ATTO ExpressRAID Installation and Operation Manual Macintosh® OS 8.6 to 9.x © 2003 ATTO Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. All brand or product names are trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this manual may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express written permission of ATTO Technology, Inc.
Contents 1 RAID Overview ..................................................................................1 RAID Level 0 RAID Level 1 ATTO Recommendations 2 Installation and Quick Start Instructions ..........................................3 3 ExpressRAID Displays Bus, Device, Volume ...................................5 Device Window SCSI Bus Information Scanning busses Volume Window 4 Using ExpressRAID ............................................................................
9 Configuring ExpressPCI SCSI Adapters ...........................................17 Safeguard buttons Configuration utilities Adapter configurations Reconfigure device IDs SCSI ID configuration options Adjust other parameters 10 ExpressRAID Provides Driver Information .....................................21 11 FireWire Support ...............................................................................22 12 Error, Alert & Status Messages .......................................................
1 RAID Overview Originally Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, now Redundant Array of Independent Drives, RAID is a storage system using multiple disk drives. ATTO ExpressRAID creates virtual disk arrays on physical drives to increase capacity and performance. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a storage system using multiple disk drives to increase capacity and performance.
A graphical representation of data storage in RAID configurations. RAID overview Exhibit 1-1 ◗Each cylinder represents a separate physical drive. ◗Each physical drive has been divided into partitions, labeled logical partition (LP) ◗Physical Drive 4 has been initialized and is empty with no partitions or data. This volume can be used to create either a standard or a striped volume. ◗LP7 and LP11 are free partitions that can be used to create standard or striped volumes.
2 Installation and Quick Start Instructions To install ATTO ExpressRAID, put the ExpressRAID CD in the CD-ROM player, double click on the program icon, then the installer icon. Drag the ExpressRAID icon to the hard drive and open the program. To ensure complete installation and ease of use, take a few minutes to read this manual before attempting installation. 2b Set volume parameters.
Create a RAID 0 volume 2a Click Create RAID 0 Volume. 2b Select drives you wish to include in the RAID volume. To select multiple drives hold the Shift key and click on the drives. Note: If you try to shut down the system while building a volume in background, a screen will warn that ExpressWatch will have to re equalize drives upon start-up. 2c Set volume parameters. ATTO ExpressRAID automatically creates partitions based on the parameters you set. 2d Click OK.
3 ExpressRAID Displays Bus, Device, Volume The ATTO ExpressRAID Device Window displays busses, IDs and devices. The Volumes window displays information about the volumes available. The amount of information shown in the device and volume windows depends on the settings. An information button next to any item in either window provides more information about that item. Clicking on a device in the device window highlights the associated volumes in the volume window, and vice versa.
❖SCSI address of the device, where X is the bus number, Y is the ID Number and Z is the Logical Unit Number. The SCSI address shown is translated from the FC_AL address. ❖Type of device at that address ❖Manufacturer of the device ❖Amount of space available on the drive for creating new volumes: a completely initialized drive is shown as having 0.0 MB free.
4 Using ExpressRAID ATTO ExpressRAID is designed to be simple to use. Auto Detection, prompts, pull-down menus and other devices provide information and choices. Auto Detection Upon startup, ExpressRAID searches drives for unallocated space and determines the ATTO driver version, if present. If you have unallocated space or are using an older version of the ATTO driver, ExpressRAID prompts you to allocate the free space or update the ATTO driver.
If you would like to ignore Auto Detection, select Nothing, proceed to Main Window and click OK. Returning to the Main Window allows other options to be selected. If you want to ignore Update ATTO Drivers, select Nothing, proceed to Main Window and click No for Update ATTO Drivers. Returning to the Main Window allows you to select other options. Adjust other parameters To access these options, go to the device window and double click on a device or drive.
5 ExpressRAID Provides Hard Disk Utilities Hard disk utilities for the Macintosh OS include configuring mode pages and formatting and erasing drives. Configure Mode Pages Mode pages are device-specific parameters stored on the hard drive which control a variety of functions, including drive cache management, error detection and error recovery. ATTO has determined the best settings for these mode pages when working with digital video and prepress.
