Sonnet Technologies RAID User Manual

Conﬁguration Tool and Utilities Operation Manual

for Fusion RAID Storage Systems

Contents

1.0 ATTO Configuration Tool Overview............................................................................................. 1

About the Configuration Tool

Configuration Tool Launch

Configuration Tool Navigation

Select the Local Host

Select the Controller

Select a Channel

Select a Device

1.1 RAID Controller NVRAM Settings............................................................................................... 7

SAS Address Boot Driver Heartbeat NCQ Device Wait Time Device Wait Count Spinup Delay Multiplexing PHY Speed

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management.......................................................................................... 9

Preliminary Configuration Steps

Custom RAID Group Setup Steps

Hot Spares Setup and Usage

Mac OS Drive Formatting

Windows 7/Server 2008/Vista Drive Formatting

Windows XP/Server 2003 Drive Formatting

RAID Group Management Overview

RAID Group Capacity Expansion

RAID Group RAID Level Migration

RAID Group Deletion

RAID Group Rebuilding

RAID Group Properties Modification

1.3 Drive and RAID Group Monitoring............................................................................................ 17

Basic Drive Information

Detailed Drive Information

RAID Group Information

Drive Identification

S.M.A.R.T. Data

S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Enabling and Disabling

S.M.A.R.T. Status Checking

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute Filtering

S.M.A.R.T. Notifications

1.4 Enclosure (SES) Health Monitoring.......................................................................................... 23

SES Status Checking

Contents

1.5 RAID Event Notifications........................................................................................................ 25

Basic Alerts

Logging

Email Alerts

1.6 RAID Group Media Maintenance............................................................................................... 27

Media Scan Options

Start a Manual Media Scan

Schedule a Media Scan

Cancel, Pause, or Resume a Media Scan

Manage Scheduled Media Scans

Automatic Media Scan Cancellation

View a Scan Report

1.7 Identify and Replace a Faulted Drive.......................................................................................33

Automatic Faulted Drive Identification

Manual Faulted Drive Identification

Faulted Drive Replacement with Auto Rebuild

Manual Faulted Drive Replacement

1.8 Recover Data from Offline RAID Groups................................................................................... 35

Definitions

RAID Group Failure Scenarios

Drive Replacement on a Failure Condition Replace RAID Group Members as Soon as They Fail A Warning About Drive Replacement Identifying Failed Drives Recovery Mode

Recovery from a Failed Rebuild

Recovery from a Failed Rebuild with a Second Unrecoverable Drive Failure

Recovery from Faults on a Critical Number of Drives Basic Recovery Mode Extreme Recovery Mode

Recovery from Replacement of the Wrong Drive

File System Repair Tools Mac OS X Users: Disk Utility Windows Users: CHKDSK Unix Users: FSCK

Using the CLI to Identify a Failed Drive

Using the CLI to Enable/Disable Recovery Mode

Using the CLI to to Enable Recovery with Writes

Contents

1.9 SNMP Configuration................................................................................................................ 45

Definitions

Details Enabled Mode SubAgent Mode Disabled Mode Basic Setup

Configuration Options Agent Port Communities Send Authentication Trap Enable Traps Trap Destination Table

Control Buttons Commit Restore Default Test Save MIBs

Troubleshooting Requests from an MIB browser time out: Traps are not received when testing RAID OIDs are skipped when walking or the tables are empty

1.10 Configuration Tool Troubleshooting........................................................................................ 51

Messages from NVRAM Tab Actions An error occurred loading NVRAM data. Warning: NVRAM could not be read, defaults returned. An error occurred updating the NVRAM. Feature bounds checking. Execution Throttle is greater than the maximum allowable value of 255.

Messages from Flash Tab Actions This is not a flash file, or it is corrupt. This HBA is not compatible with the selected flash file. A valid file was not selected. An error occurred reading from the flash file, the file may be corrupt. An error occurred updating the flash. The card has been prepared for firmware updating…

2.0 Drive Performance Testing...................................................................................................... 53

2.1 Windows Only - ATTO Disk Benchmark..................................................................................... 55

Benchmark Fields

Radio Button Group

Multiple Benchmark Testing

2.2 ATTO Disk Benchmark Troubleshooting..................................................................................... 57

Contents

Appendix A - CLI ASCII-Based Interface........................................................................................... i

CLI Error Messages

CLI Summary

CLI Command Explanations

Appendix B - Drive Reformat Instructions..................................................................................... xiv

Mac OS Users’ Instructions

Windows 7/Server 2008/Vista Users’ Instructions

Windows XP/Server 2003 Users’ Instructions

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

About the Configuration Tool

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool is the utility program that displays information about installed controllers, drivers and drives in your Fusion storage system, and provides the means to conﬁgure and manage them.

This program executes under:

• Mac OS

• Windows

• Linux

Note: Java version 1.5 or later must be installed.

