Areca ARC-1110, ARC-1120, ARC-1130, ARC-1231ML, ARC-1261ML User Manual

SATA RAID Cards

ARC-1110/1120/1130/1160/1170

( 4/8/12/16/24-port PCI-X SATA RAID Controllers )

ARC-1110ML/1120ML/1130ML/1160ML

( 4/8-port Innband connector and 12/16-port Multi-lane

connector PCI-X SATA RAID Controllers )

ARC-1210/1220/1230/1260/1280

( 4/8/12/16/24-port PCI-Express SATA RAID Controllers )

ARC-1231ML/1261ML/1280ML

(12/16/24-port PCI-Express SATA RAID Controllers)

USER Manual

Version: 3.3
Issue Date: November, 2006

Microsoft WHQL Windows Hardware Compatibility
Test

ARECA is committed to submitting products to the Microsoft Windows
Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL), which is required for participation in the
Windows Logo Program. Successful passage of the WHQL tests results
in both the “Designed for Windows” logo for qualifying ARECA PCI-X and
PCI-Express SATA RAID controllers and a listing on the Microsoft Hard­ware Compatibility List (HCL).

Copyright and Trademarks

The information of the products in this manual is subject to change
without prior notice and does not represent a commitment on the part
of the vendor, who assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors
that may appear in this manual. All brands and trademarks are the
properties of their respective owners. This manual contains materials
protected under International Copyright Conventions. All rights
reserved. No part of this manual may be reproduced in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without
the written permission of the manufacturer and the author. All inquiries
should be addressed to ARECA Technology Corp.

FCC STATEMENT

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for
a Class B digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules. These
limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against interfer­ence in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses, and
can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in ac­cordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio
communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will
not occur in a particular installation.

Contents

1. Introduction .............................................................. 10

1.1 Overview ....................................................................... 10

1.2 Features ........................................................................12

1.3 RAID Concept ................................................................. 15

1.3.1 RAID Set ................................................................... 15

1.3.2 Volume Set ................................................................ 15

1.3.3 Ease of Use Features ................................................. 16

1.3.3.1 Foreground Availability/Background Initialization ....... 16

1.3.3.2 Array Roaming ..................................................... 16

1.3.3.3 Online Capacity Expansion ..................................... 17

1.3.3.4 Online RAID Level and Stripe Size Migration ............. 19

1.3.3.5 Online Volume Expansion ........................................ 19

1.4 High availability .............................................................. 20

1.4.1 Global Hot Spares ...................................................... 20

1.4.2 Hot-Swap Disk Drive Support ....................................... 21

1.4.3 Auto Declare Hot-Spare .............................................. 21

1.4.4 Auto Rebuilding ......................................................... 21

1.4.5 Adjustable Rebuild Priority ........................................... 22

1.5.1 Hard Drive Failure Prediction ........................................ 23

1.5.2 Auto Reassign Sector .................................................. 23

1.5.3 Consistency Check ...................................................... 24

1.6 Data Protection ............................................................... 24

1.6.1 BATTERY BACKUP ...................................................... 24

1.6.2 RECOVERY ROM ......................................................... 25

1.7 Understanding RAID ........................................................ 25

1.7.1 RAID 0 ...................................................................... 25

1.7.2 RAID 1 ...................................................................... 26

1.7.3 RAID 1E .................................................................... 27

1.7.4 RAID 3 ...................................................................... 27

1.7.5 RAID 5 ...................................................................... 28

1.7.6 RAID 6 ...................................................................... 29

2. Hardware Installation ............................................... 32

2.1 Before Your begin Installation ........................................... 32

2.2 Board Layout .................................................................. 33

2.3 Installation .....................................................................39

3. McBIOS RAID Manager .............................................. 56

3.1 Starting the McBIOS RAID Manager ................................... 56

3.2 McBIOS Conguration manager ......................................... 57

3.3 Conguring Raid Sets and Volume Sets .............................. 58

3.4 Designating Drives as Hot Spares ...................................... 58

3.5 Using Quick Volume /Raid Setup Conguration .................... 59

3.6 Using RAID Set/Volume Set Function Method ...................... 60

3.7 Main Menu .................................................................... 62

3.7.1 Quick Volume/RAID Setup ........................................... 63

3.7.2 Raid Set Function ....................................................... 66

3.7.2.1 Create Raid Set .................................................... 67

3.7.2.2 Delete Raid Set ..................................................... 68

3.7.2.3 Expand Raid Set .................................................... 68

• Migrating ...................................................................... 69

3.7.2.4 Activate Incomplete Raid Set ................................... 70

3.7.2.5 Create Hot Spare ................................................... 71

3.7.2.6 Delete Hot Spare ................................................... 71

3.7.2.7 Raid Set Information .............................................. 72

3.7.3 Volume Set Function ................................................... 72

3.7.3.1 Create Volume Set ................................................. 73

• Volume Name ................................................................ 75

• Raid Level ..................................................................... 75

• Capacity .......................................................................76

• Strip Size ...................................................................... 77

• SCSI Channel ................................................................78

• SCSI ID ........................................................................ 78

• SCSI LUN ...................................................................... 79

• Cache Mode .................................................................. 79

3.7.3.2 Delete Volume Set ................................................. 80

• Tag Queuing .................................................................. 80

3.7.3.3 Modify Volume Set ................................................. 81

• Volume Growth .............................................................. 82

