User`s guide

Chapter 3: About Your RAID Controller ● 19
Standard RAID Controller Features
● Flash ROM for updates to controller firmware, BIOS, and the
Adaptec RAID Configuration utility
● Disk drive hot-swapping
● Event logging and broadcasting including email and SNMP messages
● Multiple options for creating and managing RAID arrays—A full
software application (Adaptec Storage Manager), a BIOS-based
utility, a command line utility, and a DOS utility. See Managing Your
Storage Space on page 60 for more information.
● (SATA RAID controllers only) Native command queuing (NCQ),
which lets disk drives arrange commands into the most efficient
order for optimum performance
● (SAS and SCSI RAID controllers only) Support for disk drive
enclosures with SAF-TE enclosure management hardware
Some RAID controllers support a battery backup module (see page 21).
Array-level Features
Note: For more information, refer to the Adaptec Storage Manager
User’s Guide or online Help.
● Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, RAID 50
1
, simple
volumes, and spanned volumes
● Support for hot spares
● Support for automatic failover, so arrays are automatically rebuilt
when a failed disk drive is replaced (applies to redundant arrays in
SES- or SAF-TE-enabled disk drive enclosures only)
● Optimized disk drive usage, so that the full capacity of all disk drives
can be used, even if the disk drives vary in size
● Online expansion, so you can increase the capacity of an array
without recreating the array
● Support for array migration from one RAID level to another
1
The Adaptec 2420SA RAID controller does not support RAID 50.