The ATTO Configuration Tool displays:

• The name of the Sonnet RAID controller (listed as an ExpressSAS

• Information about the drivers controlling the Sonnet RAID

• Information about Fusion drive enclosures attached to the

• Information about drives within attached Fusion drive enclosures

You may use the Configuration Tool to:

• Manage RAID groups

• Conﬁgure RAID Event notiﬁcations

• Modify the RAID controller’s NVRAM settings

• Revert to default factory settings

• Update the RAID controller’s ﬂash image

• Obtain drive health information

• Obtain drive enclosure health information

The factory settings on your Sonnet RAID controller provide excellent performance for a wide range of applications. However, some applications may beneﬁt from modiﬁcation of the controller’s NVRAM settings that tune the controller for a speciﬁc performance range.

X 10.4 or later

7/Server 2008/Vista®/Server 2003/XP

2.4 and 2.6 kernels, x86 and x64

Rxxx adapter)

controller, including version information for both the currently executing driver and the ﬂash image

Sonnet RAID controller (except D400RAID, D800RAID, and R800RAID) such as fan and power supply status

Configuration Tool Launch

1. Locate the application icon in the folder created during installation.

2. Double-click the ATTO Conﬁguration icon to start the application.

WARNING: Back up system data when installing or

changing hardware configurations.

Note: The Sonnet RAID controller is designed to operate properly using

factory settings. Entering invalid or incorrect NVRAM settings may cause your Sonnet RAID controller to function incorrectly.

The main screen has three panes: Device Listing, Conﬁguration Options and Status.

Configuration Tool Navigation

The Device Listing pane at the left of the window lists all compatible devices (controllers and enclosures) currently connected to the system.

Expand the device tree to reveal additional details on connected devices.

Support Note: In the ATTO Configuration Tool’s Device

Listing pane, the Sonnet RAID controller is identified as an

ExpressSAS Rxxx.

The Conﬁguration Options pane provides information and options for a device highlighted in the device listing.

If you highlight a device in the Device Listing pane, tabs and panes are displayed for that device.

The following chart speciﬁes the tabs that are displayed for the indicated device type:

Tree Node Tab(s) Displayed

Local Host Basic Info, Notiﬁcations, SNMP

Controller Basic Info, Flash, RAID, RAID CLI, Tasks,

Advanced

Channel NVRAM, Basic Info

Device Basic Info, Flash, SES

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

Select the Local Host

The following tabs display in the Conﬁguration Options window when you select the local host in the Device Listing window:

• The Basic Info tab displays information about the booted operating system. See Figure 1 on page 3.

• The Notifications tab allows you to set up notiﬁcation of certain events in the Sonnet RAID controller. Refer to RAID Event Notiﬁcations on page 23.

• The SNMP tab allows you to conﬁgure SNMP monitoring and trap generation for the 3 Gb/s Sonnet RAID controller. Refer to SNMP Conﬁguration on page 45.

About window The About window, displayed when About is selected from the Help menu, lists the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool’s version number.

Select the Controller

The following tabs are displayed in the Conﬁguration Options pane when you select the Sonnet RAID controller in the Device Listing pane:

• The Basic Info tab provides information about the Sonnet RAID controller when it is highlighted in the Device Listing pane. You cannot make changes from this screen. See Figure 2 on page 3.

• The Tasks tab provides information about user-scheduled hard drive health maintenance. In this tab, you can reschedule or delete tasks. See Figure 6 on page 5.

• The Advanced tab does not function with the Sonnet RAID controller; clicking this tab merely displays a message.

Select a Channel

The following tabs display in the right pane when you select a speciﬁc channel in the Device Listing pane:

• When you select a speciﬁc channel under the Sonnet RAID controller in the Device Listing pane, the NVRAM tab displays the NVRAM parameters applicable to the Sonnet RAID controller and channel selected. Refer to RAID Controller NVRAM Settings on page 7, and Conﬁguration Tool Troubleshooting on page 51 for information about NVRAM settings.

• The Basic Info tab displays PCI information for the selected channel. See Figure 7 on page 6.

• The current status of the Configuration Tool is represented in the Status pane at the bottom of the window.

About window The About window, displayed when About is selected from the Help menu, lists the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool’s version number.

• The Flash tab provides information about the current ﬂash version programmed on the highlighted controller. See Figure 3 on page 4.

Click the Browse button at the bottom of the tab to search for new ﬂash ﬁles on your system such as FlashBundle_2007_02_27.R380. Once you’ve selected the ﬂash ﬁle, click the Update button to automatically update your Sonnet RAID controller.

• The RAID tab provides information about attached drives, their RAID group and Hot Spare associations, and their operating status. With the RAID tab selected, you can create, modify, and delete RAID groups. You may also schedule or start diagnostic and maintenance procedures, start individual drive performance testing, and send commands to attached enclosures to identify drives. See Figure 4 on page 4.

