User`s guide

Document Number: MAN-0057XX-000 Version 1.0
SteelVine (SAFE33/50)
Drive A
100 GB
SAFE
50 GB
Port 0
Port 1
BIGGER
100 GB
BIG
50 GB
SAFE
50 GB
SteelVine (SAFE33/50)
Port 0
Port 1
Not
connected
Drive A
100GB
Drive B
100GB
Figure 8 - SAFE33 or SAFE50 Capacity Expansion
Figure 8 shows an example of a single-drive SAFE33 or SAFE50 Storage Policy configuration
consisting of a 100GB hard drive (Drive A) connected to Port 0. Assuming that a SAFE50
Storage Policy is used, a 50GB SAFE volume and a 50GB BIG volume will be created, although
the SAFE volume will be in a degraded (non-mirrored) state. When Drive B is connected to Port
1 to increase the storage capacity, the SAFE volume will be able to complete the mirror by using
50GB from the Drive B, and the remaining capacity will be added to the existing BIG volume,
increasing it from 50GB to 100GB.
Important: Some additional steps will be needed on your host computer system to allow it to recognize a
volume that has been dynamically expanded – refer to Appendix A through C for more information.
Cascading
The cascading feature allows you to configure as much storage capacity as you need; as few as
two drives or as many as eight. Refer to Figure 9 for some examples of cascaded configurations.
Cascading allows you to customize the amount of storage capacity without the financial,
technical and logistical downsides of traditional backup and restore methods. Multiple SteelVine
Storage Reference Designs can be daisy-chained together in a hierarchical structure that
combines the storage capacities from all units. By combining multiple SteelVine Storage
Reference Design platforms in a cascaded configuration, multiple device/drive configurations
can be presented as virtual volumes, which results in a larger storage capacity than upgrading to
larger physical hard disk drives.
You can cascade SteelVine Storage Reference Design platforms up to 3 levels deep, with one
top-level node, up to two second-level nodes and up to four third-level nodes. Any combination
of hard drives and/or SteelVine Storage Reference Designs can be connected in a cascaded
configuration. You can connect any of the following combinations of devices to a SteelVine
processor: two hard drives, one hard drive and one SteelVine Storage Reference Design
platform, or two SteelVine Storage Reference Design platforms.
Figure 9 shows various SteelVine device configurations that can be assembled using multiple
SteelVine Storage Reference Design platforms and multiple hard disk drives.
57XX-Series SteelVine Manager User's Guide
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