• Volume Set Migration ...................................................... 83

3.7.3.4 Check Volume Set .................................................. 83

3.7.3.5 Stop Volume Set Check .......................................... 83

3.7.3.6 Display Volume Set Info. ........................................ 84

3.7.4 Physical Drives ........................................................... 85

3.7.4.1 View Drive Information .......................................... 85

3.7.4.2 Create Pass-Through Disk ....................................... 86

3.7.4.3 Modify a Pass-Through Disk ..................................... 86

3.7.4.4 Delete Pass-Through Disk ....................................... 87

3.7.4.5 Identify Selected Drive ........................................... 87

3.7.5 Raid System Function .................................................88

3.7.5.1 Mute The Alert Beeper ........................................... 88

3.7.5.2 Alert Beeper Setting ............................................... 89

3.7.5.3 Change Password .................................................. 89

3.7.5.4 JBOD/RAID Function .............................................. 90

3.7.5.5 Background Task Priority ........................................ 91

3.7.5.6 Maximum SATA Mode ............................................. 91

3.7.5.7 HDD Read Ahead Cache ......................................... 92

3.7.5.8 Stagger Power On .................................................. 92

3.7.5.9 Empty HDD slot HDD .............................................93

3.7.5.10 HDD SMART Status Polling .................................... 94

3.7.5.11 Controller Fan Detection ....................................... 94

3.7.5.12 Disk Write Cache Mode ......................................... 95

3.7.5.13 Capacity Truncation .............................................. 95

3.7.6 Ethernet Conguration (12/16/24-port) ......................... 96

3.7.6.1 DHCP Function ......................................................97

3.7.6.2 Local IP address .................................................... 98

3.7.6.3 Ethernet Address ................................................... 99

3.7.7 View System Events ...................................................99

3.7.8 Clear Events Buffer ................................................... 100

3.7.9 Hardware Monitor ..................................................... 100

3.7.10 System Information ................................................ 100

4. Driver Installation ................................................... 102

4.1 Creating the Driver Diskettes .......................................... 102

4.2 Driver Installation for Windows ....................................... 103

4.2.1 New Storage Device Drivers in Windows Server 2003 .... 103

4.2.2 Install Windows 2000/XP/2003 on a SATA RAID Volume 104

4.2.2.1 Installation procedures ......................................... 104

4.2.2.2 Making Volume Sets Available to Windows System ... 105

4.2.3 Installing controller into an existing Windows 2000/XP/2003

Installation ...................................................................... 106

4.2.3.1 Making Volume Sets Available to Windows System ... 107

4.2.4 Uninstall controller from Windows 2000/XP/2003 .......... 108

4.3 Driver Installation for Linux ............................................ 109

4.4 Driver Installation for FreeBSD ........................................ 109

4.5 Driver Installation for Solaris 10 ...................................... 110

4.6 Driver Installation for Mac 10.x ....................................... 110

4.7 Driver Installation for UnixWare 7.1.4 .............................. 111

4.8 Driver Installation for NetWare 6.5 .................................. 111

5. ArcHttp Proxy Server Installation ........................... 112

5.1 For Windows................................................................. 113

5.2 For Linux ..................................................................... 114

5.3 For FreeBSD ................................................................. 115

5.4 For Solaris 10 x86 ......................................................... 116

5.5 For Mac OS 10.x ........................................................... 116

5.6 ArcHttp Conguration .................................................... 117

6. Web Browser-based Conguration ......................... 121

6.1 Start-up McRAID Storage Manager ................................. 121

• Another method to start-up McRAID Storage Manager from

Windows Local Administration .......................................... 122

6.1.1 Through Ethernet port (Out-of-Band) ......................... 123

6.2 SATA RAID controller McRAID Storage Manager ................. 124

6.3 Main Menu .................................................................. 125

6.4 Quick Function .............................................................. 125

6.5 RaidSet Functions ......................................................... 126

6.5.1 Create Raid Set ....................................................... 126

6.5.2 Delete Raid Set ........................................................ 127

6.5.3 Expand Raid Set ....................................................... 128

6.5.4 Activate Incomplete Raid Set ..................................... 128

6.5.5 Create Hot Spare ..................................................... 129

6.5.6 Delete Hot Spare ...................................................... 129

6.5.7 Rescue Raid Set ....................................................... 129

6.6 Volume Set Functions .................................................... 130

6.6.1 Create Volume Set ................................................... 130

• Volume Name .............................................................. 131

• Raid Level .................................................................. 131

• Capacity ..................................................................... 131

• Greater Two TB Volume Support ..................................... 131

• Initialization Mode ........................................................ 132

• Strip Size .................................................................... 132

• Cache Mode ................................................................ 132

• SCSI Channel/SCSI ID/SCSI Lun .................................... 132

• Tag Queuing ................................................................ 132

6.6.2 Delete Volume Set .................................................... 133

6.6.3 Modify Volume Set .................................................... 133

6.6.3.1 Volume Set Migration ........................................... 134

6.6.4 Check Volume Set .................................................... 135

6.6.5 Stop VolumeSet Check .............................................. 135

6.7 Physical Drive .............................................................. 135

6.7.1 Create Pass-Through Disk .......................................... 136

6.7.2 Modify Pass-Through Disk .......................................... 136

6.7.3 Delete Pass-Through Disk .......................................... 137

6.8 System Controls ........................................................... 138

6.8.1 System Cong ......................................................... 138

• System Beeper Setting ................................................. 138

• Background Task Priority ............................................... 138

• JBOD/RAID Conguration .............................................. 138

• Maximun SATA Supported ............................................. 138

• HDD Read Ahead Cache ................................................ 138

• Stagger Power on ........................................................ 139

• Empty HDD Slot LED .................................................... 140

• HDD SMART Status Polling............................................. 140

• Disk Write Cache Mode ................................................. 141

• Disk Capacity Truncation Mode ....................................... 141

6.8.2 Ethernet Conguration (12/16/24-port) ....................... 142

6.8.3 Alert by Mail Conguration (12/16/24-port) ................ 143

6.8.4 SNMP Conguration (12/16/24-port) ........................... 144

• SNMP Trap Congurations ............................................. 145

• SNMP System Congurations ......................................... 145

• SNMP Trap Notication Congurations ............................. 145

6.8.5 NTP Conguration (12/16/24-port) ............................. 145

• NTP Sever Address ....................................................... 145

• Time Zone ................................................................... 146