6 Volume control with ExpressRAID Volumes are a usable quantities of storage composed of one or more partitions residing on one or more physical drives. A standard volume creates a partition on a single drive. ATTO ExpressRAID creates, mounts, unmounts and configures volumes in the Macintosh OS environment. ExpressRAID is used to create new Macintosh OS volumes from drives (except ATA drives) on any SCSI Manager 4.3 compatible bus. Physical devices and busses are shown in the left hand Device Window.
Selecting a drive in the device window and clicking the mount button mounts all volumes created from that drive. Unmounted volumes are marked with an asterisk (*) before their names. Unmount a Volume Unmounting a volume removes its icon on the desktop, but does not erase or change data on the volume in any way. The volume cannot be accessed until it is mounted again.
Log to File The driver’s error notification is written Volumes other tasks, including using the new RAID 1 volume, while ExpressWatch performs equalization in the background. Several options are available through ExpressWatch: Busy/Timeout Retry Count Determines the number of times a command to a physical device should be tried after errors have been returned to the driver logic. into a log file. Bring Monitor to Foreground Enables a dialog box informing you of errors.
7 Benchmarking a Volume ExpressRAID includes a utility for benchmarking drives to measure peak and sustained throughput for disk reads and disk writes. To measure disk reads and writes, use the ExpressRAID benchmarking utility: 1 Highlight a volume in the volume window. 2 Select Benchmark from the Utilities Menu. 3 Modify test parameters. 4 Click Start. Additional volumes can be tested by selecting them from the menu in the lower left corner of the benchmark utility.
The peak value is also commonly referred to as the burst transfer rate. When the system disk cache is turned on, the performance of a volume may appear to exceed the maximum performance of the bus because sometimes Data are being transferred to or from the System Disk Cache (system RAM) rather than to or from the disk being tested. Benchmarking A spike in the graph indicates a disk read or write to or from the system cache or the cache incorporated in the disk being tested.
8 Configuring ExpressPCI Fibre Channel Adapters ExpressRAID may be used to configure ATTO ExpressPCI adapters, however, entering invalid values may cause your ExpressPCI adapter to function incorrectly. You may only configure Fibre Channel busses labeled ATTO Technology. To access the configuration options for the ATTO ExpressPCI host adapter, double-click the appropriate bus or click the information button next to it.
Video Tuner Choices: Enable, Disable Default: Disabled If you are not using a Radius capture board, keep at the default (disabled) setting. Enable may increase performance for Radius users. Device Discovery Choices: Node WWN, Port WWN Default: Node WWN Certain RAID controllers require discovery using port WWN for proper operation.
9 Configuring ExpressPCI SCSI Adapters ExpressRAID may be used to configure ATTO ExpressPCI adapters, however, entering invalid values may cause your ExpressPCI adapter to function incorrectly. You may only configure SCSI busses labeled ATTO Technology. To access the configuration options for the ATTO ExpressPCI host adapter, doubleclick the appropriate bus or click the information button next to it. WARNING You do not need to change options for ATTO ExpressPCI host adapters in ATTO ExpressRAID.
Allows you to access Wide devices that may reside at these ID locations without affecting Wide data transfer capability. This option is included for compatibility with some older, 8-bit SCSI devices. Video Tuner (Ultra3, Ultra/WIDE) Choices: Enable, Disable Default: Disabled If you are not using a Radius capture board, keep at the default (disabled) setting. Enable may increase capture and playback performance for Radius users.
Synch Offset Choices: 0-16 for Ultra/Wide SCSI 0-62 for Ultra3 SCSI 0-127 for Ultra320 Default: 16 for Ultra/Wide SCSI 62 for Ultra3 SCSI 127 for Ultra320 Sync Rate Choices: varies by adapter, see Exhibit 9.-2 Default: varies by adapter, see Exhibit 9.-2 If synchronous transfers are enabled, the synch rate sets the maximum rate at which the ExpressPCI host adapter will negotiate with each device attached to it. ATTO recommends setting the rate to the maximum value supported by the host adapter.
PCI Burst Rate (Ultra3, Ultra/WIDE) Choices: 16 to 512 bytes Default: 512 bytes slows the host adapter card. Do not change this rate unless you are told to do so by an application or technical support for your application. Lowering the PCI burst rate does help some applications. Configuring ExpressPCI adapters the trash. The drive will automatically remount when reinserted. SCSI only: May be changed to intervals between 16 and 512 bytes.
10 ExpressRAID Provides Driver Information Devices (floppy drives, serial ports, hard drives, tape drives, CD-ROMs, etc.) communicate with the Operating System, and with applications, through special programs called device drivers. ExpressRAID handles drivers automatically. A device driver typically controls a specific device: the driver controlling your floppy drive is different from the driver controlling your CDROM drive. Each driver has a unique driver reference number or refNum.
11 FireWire Support ATTO ExpressRAID supports FireWire IEEE1394 Standard when using an Indigita SCSI Interface Module (SIM). FireWire is a high-speed serial input/output technology used to connect peripherals to a computer. ATTO ExpressRAID supports the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) 1394 standard for FireWire when used with an Indigita SCSI Interface Module (SIM). Please check our website (www.attotech.com/technology.
12 Error, Alert & Status Messages Some errors are reported by ExpressRAID from sense data from devices or from information gathered by ExpressRAID itself, generally from the Macintosh OS. Sense data messages Sense data messages report information via a device on a bus in a numerical sense-data code. ExpressRAID reports sense-data with a dialog box detailing the bus and ID of the reporting device. Frequent sense-data messages include error or status messages.
Some mode page settings of the selected drives did not match the expected settings. To prevent any damage or corruption, these unrecognized settings will not be changed. Please report the model of this drive to ATTO Technology Technical Support so that its mode page settings can be added to future versions of ExpressRAID. Can’t install driver to disk! There is not enough room unless the disk is repartitioned. You have attempted to use the Install Driver option to put the ExpressRAID driver on a volume.
Appendix A Glossary Some common terms used in the storage industry are defined below. More information about Fibre Channel, SCSI and Storage Area Networks is available through the ATTO Technology website (www.attotech.com), the Fibre Channel Industry Association (www.fibrechannel.org), the Fibre Channel Consortium (www.iol.unh.edu/consortiums, click on FC), the SCSI Trade Association (www.scsita.org), and the Storage Area Networking Industry Association (www.snia.org).
Definition host a processor, usually a CPU and memory, which communicates with devices over an interface initiator device A component which originates a command JBOD Just a Bunch Of Disks: a storage subsystem using multiple independent disk drives with or without RAID configuration. LUN Logical Unit Number: a SCSI or Fibre Channel identifier of a device Maximum Allowable Volume Size The Mac OS determines the maximum partition size. When using System 7.5.
Appendix B SCSI Host Adapter Selection Guide ATTO Technology offers a number of SCSI and Fibre Channel solutions for storage. The following chart compares the features of ExpressPCI SCSI host adapters. Supported platforms: Sun Solaris; Linux; NetWare; SCO Unix; Windows 2000, 95/98, NT, and Macintosh OS and OS X. Complete RAID packages are also available and include an ExpressPCI SCSI host adapter, ExpressRAID software and appropriate cable(s). Add "-KIT" suffix to host adapter product code (i.e.
Appendix C Fibre Channel Host Adapter Guide Complete RAID packages are also available and include an ExpressPCI host adapter, ExpressRAID software and appropriate cable(s). Add “-KIT” suffix to host adapter product code (i.e. EPCI-3300KIT). 2-Gigabit Adapters Fibre Channel ports Optical interface FC 3342 FC 3322 FC 3321 FC 3300 FC 3305 4 2 2 1 1 SW, LC, SFP SW, LC, SFP SW, LC, SFF Fixed SW LC Copper interface HSSDC Max.
Appendix D Contact ATTO Technology, Inc. While we do our best to provide you all the information you will need to use our products, we recognize that additional assistance is sometime required. If you have questions about installing, using or obtaining any of our products, you may contact us at: ATTO Technology, Inc. 155 CrossPoint Parkway Amherst, NY 14068 The information you need to answer your questions may be available 24-hours a day on our web site (http://www.attotech.com/).
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