• The RAID CLI tab provides access to the command line interface, which, as an alternative to application menu-based commands, enables the use of ASCII-based commands to control conﬁguration and diagnostic tasks. See Figure 5 on page 5.

Support Note: The following feature does not work with

Fusion D400RAID, Fusion D800RAID, nor Fusion R800RAID

storage systems.

Select a Device

The following tabs display in the right pane when you select a speciﬁc device in the Device Listing pane:

• The Basic Info tab displays information about the selected enclosure or SAS expander.

• The Flash tab does not function with the Fusion storage systems; clicking this tab merely displays a message.

Support Note: The SES tab appears only when an

enclosure with one or two SAS expanders, such as Fusion

DX800RAID, or Fusion RX1600RAID, is used.

• The SES tab displays SES (SCSI Enclosure Services) status information for SES devices such as power supplies and fans. See Figure 8 on page 6.

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

Basic Info displayed when Local Host chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 1

Basic Info displayed when the Sonnet RAID controller is chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 2

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

Flash information displayed when the Sonnet RAID controller is chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 3

RAID group and associated drive information displayed when the Sonnet RAID controller is chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 4

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

RAID CLI displayed when the Sonnet RAID controller is chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 5

Scheduled tasks information displayed when the Sonnet RAID controller is chosen in the Device Listing pane

Figure 6

1.0 ATTO Conﬁguration Tool Overview

Basic Info displayed when a SAS expander is selected in the Device Listing pane

Figure 7

SES information displayed when a SAS expander is selected in the Device Listing pane

Figure 8

1.1 RAID Controller NVRAM Settings

The settings in the NVRAM tab vary depending upon the RAID controller and operating system.

Sonnet’s RAID controllers are designed to operate properly using factory settings. Entering invalid or incorrect settings when using an NVRAM conﬁguration utility such as the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool may cause your controller to function incorrectly.

See Figure 9 on page 8 for an example of the NVRAM pane.

WARNING: Back up system data when installing or

changing hardware configurations.

Use caution when making changes to NVRAM settings and only make changes to those with which you are familiar. Once you have made the desired changes, click Commit to save the changes. Click Save to name and save an NVRAM conﬁguration. Click Load to load a saved NVRAM conﬁguration. Changes do not take effect until you reboot the system.

If you do not want to make any changes, you may choose one of the following:

• Defaults: restores the controller to factory default settings. The Commit button must be clicked to save any changes.

• Restore: reverts to the NVRAM settings saved the last time the Commit button was used. Clicking Commit is not necessary.

Support Note: The SAS address is a globally-unique

identifier assigned to devices such as the Sonnet RAID

controller, and is similar to an Ethernet adapter’s MAC address.

SAS Address

Read only

NCQ (Native Command Queueing) Choices: enabled, scan only, disabled Default: disabled

When enabled, the Sonnet RAID controller’s driver sends multiple simultaneous commands to NCQ-capable SATA disk drives. Enabling NCQ may be useful when the Fusion storage system

is used in database applications, but may hinder performance in video editing and other applications.

Device Wait Time Choices: 1–255 seconds Default: 3

Speciﬁes the number of seconds that the driver waits for devices to appear.

Device Wait Count

Choices: 1–255 devices Default: 1

Speciﬁes the number of devices that must appear in order to cancel the Device Wait Time period.

Spinup Delay

Choices: 0-20 seconds Default: 0

Speciﬁes the number of seconds each SAS port waits for disk drives to spin up.

Multiplexing (6 Gb/s RAID Controller Only) Choices: enabled, disabled Default: disabled

Displays the SAS address assigned to the controller. The value cannot be modiﬁed.

Boot Driver Choices: disabled, enabled, scan only Default: disabled

If enabled and disk drives are detected during the bus scan, the BIOS driver remains resident. If disabled, the BIOS starts, resets the controller chip and unloads the driver.

If Scan Only is selected, the BIOS driver scans the bus and displays the devices attached, then unloads itself after a brief delay.

Heartbeat

Choices: enabled, disabled Default: enabled

When enabled, the Sonnet RAID controller’s ﬁrmware is required to respond to periodic activity. If the ﬁrmware does not respond, the system driver resets the ﬁrmware on the controller.

When enabled, multiplexing enables multiple 3 Gb/s devices to aggregate 6 Gb/s SAS bandwidth. In order to utilize this feature, devices must support multiplexing and conform to SAS 2.0 compliancy.

Phy Speed (6 Gb/s RAID Controller Only) Choices: 6 Gb/s, 3 Gb/s, 1.5 Gb/s Default: auto

Enables the user to manually adjust the PHY.

1.1 RAID Controller NVRAM Settings

NVRAM settings information shown when a Fusion drive enclosure is selected in the Device Listing pane

Figure 9

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Support Note: In Fusion RAID storage systems

shipped from Sonnet with hard drives installed, the drives are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), configured as a single RAID 5 or RAID 6 RAID group, and ready for use with Mac OS X-based systems. If you need to

change the configuration, delete the existing RAID group (see RAID Group Deletion on page 13), and use the Configuration Tool and the operating system software tools to reformat and reconfigure the drives. See page xiv for Drive Reformat

Instructions for Mac OS and Windows users.

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool enables you to conﬁgure disk storage into RAID groups or Hot Spare drives.

Note: Even an individual JBOD disk is considered to be a RAID group.

Use the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool to set up RAID groups on your Sonnet RAID controller in one of the following RAID levels:

• JBOD

• RAID Level 0

• RAID Level 1

• RAID Level 4

• RAID Level 5

• RAID Level 6

• RAID Level 10

• DVRAID™

Support Note: DVRAID is a customized, protected

RAID 4 configuration. It is optimized for increased digital video playback performance when compared to that obtained from a RAID 5 configuration. DVRAID’s write per formance is decreased in order to accomplish this optimization.

DVRAID RAID groups may be set up automatically by the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool. All other RAID conﬁgurations require customized input; Sonnet recommends Custom RAID group setup.

Each RAID group may be divided into one or more partitions; each partition appears to the your computer as a virtual disk.

Preliminary Configuration Steps

1. Launch the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool application.

2. The Conﬁguration Tool main screen appears. In the Device Listing pane on the left side of the window, click ExpressSAS Rxxx under localhost; a new set of tabs appears in the right pane. See Figure 10 on page 14 for an overview.

3. Click the RAID tab; the application scans for drives. Attached drives are displayed in the top pane, while RAID groups and Hot Spares are displayed in the bottom pane.

Support Note: In the ATTO Configuration Tool’s Device

Listing pane, the Sonnet R AID controller is identified as

an ExpressSAS Rxxx.

Custom RAID Group Setup Steps

1. After completing Preliminary Conﬁguration Steps, select RAID Management > Create Group > Customized from the application menu.

2. Select the ﬁrst set of options to conﬁgure the new RAID group. See Figure 11 on page 14.

• Name: name the RAID group or use the one assigned by the

Conﬁguration Tool. The name must be unique, contain no spaces, and contain no more than 14 characters.

Support Note: Two RAID groups with the same name

may not be recognized. If you add another RAID group to your setup, you must make sure it does not have the same name as the existing one, and change it if it does.

• Level: select a RAID group level from the drop-down menu.

Support Note: Descriptions of RAID levels can be found

on the Wikipedia.org Web site at the following addresses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_R AID_levels and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Nested_RAID_levels.

Windows Support Note: In order to create RAID

volumes larger than 2TB under Windows, you must do one of the following: Select the 4KB sector size when creating a custom RAID group (not DVRAID) and select Simple Volume as the formatting option in the Disk Management application.

-OR- Use the software configuration tools included with the Fusion storage to create volumes up to 2TB, span (link together in a virtual chain) the volumes, and then format as NTFS. - ORUse GPT formatting. Note that drives and volumes with GPT formatting are not visible to the 32-bit version of Windows XP Professional, nor to the 32-bit version of Windows Server 2003 SP1.

You may use the command line interface pane from the RAID CLI tab in the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool to set up or modify various parameters (Refer to Appendix A). However, using the menu-based procedures listed in this chapter is the preferred method for setting up RAID configurations for the Fusion storage system.

• Interleave: select an interleave value. The default value

is 64KB or 128KB, depending on the OS used. Sonnet recommends 1MB interleave size for maximum video editing performance.

Support Note: The interleave value chosen when

creating a RAID group makes a significant impact on performance. Fusion R AID storage systems shipped from Sonnet with pre-installed hard disk drives are now optimized for use with video editing (larger files) applications, typically with an interleave value of 512KB or 1MB selected. If you intend to use your storage system primarily for storage of smaller files (database, office documents, etc.), choose a smaller interleave value of 64KB or 128KB.

• Mirror Count: select the number of mirror groups when RAID 1 or RAID 10 RAID groups are created.

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Custom RAID Group Setup Steps (continued)

• Initialize: select Advanced or Express; Sonnet recommends choosing Advanced (which is the default).

Support Note: When the Advanced Initialize option is

selected, parity blocks are calculated and the RAID group is thoroughly scanned and subjected to a complete Write/ Verify operation to map out any bad blocks on the drives before the RAID group is made available for use.

When the Express Initialize option is chosen, drives are not scanned and subjected to the Write/Verify operation, but parity blocks are calculated and the RAID group may be used during the initialization.

3. Click Next. Select the drives in the top pane and drag them into the device area in the bottom pane. See Figure 12 on page 15.

4. Click Next. Select the next set of options to conﬁgure the new RAID group. See Figure 13 on page 15.

• Sector Size: select a sector size from the drop down box.

The default is 512 bytes. Use 512 bytes unless you need to use the MBR partition scheme under Windows.

Windows Support Note: Choosing the 4K sector size

enables the creation and use of R AID volumes up to 16TB on systems running Windows XP 32-bit. Otherwise, the volumes are limited to 2TB.

5. If you want the RAID group to be presented as one virtual disk (partition), click Finish. If you want more than one virtual disk (partition), click Next (see Figure 14 on page 16), and then select one of the following options:

• leave as a single partition

• partition by count

• partition by size

If you choose to split the RAID group by count or capacity, you must enter additional information.

6. If you have not already done so, click Finish.

7. A conﬁrmation dialog box asks you to approve the settings you have chosen. Click Yes.

8. Select the RAID group in the Groups pane.

9. Select RAID Management > Properties from the application menu. In the Properties window, change the Prefetch value to 6. See Figure 15 on page 16.

10. Click accept.

11. Click the RAID CLI tab, type “get raidcommandtimeout” and then hit the return key; if the number that appears is 60000, skip to step 13.

• Speed Read: select Always, Adaptive, or Never. The default is Adaptive, but Sonnet recommends Always.

Support Note: For the Speed Read option, select Always

if you expect to work with large sequential files (video, for example), Never if you expect most of the files to be smaller in size (general storage, database, etc.), or Adaptive if you expect mixed use or don’t know.

• Rebuild Priority: select High, Same, or Low. The default is Same.

Support Note: Rebuild priority affects the performance

of your Fusion storage system when a drive is replaced and a degraded RAID group is rebuilt. Selecting Low rebuild priority enables you to continue working at the best performance level possible, but the RAID group will take much longer to rebuild.

• Auto Rebuild: on or off.

Support Note: If the Auto Rebuild option is not checked,

you will have to manually start a RAID group rebuild after replacing a faulted drive.

12. Type “set raidcommandtimeout 60000” and then hit the return key.

13. Every RAID group must ﬁnish initializing, and be formatted by your computer’s operating system software before it becomes available for use; Mac users will use Disk Utility, Windows

users will use Disk Management. For more information on drive formatting, see Mac OS Drive Formatting or Windows Drive Formatting starting on page 11.

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Hot Spares Setup and Usage

If a drive in a parity RAID group becomes degraded or faulted, the RAID group will lose some redundancy until a new member (drive) is rebuilt into it. You can automate this procedure by designating one or more drives as Hot Spares. You may set up a pool of Hot Spare drives of different sizes appropriate for your RAID groups.

Support Note: Hard drives in the Hot Spare pool should

be of appropriate capacity to the RAID group so that

smaller drives are not replaced by much larger Hot Spare drives.

If the Sonnet RAID controller detects a faulted drive in a RAID group with a designated Hot Spare:

• The controller searches the Hot Spare pool for the smallest drive of sufﬁcient capacity to substitute for the faulted drive.

• The faulted drive is replaced with one from the Hot Spare pool.

• The controller begins an automatic rebuild of the RAID group.

Select RAID Management > New Hot Spare (or Delete Hot Spare) from the application menu, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

Mac OS Drive Formatting

1. Depending on how you conﬁgure your setup, a Disk Insertion window stating that there is an unreadable volume will appear at some point during the RAID group creation process; click Initialize, and then Disk Utility will open.

2. In the Disk Utility window, each RAID group you created using the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool will appear as a single volume. Select the volume, and then click the Erase tab at the top of the window.

Support Note for Power Mac G5 Users: When

creating RAID groups 16TB or larger, uncheck the Install Mac OS 9 Drivers checkbox; OS 9 drivers do not support volumes greater than 16TB.

Windows 7/Server 2008/Vista Drive Formatting

1. Click Start, then right-click Computer and select Manage.

2. In the Computer Management window, click Storage in the

left pane to expand the list (if necessary), and then click Disk Management.

3. When the Initialize Disk window appears, select the RAID volume you created. Select the GPT partition style unless you need to access your RAID storage from a computer running 32-bit Windows XP Professional or 32-bit Windows Server

2003. Click OK.

4. In the Disk Management window, each RAID group you created will appear (listed as “unallocated”) as a single volume. Right-click where the word “unallocated” appears, and then select New Simple Volume.

5. When the Welcome to the New Simple Volume Wizard window appears, click Next to start the process.

6. When the New Simple Volume Wizard window appears, click Next.

7. When the Specify Volume Size window appears, click Next if you want all of the Fusion system’s capacity to remain as one block (volume). Otherwise, adjust the volume size to meet your needs, and then click Next.

8. When the Assign Drive Letter or Path window appears, select Assign the following drive letter, choose a letter, and then click Next.

9. When the Format Partition window appears, enter a new name for the volume table if you’d like. For RAID volumes up to 16TB, accept the default allocation unit size; for RAID volumes greater than 16TB, select 8192 from the drop-down menu. Select Perform a quick format, and then click Next.

Note: If you do not select the quick format option, this process will take

much longer to complete.

3. Click the Erase button; a window will appear asking you to approve your choice; click Erase.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each remaining unformatted RAID group, and then close Disk Utility.

5. Depending on how you conﬁgured the RAID groups, the volumes may already be mounted and present on the desktop. If you created a DVRAID, RAID 4, RAID 5, or RAID 6 RAID group, conﬁguration will take much longer. You may check on the progress by double-clicking the volume name in the lower pane of the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool window.

6. Once all the RAID groups have been formatted and ﬁnish building, they are ready to use.

10. When the next window appears, click Finish.

11. Repeat steps 4–10 for each remaining “unallocated” disk.

12. Depending on how you conﬁgured the RAID groups, the volumes may already be available to the system. If you created a DVRAID, RAID 4, RAID 5, or RAID 6 RAID group, conﬁguration will take much longer. You may check on the progress by double-clicking the volume name in the lower pane of the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool window.

13. Once all the RAID groups have been formatted and ﬁnish

building, they are ready to use.

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Windows XP/Server 2003 Drive Formatting

1. Select Start > Control Panel from the Windows Start menu. In the Control Panel window, double-click Administrative Tools. In the Administrative Tools window, double-click Computer Management.

2. In the Computer Management window, click Storage on the left, and then click Disk Management beneath it.

3. When the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard window appears, click Cancel.

4. In the Disk Management window, each RAID group you created will appear (listed as “unallocated”) as a single volume. Right-click one volume where the words “Not Initialized” appear, and then select Initialize Disk.

5. When the Initialize Disk window appears, select the RAID volume(s), and then click OK.

6. Back in the Disk Management window, right-click where the word “Online” appears, and then select Convert to GPT Disk.

7. Right-click where the word “unallocated” appears, and then select New Partition.

8. When the New Partition Wizard window appears, click Next.

15. Depending on how you conﬁgured the RAID groups,

the volumes may already be available to use. If you created a DVRAID, RAID Level 4, or RAID Level 5 group, conﬁguration will take much longer. You may check on the progress by double-clicking the RAID group name in the lower pane of the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool window.

16. Once all the RAID groups have been formatted and ﬁnish building, they are ready to use.

RAID Group Management Overview

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool interface may be used to manage the replacement of a failed drive, add capacity to a RAID group, change a RAID group’s current RAID level conﬁguration to a new one, and change a RAID group’s properties.

WARNING: Data can be compromised or lost when

deleting storage or rearranging storage configurations.

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool interface guides you step by step through many procedures which allow you to modify your storage and RAID conﬁgurations. Read all support notes and warnings carefully as you go to ensure the best performance and use of your storage. Many of these procedures may only be performed on drives that are not currently part of a RAID group, are not designated as a Hot Spare, or were ofﬂine when you initially set up RAID conﬁgurations.

9. When the Select Partition Type window appears, select Primary Partition, and then click Next.

10. When the Specify Partition Size window appears, click Next if you want all of the Fusion system’s capacity to remain as one block (volume). Otherwise, adjust the volume size to meet your needs, and then click Next.

11. When the Assign Drive Letter or Path window appears, choose a letter, and then click Next.

12. When the Format Partition window appears, enter a new name for the volume if you’d like. For RAID volumes up to 16TB, accept the default allocation unit size; for RAID volumes greater than 16TB, select 8192 from the drop-down menu. Select Perform a quick format, and then click Next.

Note: If you do not select the quick format option, this process will take

much longer to complete.

13. When the next window appears, click Finish.

14. Repeat steps 4–13 for each remaining “unallocated” disk.

Support Note: An unallocated drive or unallocated

storage is storage which is not part of a RAID group, not designated as a Hot Spare or was offline when you initially set up a RAID configuration using the ATTO Configuration Tool interface.

RAID Group Capacity Expansion

Select RAID Management > Expand Capacity from the application menu, and then follow the onscreen instructions. Depending on the RAID conﬁguration, you may need to add more than one drive at a time.

Mac User’s Support Note: Although this feature is

supported by the ATTO utility, as of this writing, Mac OS X does not support RAID group capacity expansion.

WARNING: Adding drives to an existing RAID group may

adversely impact performance. You cannot reverse this

operation unless you delete the R AID group.

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

RAID Group RAID Level Migration

Changing a RAID group from one RAID level to another is called migration. The following migration levels are supported:

• JBOD to RAID Level 0

• JBOD to RAID Level 1

• RAID Level 0 to RAID Level 10

• RAID Level 1 to RAID 10

Select RAID Management > Migrate RAID Level from the application menu, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

RAID Group Deletion

You may delete a group using the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool. Select RAID Management > Delete Group from the application menu, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

WARNING: Data can be compromised or lost when

deleting storage or rearranging storage configurations.

RAID Group Rebuilding

If a RAID group becomes compromised, you must rebuild it. Select RAID Management > Rebuild Group from the application menu, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

Support Note: A RAID group rebuild may take several

hours to complete, depending on the operating system,

drive capacities, and RAID configuration.

You may pause a RAID group rebuild by selecting the RAID group in the lower pane, and then selecting RAID Management > Pause Rebuild from the application menu. To resume the rebuild, select the RAID group in the bottom pane, and then select RAID Management > Resume Rebuild from the application menu.

RAID Group Properties Modification

Each RAID group has speciﬁc properties, and the value of each property remains with the RAID group when it is moved from one computer to another. Some of the properties can only be speciﬁed during RAID group creation (RAID level, interleave, and sector size), whereas others may be changed at any time during the life of the RAID group. See Figure 15 on page 16.

2. Select RAID Management > Properties from the application menu, and then view or change the current properties:

• Speed Read speciﬁes the cache policy to be used during

read operations. Once a read command is given, the ExpressSAS RAID code retrieves the next set of sequential data from the RAID group’s drives and caches it in the Sonnet RAID controller’s internal memory. If you select Never, read caching is never performed. If you select Always, read caching is always performed. If you select Adaptive, Speed Read is enabled or disabled depending on the sequential patterns detected in I/O requests.

• Auto Rebuild controls the replacement of a faulted

drive with any available unallocated drive. When you click the Auto Rebuild check box and the Accept button, Auto Rebuild is enabled. If a drive becomes faulted, the ExpressSAS RAID adapter replaces the drive with an unallocated drive.

• Rebuild Priority speciﬁes the ratio of rebuild I/O activity

to host I/O activity. A rebuild priority of Same (default value) indicates that rebuild I/O and host I/O are treated equally. A rebuild priority of Low indicates that host I/O is given a higher priority than rebuild I/O. A rebuild priority of High indicates that rebuild I/O is given a higher priority than host I/O. In practical terms, selecting Low enables you to continue working with full read performance, but the rebuild will take much more time to complete.

• Prefetch speciﬁes the number of stripes that are read when

Speed Read is enabled or set to adaptive. The valid values for prefetch are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; the default value is 1. This property can only be changed after the RAID group is created. To access this property, select the RAID group and view its properties.

3. Click Accept.

1. Select a RAID group in the Groups pane.

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Configuration Tool main screen with the RAID tab selected

Figure 10

Options selection screen displayed when creating new, custom RAID groups

Figure 11

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Drives selected to create a new RAID group

Figure 12

Additional options selection screen displayed when creating new, custom RAID groups

Figure 13

1.2 RAID Group Setup and Management

Select the number of partitions for the new RAID group

Select the RAID group’s properties

Figure 14

Figure 15

1.3 Drive and RAID Group Monitoring

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool provides useful information on individual drives and associated RAID groups.

Use the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool to gather basic or detailed information about the drives connected to the Sonnet RAID controller, and operational status on the RAID groups created with them.

Basic Drive Information

Open the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool, expand the device tree in the Device Listing pane until ExpressSAS Rxxx appears, and then click to highlight it. In the Attached Drives pane, general information for all the drives is displayed. See Figure 16 on page 20.

• LED icon: Indicates operational status of the drives. Green = online, red = faulted

• Name: Displays the drive’s model number

• Vendor: Not used

• Address: Displays the SAS address generated by the Sonnet RAID controller

• Usage: Identiﬁes how the drive is being used. If it is part of a RAID group, the group name and member number are displayed. If it is a Hot Spare, it is listed as a Hot Spare.

• Capacity: Displays the drive’s formatted capacity.

Detailed Drive Information

In the Attached Drives pane, double-click a drive name to view detailed information. See Figure 17 on page 20.

• Index: Displays the drive’s RAID group index number. This number is used in CLI commands

• Capacity: Displays the drive’s formatted capacity

• Usage: Identiﬁes how the drive is being used. If it is part of a RAID group, the group name and member number are displayed. If it is a Hot Spare, it is listed as a Hot Spare.

• Sector Size: Displays the drive’s sector size

RAID Group Information

In the bottom pane, click the Groups tab to display RAID groups. See Figure 16 on page 19.

• Name: Displays the name of the RAID group

• Level: Indicates the RAID level formatting for the RAID group

• Capacity: Indicates the formatted, conﬁgured capacity of the RAID group

• Members: Indicates the number of drives in the RAID group

• Status: Displays the operating status for the RAID group. Refer to Deﬁnitions on page 35 for detailed information.

• Rebuild: Speciﬁes the general condition of the RAID group. None indicates no rebuild is taking place, nor is it necessary; Rebuilding indicates that the RAID group is degraded, and is in the process of rebuilding; Paused indicates that a rebuild was interrupted and needs to be restarted to ﬁnish. Refer to Deﬁnitions on page 35 for detailed information.

• Status: Displays the drive’s operating status. OK is displayed if it is functioning normally. If there is a problem, Faulted or Error is displayed.

• Type: Displays the type of media

• Name: Displays the drive’s model number

• Vendor: Not used; always displays Not Available

• Serial: Displays the drive’s serial number

• Address: Displays the SAS address generated by the Sonnet RAID controller

• Speed: Displays the drive’s interface speed

• Revision: Displays the drive’s ﬁrmware revision

• LUN: Displays the logical unit number, which is the number assigned to drive’s RAID group

Drive Identification

You may identify one or more drives using the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool to turn on LEDs in the Fusion drive enclosure.

1. Launch the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool application.

2. Expand the device tree to highlight the ExpressSAS Rxxx, and then click the RAID tab. Status for all drives connected to the Sonnet RAID controller will be displayed.

3. Click on one or more drives individually that you want to identify in the Attached Drives list.

4. Select RAID Management > Locate > Drive from the application menu. If the drive does not support this method of identiﬁcation, a message will appear in the bottom pane; go to the next step. Otherwise, look at the Fusion enclosure; the drive activity LED(s) for the speciﬁc drive(s) will be lit until you deselect Locate in the application menu.

(continued)

1.3 Drive and RAID Group Monitoring

Drive Identification (continued)

5. Double-click a drive in the top pane to display detailed information, and note the index number for the drive. Close the detailed drive information window.

6. Click the RAID CLI tab, and then type “Blockdevidentify x”, where x is the index number. Look at the Fusion enclosure; the drive activity LED for the speciﬁc drive will be lit.

Note: Type “Blockdevidstop” to turn off the LED.

S.M.A.R.T. Data

Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, or S.M.A.R.T., is a monitoring system built into SATA drives to detect and report on various indicators of drive health. The S.M.A.R.T. feature keeps track of and reports on the status of SATA drive health using certain parameters recorded by the drives. Notiﬁcations can be sent when certain pre-determined values are exceeded.

Use the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool to view the ﬁles that record changes to an individual drive’s S.M.A.R.T. parameters. The ﬁles are permanent and can be viewed independently whether you have enabled monitoring or not.

S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Enabling and Disabling

Monitoring is disabled by default; if you want to use the feature, you must enable it. You may enable or disable the monitoring feature at any time.

1. Launch the ATTO Conﬁguration Tool application.

3. The S.M.A.R.T. Status box displays.

If there has been a change from a previous S.M.A.R.T. status record, an arrow indicates the change direction, either higher or lower. See Figure 18 on page 21.

The S.M.A.R.T. status display also contains information such as the date and time the S.M.A.R.T. status was recorded, the total number of records for this drive, and the current monitoring status (enabled or disabled).

You may move to previous or subsequent records, query the drive or refresh the view using controls on the interface. Control-click (or right-click) a single drive in the Attached Drives pane, and select S.M.A.R.T. Status from the sub-menu to view the record.

• Use the left arrow or right arrow control to move between S.M.A.R.T. status records.

• Use the Refresh button to query the drive for the latest values. If any values are different from the most recent record, a new record is created and displayed.

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute Filtering

Each of the S.M.A.R.T. status attributes is assigned one or more classiﬁcation types:

• performance

• error rate

• event count

• critical

2. Expand the device tree and select the ExpressSAS Rxxx, and then click the RAID tab.

3. Select RAID Management > Monitor S.M.A.R.T. from the application menu to enable (indicated with a check mark) or disable monitoring.

S.M.A.R.T. Status Checking

The ATTO Conﬁguration Tool interface displays the latest S.M.A.R.T. status record for a selected drive. All attributes reported by the drive are listed with each attribute’s Threshold, Worst, Current and Raw value; the threshold value is the value at which notiﬁcation of a problem is generated by the software.

1. Select a single drive in the Attached Drives pane.

2. Control-click or right-click on the selected drive, and then select S.M.A.R.T. Status in the sub-menu.

The S.M.A.R.T. Status dialog box can be ﬁltered to display any combination of these types. The default view is to display all types.

1. Open the S.M.A.R.T. Status box, and then control-click (or right-click) in the table area where the attribute values are displayed.

2. Each classiﬁcation type that is visible has a check mark. Select any classiﬁcation type to change the check mark.

1.3 Drive and RAID Group Monitoring

S.M.A.R.T. Notifications

When S.M.A.R.T. monitoring is enabled, status is collected from each SATA drive at 60 minute intervals. If the data is different than the previous status, a S.M.A.R.T. status record is added to the S.M.A.R.T. status ﬁle for that drive. A notiﬁcation of the S.M.A.R.T. status difference is generated based upon the current settings in the Notiﬁcations pane. Refer to RAID Event Notiﬁcations on page 25.

The S.M.A.R.T. status’ notiﬁcation level is determined as follows:

• INFO: None of the status values was below the threshold value.

• WARNING: One or more of the status values was below a threshold value but none was classiﬁed as critical.

• CRITICAL: One or more of the status values was below a threshold value and one was classiﬁed critical.

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