• Automatic Daylight Saving............................................. 146

6.8.6 View Events/Mute Beeper .......................................... 146

6.8.7 Generate Test Event ................................................. 146

6.8.8 Clear Events Buffer ................................................... 147

6.8.9 Modify Password ...................................................... 147

6.8.10 Update Firmware ................................................... 148

6.9 Information .................................................................. 148

6.9.1 RaidSet Hierarchy ..................................................... 148

6.9.2 System Information .................................................. 148

Appendix A ................................................................. 151

Upgrading Flash ROM Update Process .................................... 151

Upgrading Firmware Through McRAID Storage Manager ........... 151

Upgrading Entire Flash ROM ImageThrough Arcash DOS Utility 153

Appendix B .................................................................. 156

Battery Backup Module (ARC-6120-BAT) ................................ 156

BBM Components ........................................................... 156

BBM Specications .......................................................... 156

Installation .................................................................... 157

Battery Backup Capacity .................................................. 157

Operation ...................................................................... 158

Changing the Battery Backup Module ................................ 158

Status of BBM ................................................................ 158

Appendix C .................................................................. 159

SNMP Operation & Denition ................................................ 159

Appendix D .................................................................. 166

Event Notication Congurations ........................................ 166

A. Device Event .............................................................. 166

B. Volume Event ............................................................. 167

C. RAID Set Event .......................................................... 167

D. Hardware Event .......................................................... 168

Appendix E .................................................................. 169

General Troubleshooting Tips ............................................... 169

Appendix F .................................................................. 173

Technical Support ............................................................... 173

Glossary ...................................................................... 174

2TB .............................................................................. 174

Array ............................................................................ 174

ATA .............................................................................. 174

Auto Reassign Sector ..................................................... 174

Battery Backup Module .................................................... 175

BIOS ............................................................................ 175

Cache ........................................................................... 175

Consistency Check .......................................................... 175

Driver ........................................................................... 175

Hot Spare ...................................................................... 176

Hardware RAID versus Software RAID .............................. 176

Hot Swap ...................................................................... 176

NVRAM .......................................................................... 176

Parity ............................................................................ 176

PCI Express .................................................................. 176

PCI-X ........................................................................... 177

RAID ............................................................................ 177

Rebuild ......................................................................... 177

SATA (Serial ATA) ........................................................... 177

SMART .......................................................................... 178

SNMP ............................................................................ 178

Volume Set .................................................................... 178

Write-back ..................................................................... 178

Write-through ................................................................ 178

XOR-Engine ................................................................... 179

INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction

This section presents a brief overview of the SATA RAID Series
controller, ARC-1110/1110ML/1120/1120ML/1130/1130ML/1160/
1160ML/1170 (4/8/12/16/24-port PCI-X SATA RAID Controllers) and
ARC-1210/1220/1230/1230/1231ML/1260/1261ML/1280/1280ML
(4/8/12/16/24-port PCI-Express SATA RAID Controllers).

1.1 Overview

The ARC-11xx and ARC-12xx Series of high-performance Serial ATA
RAID controllers support a maximum of 4, 8, 12, 16, or 24 SATA
II peripheral devices (depending on model) on a single controller.
The ARC-11xx series for the PCI-X bus and the ARC-12xx Series
for the PCI-Express bus. When properly congured, these SATA
controllers provide non-stop service with a high degree of fault
tolerance through the use of RAID technology and can also provide
advanced array management features.

The 4 and 8 port SATA RAID controllers are low-prole PCI cards,
ideal for 1U and 2U rack-mount systems. These controllers utilize
the same RAID kernel that has been eld-proven in Areca existing
external RAID controllers, allowing Areca to quickly bring stable
and reliable RAID controllers to the market.

Unparalleled Performance

The SATA RAID controllers provide reliable data protection for
desktops, workstations, and servers. These cards set the stan­dard with enhancements that include a high-performance Intel I/O
Processor, a new memory architecture, and a high performance PCI
bus interconnection. The 8/12/16/24-port controllers with the RAID
6 engine built-in can offer extreme-availability RAID 6 functionality.
This engine can concurrently compute two parity blocks with per­formance very similar to RAID 5. The controllers by default support
256MB of ECC SDRAM memory. The 12/16/24 port controllers sup­port one DDR333 SODIMM socket that allows for upgrading up to
1GB of memory. The 12/16/24 port controllers support one DDR2­533 DIMM socket that allows for upgrading up to 2GB of memory.
The controllers use Marvell 4/8 channel SATA PCI-X controller

10

INTRODUCTION

chips, which can simultaneously communicate with the I/O proces­sor and read or write data on multiple drives.

