the order in

which you perform these steps depends in part on whether one of the units you configure will act as your boot drive.

Physically Install the Controller and Drives

T o install your controller and drives, fo llow the instructions in the installation guide that came with your controller. If you do not have a hardcopy of the installation manual, you can download it from the 3ware website at http://

www.3ware.com/support/userdocs.asp.

Configure the RAID Unit and Drives

You may want to review the information under “Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels” on page 5 before configuring your drives. This information will help you choose the appropriate RAID level for your situation.

If you will install the operating system on and boot from a drive managed through the new 3ware RAID controller, use the 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) to define the configuration. You will find step-by-step instructions in Chapter 3, “First-Time RAID Configuration Using 3BM.” Information about using 3BM is also included in the later chapters of this user guide, but Chapter 3 offers a sequential set of steps for initial installation.

If the operating system is already installed on another drive in your system, you can configure units through 3BM, through 3ware Disk Manager (3DM), or through the Command Line Interface (CLI). If you want to use 3DM or the

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Chapter 2. Getting Started with Your 3ware RAID Controller

CLI for configuration, go ahead and boot to the OS, install the driver and the 3DM 2 software, and then configure your units. You may want to refer to the following information:

• Chapter 6, “3ware Disk Manager (3DM 2)”

• Chapter 8, “Configuring Units”

• 3ware 9000 Series Seri al ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide, available from

the CD-ROM and from the website

http://www.3ware.com/support/userdocs.asp

Install the Driver and Make the Operating System Aware of the New Drives

Instructions for installing drivers are available in Chapter 4, “Driver Installation.”

You will also find instructions for updating the driver under “Updating the Driver and Firmware” on page 200.

Set Up Management and Maintenance Features

3ware RAID controllers come with software that include a number of features to help you manage and maintain the controller and your configured units. The default settings for these features allow you to begin using your newly configured units right away. You can review and change these features as a final step in your initial setup, or you can make changes to them later, at your convenience. These features include:

• Controller and unit policies, such as staggered spinup, use of write cache,

use of queueing mode, selection of a StorSave profile, and specifying how unconfigured disks (JBODs) are handled

• Email notification of alarms and other events

• Schedules for when background tasks will be performed, to minimize the

impact on day-to-day performance during peak usage times.

Details about these features are described in this user guide and can be looked up individually. When you first set up your controller, you may want to review these sections in particular:

• “Configuring Your Controller” on page 115

• “Setting Unit Policies” on page 142

• “Setting Background Task Rate” on page 183

• “Scheduling Background Tasks” on page 184

16 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

Table 5: Initial Default Settings for Policies

Policy Default Value Where to Change Controller-Level Settings

Auto-Rebuild Enabled 3BM, 3DM, CLI Auto-Carving Disabled 3BM, 3DM, CLI Carve Size or Factor 2048 3BM, 3DM, CLI Drives Per Spinup 1 3BM, CLI Delay Between Spinup 6 seconds 3BM, CLI Export Unconfigured (JBOD)

Disks Disable Cache on Degraded

Array (does not apply to 9550SX and 9590SE controllers because this feature is integrated into StorSave Profile)

Staggered Method ATA-6 3BM Staggered Spinup Enabled 3BM

Unit-Level Settings

Auto-Verify Disabled 3DM, CLI Continue on Source Error

During Rebuild Boot Volume Size Blank 3BM Queuing (NCQ) Disabled 3BM, 3DM, CLI StorSave Profile Protection 3BM, 3DM, CLI Write Cache Enabled 3BM, 3DM, CLI

Background Task Settings

Verify Task Schedules

Follow Verify Task Schedule No 3DM, CLI Rebuild Task Schedules

Follow Rebuild T ask Schedule

Self-test Task Schedules

Follow Self-test Task Schedule

Disabled 3BM, CLI

Enabled CLI, 9.2 version of

3BM (not 3BM 2)

Disabled 3BM, 3DM, CLI

starting at 12:00 am

Daily,

3DM, CLI

and running for 24 hours

Daily,

starting at 12:00 am

3DM, CLI

and running for 24 hours

No 3DM, CLI

Daily,

starting at 12:00 am

3DM, CLI

and running for 24 hours

Yes 3DM, CLI

www.3ware.com 17

Chapter 2. Getting Started with Your 3ware RAID Controller

18 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

First-Time RAID Configuration Using 3BM

If you will install the operating system on and boot from a unit managed through the new 3ware RAID controller, follow the steps in this chapter to use the 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) to configure the unit and install the driver.

If the operating system is already installed on another drive in your system, you can use the steps below or you can configure units through 3DM or the CLI.

You can create one or more units on a single controller, depending on the number of drives that the specific 3ware RAID controller supports and the number of drives attached. (For more information, see “Determining What RAID Level to Use” on page 9.)

Basic Steps for Creating a Unit

The process of configuring your RAID units includes these main steps, which are detailed in the step-by-step example:

• Launch 3BM (3ware BIOS Manager)

• Select the drives to be included and indicate that you want to create a disk

unit

• Select the desired RAID configuration

• Set other parameters, depending on the type of RAID config uration

• Confirm the unit configuration

• Save your changes and finish up

Note: If the capacity of the unit you create will exceed 2TB and

you are using Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux 2.4, or FreeBSD 4.x, you will need to enable auto-carving. Before creating your unit, follow the instructions under “Using AutoCarving for Multi LUN Support” on page 121.

www.3ware.com 19

Chapter 3. First-Time RAID Configuration Using 3BM

To launch 3BM

1 Power up or reboot your system.

While the system is starting, watch for a screen similar to Figure 5.

----Press <Alt-3> to access 3ware BIOS Manager ---3ware ATA RAID Controller: 9590SE-12 BIOS: BE9X X.XX.XX.XXX Firmware: FE9X X.XX.XX.XXX BBU Status: Not Present Number of online units: 1, available drives: 0, hot spare: 0, offline units:0

Exportable Units: 3drive 64K RAID5 558.77GB (PrimaryRAID5) Port0 Maxtor 7B300S0 279.48 GB Port1 Maxtor 7B300S0 279.48 GB Port2 Maxtor 7B300S0 279.48 GB

Figure 5. 3ware BIOS Screen

2 Press Alt-3 immediately to bring up the 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM).

Normally your 3ware configuration remains on-screen for just a few seconds. However, if a unit has degraded, the screen indicates the problem and remains on your screen longer.

3 If you have more than one 9000-series controller in your system, a screen

lists the available boards. (See Figure 6.) In this case, highlight the board with which you want to work and press Enter.

Figure 6. 3ware Controller Board Selection Screen

You see a screen similar to Figure 7, warning you that changing your disk array configuration may overwrite data on the disks.

20 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide

+ 242 hidden pages

3Ware 9550SX, 9590SE User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual