Users Guide

A foreign configuration is a set of physical disk drives containing a RAID configuration that is introduced
to the system, but is not managed by the RAID controller to which it is attached. You may have a foreign
configuration if physical disk drives have been moved from one RAID controller to another RAID
controller.
NOTE: Import Foreign Configuration is supported from System Setup → Advanced Hardware
Configuration → Device Settings.
You have two options: Ignore Foreign Configuration and Clear Foreign Configuration.
• If the foreign configuration contains data that you require, click Ignore Foreign Configuration. If you
click this option, the disk drive space containing the foreign configuration is not available for use in a
new virtual drive.
• To delete all data on the physical disk drives containing the foreign configuration, click Clear Foreign
Configuration. This option deletes the hard-disk drive space containing the foreign configuration and
makes it available for use in a new virtual drive.
After selecting one of the above options, click Next.
Viewing current RAID configuration
The View Current RAID Configuration and Select Controller page displays the attributes of any virtual
disks already configured on the supported RAID controllers attached to the system. You have two
options:
• Accept the existing virtual disks without changing. To select this option, click Back. If you have to
install the operating system on an existing virtual disk, make sure that the virtual disk size and RAID
level are correct.
• Use the RAID configuration wizard to delete all the existing virtual disks and create a single new
virtual disk to be used as the new boot device. To select this option, click Next.
NOTE: RAID 0 does not provide data redundancy and hot spare. Other RAID levels provide data
redundancy and enable you to reconstruct data in the event of a disk-drive failure.
NOTE: You can create only one virtual disk using Lifecycle Controller. To create multiple virtual
disks, use Option ROM. To access Option ROM, press <Ctrl> <R> during boot or POST.
Selecting a RAID controller
The View Current RAID Configuration and Select Controller page displays all supported RAID controllers
attached to the system. Select the RAID controller on which you want to create the virtual disk, and then
click Next.
Selecting RAID levels
Select a RAID Level for the virtual disk:
• RAID 0 — Stripes data across the physical disks. RAID 0 does not maintain redundant data. When a
physical disk fails in a RAID 0 virtual disk, there is no method for rebuilding the data. RAID 0 offers
good read and write performance with zero data redundancy.
• RAID 1 — Mirrors or duplicates data from one physical disk to another. If a physical disk fails, data can
be rebuilt using the data from the other side of the mirror. RAID 1 offers good read performance and
average write performance with good data redundancy.
• RAID 5 — Stripes data across the physical disks, and uses parity information to maintain redundant
data. If a physical disk fails, the data can be rebuilt using the parity information. RAID 5 offers good
read performance and slower write performance with good data redundancy.
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