Unsurpassed Data Availability

As storage capacity requirements continue to rapidly increase, us­ers require greater levels of disk drive fault tolerance, which can be
implemented without doubling the investment in disk drives. RAID
1 (mirroring) provides high fault tolerance. However, half of the
drive capacity of the array is lost to mirroring, making it too costly
for most users to implement on large volume sets due to dobuling
the number of drives required. Users want the protection of RAID 1
or better with an implementation cost comparable to RAID 5. RAID
6 can offer fault tolerance greater than RAID 1 or RAID 5 but only
consumes the capacity of 2 disk drives for distributed parity data.
The 8/12/16/24-port RAID controllers provide RAID 6 functionality
to meet these demanding requirements.

The SATA RAID controllers also provide RAID levels 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5
or JBOD congurations. Its high data availability and protection is
derived from the following capabilities: Online RAID Capacity Ex­pansion, Array Roaming, Online RAID Level / Stripe Size Migration,
Dynamic Volume Set Expansion, Global Online Spare, Automatic
Drive Failure Detection, Automatic Failed Drive Rebuilding, Disk
Hot-Swap, Online Background Rebuilding and Instant Availabil­ity/Background Initialization. During the controller rmware ash
upgrade process, it is possible that an error results in corruption of
the controller rmware. This could result in the device becoming
non-functional. However, with our Redundant Flash image feature,
the controller will revert back to the last known version of rmware
and continue operating. This reduces the risk of system failure due
to rmware crashes.

Easy RAID Management

The SATA RAID controller utilizes built-in rmware with an embed­ded terminal emulation that can access via hot key at BIOS boot­up screen. This pre-boot manager utility can be used to simplify
the setup and management of the RAID controller. The controller
rmware also contains a ArcHttp browser-based program that can
be accessed through the ArcHttp proxy server function in Windows,

11

INTRODUCTION

Linux, FreeBSD and more environments. This Web browser-based
RAID management utility allows both local and remote creation and
modication RAID sets, volume sets, and monitoring of RAID status
from standard web browsers.

1.2 Features

Adapter Architecture

• Intel IOP 331 I/O processor (ARC-11xx series)

• Intel IOP 332/IOP 333 I/O processor (ARC-12xx series)

• Intel IOP341 I/O processor (ARC-12x1ML/ARC-1280ML/1280)

• 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X Bus compatible

• PCI Express X8 compatible

• 256MB on-board DDR333 SDRAM with ECC protection (4/8-port)

• One SODIMM Socket with default 256 MB of DDR333 SDRAM
with ECC protection, upgrade to 1GB (12, 16 and 24-port cards
only)

• One DIMM Socket with default 256 MB of DDR2-533 SDRAM
with ECC protection, upgrade to 2GB(ARC-12xxML, ARC-1280)

• An ECC or non-ECC SDRAM module using X8 or X16 devices

• Support up to 4/8/12/16/24 SATA ll drives

• Write-through or write-back cache support

• Multi-adapter support for large storage requirements

• BIOS boot support for greater fault tolerance

• BIOS PnP (plug and play) and BBS (BIOS boot specication)
support

• Supports extreme performance Intel RAID 6 functionality

• NVRAM for RAID event & transaction log

• Battery backup module (BBM) ready (Depend on mother
board)

RAID Features

• RAID level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6 (R6 engine inside) and JBOD

• Multiple RAID selection

• Array roaming

• Online RAID level/stripe size migration

• Online capacity expansion & RAID level migration simultaneously

• Online volume set growth

• Instant availability and background initialization

• Automatic drive insertion / removal detection and rebuilding

• Greater than 2TB per volume set for 64-bit LBA

12

INTRODUCTION

• Redundant ash image for adapter availability

• Support S.M.A.R.T, NCQ and OOB staggered spin-up capable
drives

Monitors/Notication

• System status indication through LED/LCD connector, HDD
activity/fault connector, and alarm buzzer

• SMTP support for email notication

• SNMP agent supports for remote SNMP Manager

• I2C Enclosure Management Ready (IOP331/332/333)

• I2C & SGPIO Enclosure Management Ready (IOP341)

RAID Management

• Field-upgradeable rmware in ash ROM

• Ethernet port support on 12/16/24-port

In-Band Manager

• Hot key boot-up McBIOS RAID manager via BIOS

• Support controller’s API library, allowing customer to write its
own AP

• Support Command Line Interface (CLI)

• Browser-based management utility via ArcHttp proxy server

• Single Admin Portal (SAP) monitor utility

• Disk Stress Test (DST) utility for production in Windows

Out-of-Band Manager

• Firmware-embedded browser-based RAID manager, SMTP
manager, SNMP agent and Telnet function via Ethernet port
(for 12/16/24-port Adapter)

• Support controller’s API library for customer to write its own
AP (for 12/16/24-port Adapter)

• Push Button and LCD display panel (option)

Operating System

• Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003

• Red Hat Linux

• SuSE Linux

• FreeBSD

• Novell Netware 6.5

• Solaris 10 X86/X86_64

• SCO Unixware 7.1.4

• Mac OS 10.X (no_bootable)

(For latest supported OS listing visit http://www.areca.com.tw)

13

INTRODUCTION

Internal PCI-X RAID Card Comparison (ARC-11XX)

1110 1120 1130 1160 1170

RAID processor IOP331

Host Bus Type PCI-X 133MHz

RAID 6 support N/A YES YES YES YES

Cache Memory 256MB 256MB One SO-

DIMM

Drive Support 4 * SATA ll 8 * SATA ll 12 * SATA ll 16 * SATA ll 24 * SATA ll

Disk Connector SATA SATA SATA SATA SATA

PCI-X RAID Card Comparison (ARC-11XXML)

1110ML 1120ML 1130ML 1160ML

RAID processor IOP331

Host Bus Type PCI-X 133MHz

RAID 6 support N/A YES YES YES

Cache Memory 256MB 256MB One SODIMM One SODIMM

Drive Support 4 * SATA ll 8 * SATA ll 12 * SATA ll 16 * SATA ll

Disk Connector Innband Innband Multi-lane Multi-lane

One SO-

DIMM

One SO-

DIMM

Internal PCI-Express RAID Card Comparison (ARC-12XX)

1210 1220 1230 1260

RAID processor IOP333

Host Bus Type PCI-Express X8

RAID 6 support N/A YES YES YES

Cache Memory 256MB 256MB One SODIMM One SODIMM

Drive Support 4 * SATA ll 8 * SATA ll 12 * SATA ll 16 * SATA ll

Disk Connector SATA SATA SATA SATA

IOP332

14

INTRODUCTION

Internal PCI-Express RAID Card Comparison (ARC-12XX)

1231ML 1261ML 1280ML 1280

RAID processor IOP341

Host Bus Type PCI-Express X8

RAID 6 support YES YES YES YES

Cache Memory One DDR2 DIMM (Default 256MB, Upgrade to 2GB)

Drive Support 12 * SATA ll 16 * SATA ll 24 * SATA ll 24 * SATA ll

Disk Connector 3*Min SAS 4i 4*Min SAS 4i 6*Min SAS 4i 24*SATA

1.3 RAID Concept

1.3.1 RAID Set

A RAID set is a group of disks connected to a RAID controller. A
RAID set contains one or more volume sets. The RAID set itself
does not dene the RAID level (0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, etc); the RAID
level is dened within each volume set. Therefore, volume sets are
contained within RAID sets and RAID Level is dened within the
volume set. If physical disks of different capacities are grouped
together in a RAID set, then the capacity of the smallest disk will
become the effective capacity of all the disks in the RAID set.

1.3.2 Volume Set

Each volume set is seen by the host system as a single logical de­vice (in other words, a single large virtual hard disk). A volume set
will use a specic RAID level, which will require one or more physi­cal disks (depending on the RAID level used). RAID level refers to
the level of performance and data protection of a volume set. The
capacity of a volume set can consume all or a portion of the avail­able disk capacity in a RAID set. Multiple volume sets can exist in a
RAID set.

For the SATA RAID controller, a volume set must be created either
on an existing RAID set or on a group of available individual disks
(disks that are about to become part of a RAID set). If there are
pre-existing RAID sets with available capacity and enough disks for
the desired RAID level, then the volume set can be created in the
existing RAID set of the user’s choice.

15

INTRODUCTION

In the illustration, volume 1 can be assigned a RAID level 5 of
operation while volume 0 might be assigned a RAID level 1E of
operation. Alterantively, the free space can be used to create vol­ume 2, which could then be set to use RAID level 5.

1.3.3 Ease of Use Features

1.3.3.1 Foreground Availability/Background Initial­ization

RAID 0 and RAID 1 volume sets can be used immediately af­ter creation because they do not create parity data. However,
RAID 3, 5 and 6 volume sets must be initialized to generate
parity information. In Backgorund Initialization, the initializa­tion proceeds as a background task, and the volume set is fully
accessible for system reads and writes. The operating system
can instantly access the newly created arrays without requir­ing a reboot and without waiting for initialization to complete.
Furthermore, the volume set is protected against disk failures
while initialing. If using Foreground Initialization, the initializa­tion process must be completed before the volume set is ready
for system accesses.

16

1.3.3.2 Array Roaming

The SATA RAID controllers store RAID conguration information
on the disk drives. The controller therefore protect the congu­ration settings in the event of controller failure. Array roaming
allows the administrators the ability to move a completele RAID
set to another system without losing RAID conguration infor-

INTRODUCTION

mation or data on that RAID set. Therefore, if a server fails, the
RAID set disk drives can be moved to another server with an

Areca RAID controller and the disks can be inserted in any order.

1.3.3.3 Online Capacity Expansion

Online Capacity Expansion makes it possible to add one or more
physical drives to a volume set without interrupting server op­eration, eliminating the need to backup and restore after recon­guration of the RAID set. When disks are added to a RAID set,
unused capacity is added to the end of the RAID set. Then, data
on the existing volume sets (residing on the newly expanded
RAID set) is redistributed evenly across all the disks. A contigu­ous block of unused capacity is made available on the RAID set.
The unused capacity can be used to create additional volume
sets.

A disk, to be added to a RAID set, must be in normal mode (not
failed), free (not spare, in a RAID set, or passed through to
host) and must have at least the same capacity as the smallest
disk capacity already in the RAID set.

Capacity expansion is only permitted to proceed if all volumes
on the RAID set are in the normal status. During the expansion
process, the volume sets being expanded can be accessed by
the host system. In addition, the volume sets with RAID level 1,
1E, 3, 5 or 6 are protected against data loss in the event of disk
failure(s). In the case of disk failure, the volume set transitions
from “migrating” state to “migrating+degraded“ state. When the
expansion is completed, the volume set would then transition to
“degraded” mode. If a global hot spare is present, then it further
transitions to the “rebuilding” state.

17

INTRODUCTION

The expansion process is illustrated as following gure.

The SATA RAID controller redistributes the original volume set
over the original and newly added disks, using the same fault­tolerance conguration. The unused capacity on the expand
RAID set can then be used to create an additional volume set,
with a different fault tolerance setting (if required by the user.)

18

The SATA RAID controller redistributes the original volume set
over the original and newly added disks, using the same fault­tolerance conguration. The unused capacity on the expand raid
set can then be used to create an additional volume sets, with a
different fault tolerance setting if user need to change.

