Administrator Guide

failed drive.
During a rebuild, the complete contents of an array disk are reconstructed. A rebuild operation can occur during normal
operation; however, it will degrade performance. You can reduce the rebuild rate to maintain system performance during the
rebuild operation; however, a reduced rebuild rate extends the rebuild time.
NOTICE: The default rebuild rate is 30 percent. System performance might be degraded if you change the rebuild rate
to a higher value than the default.
The PERC 3 rebuild rate can be configured between 0 percent and 100 percent. At 0 percent, the rebuild is only done if the
system is idle. At 100 percent, the rebuild rate has a higher priority than any other system activity.
Properties
The Properties command displays controller attributes.
To view properties, perform the following steps:
1. Right-click the appropriate controller.
2. Click Properties.
A Controller Properties dialog box appears displaying Name, Vendor, Status, Type, Firmware Version, and
Cache Size of the controller.
Disk Management
This section describes conceptual and procedural information about how Array Manager implements basic and dynamic disks.
The following topics are discussed:
Writing a disk signature
Upgrading a basic disk to a dynamic disk
Reactivating dynamic disks
Merging foreign disks
Monitoring disk reliability
Writing a Disk Signature
When you create a virtual disk and perform a rescan, the newly created virtual disk appears under the Disks node. The
unsigned disk displays an error bitmap on the icon. The Disk Type is Unsigned Disk. The unsigned disk cannot be used until
it has a signature on it.
To write a disk signature, right-click the unsigned disk. A menu displays showing the Write Signature command. (The
Write Signature command appears only if a disk does not have a signature on it.) Select this command to write a signature
on the disk.
After a signature is written on a disk, the disk displays as a Basic Disk. You can create partitions on the basic disk, or you
can upgrade the disk to dynamic to create volumes on it.
NOTE: Upgrade all data disks on the system to dynamic before creating any volumes. This allows the system to
support online volume extension. Even though it is possible to upgrade disks with existing volumes to dynamic, those
volumes cannot be extended. Only volumes created on disks that are already dynamic can be extended.
NOTICE: Because of system recovery limitations, the operating system disk must remain a basic disk. All other disks
should be upgraded to dynamic during creation.