INTRODUCTION

1.3.3.4 Online RAID Level and Stripe Size Migration

For those who wish to later upgrade to any RAID capabilities, a
system with Areca online RAID level/stripe size migration allows
a simplied upgrade to any supported RAID level without having
to reinstall the operating system.

The SATA RAID controllers can migrate both the RAID level and
stripe size of an existing volume set, while the server is on­line and the volume set is in use. Online RAID level/stripe size
migration can prove helpful during performance tuning activities
as well as when additional physical disks are added to the SATA
RAID controller. For example, in a system using two drives in
RAID level 1, it is possible to add a single drive and add capac­ity and retain fault tolerance. (Normally, expanding a RAID level
1 array would require the addition of two disks). A third disk
can be added to the existing RAID logical drive and the volume
set can then be migrated from RAID level 1 to 5. The result
would be parity fault tolerance and double the available capacity
without taking the system down. A forth disk could be added to
migrate to RAID level 6. It is only possible to migrate to a higher
RAID level by adding a disk; disks in an existing array can’t be
recongured for a higher RAID level without adding a disk.

Online migration is only permitted to begin, It all volumes to be
migrated are in the normal mode. During the migration process,
the volume sets being migrated are accessed by the host sys­tem. In addition, the volume sets with RAID level 1, 1E, 3, 5 or
6 are protected against data loss in the event of disk failure(s).
In the case of disk failure, the volume set transitions from mi­grating state to (migrating+degraded) state. When the migra­tion is completed, the volume set transitions to degraded mode.
If a global hot spare is present, then it further transitions to
rebuilding state.

1.3.3.5 Online Volume Expansion

Performing a volume expansion on the controller is the process
of growing only the size of the lastest volume. A more exible
option is for the array to concatenate an additional drive into the
RAID set and then expand the volumes on the y. This happens

19

INTRODUCTION

transparently while the volumes are online, but, at the end of
the process, the operating system will detect free space at after
the existing volume.

Windows, NetWare and other advanced operating systems sup­port volume expansion, which enables you to incorporate the
additional free space within the volume into the operating sys­tem partition. The operating system partition is extended to
incorporate the free space so it can be used by the operating
system without creating a new operating system partition.

You can use the Diskpart.exe command line utility, included with
Windows Server 2003 or the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, to ex­tend an existing partition into free space in the dynamic disk.

Third-party software vendors have created utilities that can be
used to repartition disks without data loss. Most of these utilities
work ofine. Partition Magic is one such utility.

1.4 High availability

1.4.1 Global Hot Spares

A Global Hot Spare is an unused online available drive, which is
ready for replacing the failure disk. The Global Hot Spare is one
of the most important features that SATA RAID controllers provide
to deliver a high degree of fault-tolerance. A Global Hot Spare
is a spare physical drive that has been marked as a global hot
spare and therefore is not a member of any RAID set. If a disk
drive used in a volume set fails, then the Global Hot Spare will
automatically take its place and he data previously located on the
failed drive is reconstructed on the Global Hot Spare.

For this feature to work properly, the global hot spare must have
at least the same capacity as the drive it replaces. Global Hot
Spares only work with RAID level 1, 1E, 3, 5, or 6 volume set.
You can congure up to three global hot spares with ARC-11xx/
12xx.

The Create Hot Spare option gives you the ability to dene a

20

INTRODUCTION

global hot spare disk drive. To effectively use the global hot
spare feature, you must always maintain at least one drive that
is marked as a global spare.

Important:

The hot spare must have at least the same capacity as the
drive it replaces.

1.4.2 Hot-Swap Disk Drive Support

The SATA controller chip includes a protection circuit that supports
the replacement of SATA hard disk drives without having to shut
down or reboot the system. A removable hard drive tray can de­liver “hot swappable” fault-tolerant RAID solutions at prices much
less than the cost of conventional SCSI hard disk RAID control­lers. This feature provides advanced fault tolerant RAID protection
and “online” drive replacement.

1.4.3 Auto Declare Hot-Spare

If a disk drive is brought online into a system operating in de­graded mode, The SATA RAID controllers will automatically de­clare the new disk as a spare and begin rebuilding the degraded
volume. The Auto Declare Hot-Spare function requires that the
smallest drive contained within the volume set in which the failure
occurred.

In the normal status, the newly installed drive will be recongured
an online free disk. But, the newly-installed drive is automatically
assigned as a hot spare if any hot spare disk was used to rebuild
and without new installed drive replaced it. In this condition, the
Auto Declare Hot-Spare status will disappeared if the RAID sub­system has since powered off/on.

The Hot-Swap function can be used to rebuild disk drives in arrays
with data redundancy such as RAID level 1, 1E, 3, 5, and 6.

21

INTRODUCTION

1.4.4 Auto Rebuilding

If a hot spare is available, the rebuild starts automatically when
a drive fails. The SATA RAID controllers automatically and trans­parently rebuild failed drives in the background at user-denable
rebuild rates.

If a hot spare is not available, the failed disk drive must be re­placed with a new disk drive so that the data on the failed drive
can be automatically rebuilt and so that fault tolerance can be
maintained.

The SATA RAID controllers will automatically restart the system
and the rebuild process if the system is shut down or powered off
abnormally during a reconstruction procedure condition.

When a disk is hot swapped, although the system is functionally
operational, the system may no longer be fault tolerant. Fault
tolerance will be lost until the removed drive is replaced and the
rebuild operation is completed.

During the automatic rebuild process, system activity will contin­ue as normal, however, the system performance and fault toler­ance will be affected.

1.4.5 Adjustable Rebuild Priority

Rebuilding a degraded volume incurs a load on the RAID sub­system. The SATA RAID controllers allow the user to select the
rebuild priority to balance volume access and rebuild tasks ap­propriately. The Background Task Priority is a relative indication of
how much time the controller devotes to a background operation,
such as rebuilding or migrating.

The SATA RAID controller allows user to choose the task priority
(Ultra Low (5%), Low (20%), Medium (50%), High (80%)) to bal­ance volume set access and background tasks appropriately. For
high array performance, specify an Ultra Low value. Like volume
initialization, after a volume rebuilds, it does not require a system
reboot.

22

INTRODUCTION

1.5 High Reliability

1.5.1 Hard Drive Failure Prediction

In an effort to help users avoid data loss, disk manufacturers are
now incorporating logic into their drives that acts as an "early
warning system" for pending drive problems. This system is called
S.M.A.R.T. The disk integrated controller works with multiple
sensors to monitor various aspects of the drive's performance,
determines from this information if the drive is behaving normally
or not, and makes available status information to RAID controller
rmware that probes the drive and look at it.
The SMART can often predict a problem before failure occurs.
The controllers will recognize a SMART error code and notify the
administer of an impending hard drive failure.

1.5.2 Auto Reassign Sector

Under normal operation, even initially defect-free drive media can
develop defects. This is a common phenomenon. The bit density
and rotational speed of disks is increasing every year, and so is
the potential of problems. Usually a drive can internally remap
bad sectors without external help using cyclic redundancy check
(CRC) checksums stored at the end of each sector.

SATA drives perform automatic defect re-assignment for both
read and write errors. Writes are always completed - if a location
to be written is found to be defective, the drive will automatically
relocate that write command to a new location and map out the
defective location. If there is a recoverable read error, the cor­rect data will be transferred to the host and that location will be
tested by the drive to be certain the location is not defective. If
it is found to have a defect, data will be automatically relocated,
and the defective location is mapped out to prevent future write
attempts.

In the event of an unrecoverable read error, the error will be
reported to the host and the location agged as potentially defec­tive. A subsequent write to that location will initiate a sector test
and relocation should that location have a defect. Auto Reassign
Sector does not affect disk subsystem performance because it

23

INTRODUCTION

runs as a background task. Auto Reassign Sector discontinues
when the operating system makes a request.

1.5.3 Consistency Check

A consistency check is a process that veries the integrity of
redundant data. For example, performing a consistency check
of a mirrored drive assures that the data on both drives of the
mirrored pair is exactly the same. To verify RAID 3, 5 or 6 redun­dancy, a consistency check reads all associated data blocks, com­putes parity, reads parity, and veries that the computed parity
matches the read parity.
Consistency checks are very important because they detect and
correct parity errors or bad disk blocks in the drive. A consistency
check forces every block on a volume to be read, and any bad
blocks are marked; those blocks are not used again. This is criti­cal and important because a bad disk block can prevent a disk
rebuild from completing. We strongly recommend that you run
consistency checks on a regular basis—at least once per week.
Note that consistency checks degrade performance, so you should
run them when the system load can tolerate it.

1.6 Data Protection

1.6.1 BATTERY BACKUP

The SATA RAID controllers are armed with a Battery Backup Mod­ule (BBM). While a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) protects
most servers from power uctuations or failures, a BBM provides
an additional level of protection. In the event of a power failure, a
BBM supplies power to retain data in the RAID controller’s cache,
thereby permitting any potentially dirty data in the cache to be
ushed out to secondary storage when power is restored.

The batteries in the BBM are recharged continuously through a
trickle-charging process whenever the system power is on. The
batteries protect data in a failed server for up to three or four
days, depending on the size of the memory module. Under nor­mal operating conditions, the batteries last for three years before
replacement is necessary.

24

INTRODUCTION

1.6.2 RECOVERY ROM

The SATA RAID controller rmware is stored on the ash ROM and
is executed by the I/O processor. The rmware can also be updat­ed through the PCI-X/PCIe bus port or Ethernet port (if equipped)
without the need to replace any hardware chips. During the con­troller rmware upgrade ash process, it is possible for a problem
to occur resulting in corruption of the controller rmware. With
our Redundant Flash Image feature, the controller will revert back
to the last known version of rmware and continue operating.
This reduces the risk of system failure due to rmware crash.

1.7 Understanding RAID

RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. It
is an array of multiple independent hard disk drives that provides
high performance and fault tolerance. The SATA RAID control­ler implements several levels of the Berkeley RAID technology.
An appropriate RAID level is selected when the volume sets are
dened or created. This decision should be based on the desired
disk capacity, data availability (fault tolerance or redundancy),
and disk performance. The following section discusses the RAID
levels supported by the SATA RAID controller.

The SATA RAID controller makes the RAID implementation and
the disks’ physical conguration transparent to the host operating
system. This means that the host operating system drivers and
software utilities are not affected, regardless of the RAID level
selected. Correct installation of the disk array and the control­ler requires a proper understanding of RAID technology and the
concepts.

1.7.1 RAID 0

RAID 0, also referred to as striping, writes stripes of data across
multiple disk drives instead of just one disk drive. RAID 0 does
not provide any data redundancy, but does offer the best high­speed data throughput. RAID 0 breaks up data into smaller blocks
and then writes a block to each drive in the array. Disk strip­ing enhances performance because multiple drives are accessed

25

INTRODUCTION

simultaneously; the reliability of RAID Level 0 is less because the
entire array will fail if any one disk drive fails, due to a lack of
redundancy.

1.7.2 RAID 1

RAID 1 is also known as “disk mirroring”; data written to one disk
drive is simultaneously written to another disk drive. Read per­formance may be enhanced if the array controller can, in parallel,
accesses both members of a mirrored pair. During writes, there
will be a minor performance penalty when compared to writing
to a single disk. If one drive fails, all data (and software applica­tions) are preserved on the other drive. RAID 1 offers extremely
high data reliability, but at the cost of doubling the required data
storage capacity.

26

INTRODUCTION

1.7.3 RAID 1E

RAID 1E is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1, combing strip­ping with disk mirroring. RAID Level 1E combines the fast per­formance of Level 0 with the data redundancy of Leve1 1. In
this conguration, data is distributed across several disk drives,
similar to Level 0, which are then duplicated to another set of
drive for data protection. RAID 1E has been traditionally imple­mented using an even number of disks, some hybrids can use an
odd number of disks as well. Illustration is an example of a hy­brid RAID 1E array comprised of ve disks; A, B, C, D and E. In
this conguration, each strip is mirrored on an adjacent disk with
wrap-around. In fact this scheme - or a slightly modied version
of it - is often referred to as RAID 1E and was originally proposed
by IBM. When the number of disks comprising a RAID 1E is even,
the striping pattern is identical to that of a traditional RAID 1E,
with each disk being mirrored by exactly one other unique disk.
Therefore, all the characteristics for a traditional RAID 1E apply
to a RAID 1E when the latter has an even number of disks. Areca
RAID 1E offers a little more exibility in choosing the number of
disks that can be used to constitute an array. The number can be
even or odd.

1.7.4 RAID 3

RAID 3 provides disk striping and complete data redundancy
though a dedicated parity drive. RAID 3 breaks up data into
smaller blocks, calculates parity by performing an exclusive-or
on the blocks, and then writes the blocks to all but one drive in

27

INTRODUCTION

the array. The parity data created during the exclusive-or is then
written to the last drive in the array. If a single drive fails, data is
still available by computing the exclusive-or of the contents cor­responding strips of the surviving member disk. RAID 3 is best
for applications that require very fast data- transfer rates or long
data blocks.

1.7.5 RAID 5

RAID 5 is sometimes called striping with parity at byte level. In
RAID 5, the parity information is written to all of the drives in the
controllers rather than being concentrated on a dedicated parity
disk. If one drive in the system fails, the parity information can
be used to reconstruct the data from that drive. All drives in the
array system can be used for seek operations at the same time,
greatly increasing the performance of the RAID system. This
relieves the write bottleneck that characterizes RAID 4, and is the
primary reason that RAID 5 is more often implemented in RAID
arrays.

28

INTRODUCTION

1.7.6 RAID 6

RAID 6 provides the highest reliability, but is not yet widely used.
It is similar to RAID 5, but it performs two different parity com­putations or the same computation on overlapping subsets of
the data. RAID 6 can offer fault tolerance greater than RAID 1 or
RAID 5 but only consumes the capacity of 2 disk drives for dis­tributed parity data. RAID 6 is an extension of RAID 5 but uses a
second, independent distributed parity scheme. Data is striped on
a block level across a set of drives, and then a second set of par­ity is calculated and written across all of the drives.

Summary of RAID Levels

The SATA RAID controller supports RAID Level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5 and 6.
The table below provides a summary of RAID levels.

Features and Performance

RAID

Level

0 Also known as stripping

Description Min.

Drives

Data distributed across multiple
drives in the array. There is no
data protection.

Data
Reli­ability

1 No data

Protec­tion

Data
Transfer
Rate

Very
High

I/O Request
Rates

Very High for
Both Reads
and Writes

29

INTRODUCTION

1 Also known as mirroring

All data replicated on N sepa­rated disks.
N is almost always 2.
This is a high availability solu­tion, but due to the 100%
duplication, it is also a costly
solution. Half of drive capacity in
array devoted to mirroring.

1E Also known Block-Interleaved

Parity.
Data and parity information
is subdivided and distributed
across all disks. Parity must be
the equal to the smallest disk
capacity in the array. Parity
information normally stored on a
dedicated parity disk.

3 Also known Bit-Interleaved Par-

ity.
Data and parity information
is subdivided and distributed
across all disks. Parity data
consumes the capacity of 1
disk drive. Parity information
normally stored on a dedicated
parity disk.

5 Also known Block-Interleaved

Distributed Parity.
Data and parity information
is subdivided and distributed
across all disk. Parity data con­sumes the capacity of 2 disk
drive.

2 Lower

than
RAID 6;
Higher
than

RAID

3, 5

3 Lower

than
RAID 6;
Higher
than

RAID

3, 5

3 Lower

than
RAID 1,
1E, 6;

Higher
than a
single
drive

3 Lower

than
RAID 1,
1E, 6;

Higher
than a
single
drive

Reads
are
higher
than a
single
disk;

Writes
similar
to a
single
disk

Transfer
rates
more
similar

to RAID

1 than
RAID 0

Reads
are
similar

to
RAID

0;

Writes
are
slower
than a
single
disk

Reads
are
similar

to

RAID 0;

Writes
are
slower
than a
single
disk

Reads are
twice as fast
as a single
disk;

Write are
similar to a
single disk.

Reads are
twice as fast
as a single
disk;

Writes are
similar to a
single disk.

Reads are
close to being
twice as fast
as a single
disk;

Writes are
similar to a
single disk.

Reads are
similar to
RAID 0;

Writes are
slower than a
single disk.

30