Administrator Guide

Disk Management

Storage Center manages both physical disks and the data movement within the virtual disk pool. Disks are organized physically,

logically, and virtually.

• Physically: Disks are grouped by the enclosure in which they reside, as shown in the Enclosures folder.

• Logically: Disks are grouped by class in disk folders. Storage Center enclosures may contain any combination of disk classes.

• Virtually: All disk space is allocated into tiers. The fastest disks reside in Tier 1 and slower drives with lower performance reside in

Tier 3. Data that is accessed frequently remains on Tier 1, and data that has not been accessed for the last 12 progression cycles

is gradually migrated to Tiers 2 and 3. Data is promoted to a higher tier after three days of consistent activity. Disk tiering is

shown when you select a Storage Type.

Disk Folders

A disk folder contains both managed and spare drives. Managed drives are used for data storage. Spare drives are held in reserve to

automatically replace a drive if a drive fails. By default, the Assigned disk folder is the parent disk folder for all drives. Drives are

further grouped by class in subordinate folders.

Disk Classes

Disks are classied based on their performance characteristics. Each class is shown in a separate folder within the Assigned disk

folder.

• Hard Disk Drives (HDDs): For HDDs, the disk classication describes its spindle speed and can be any of three disk types.

– 7K (7200 RPM)

– 10K

– 15K

• Solid State Drives (SSDs): SSDs are dierentiated by read or write optimization.

– Write-intensive (SLC SSD)

– Mixed-Use (MU SSD)

– Read-intensive (MLC SSD)

Disk Management for SC7020, SC5020, and SCv3000

Storage Center manages disks for SC7020, SC7020F , SC5020, SC5020F, and SCv3000 storage systems automatically. When

conguring one of those storage systems, Storage Center manages the disks into folders based on function of the disk. FIPS

capable drives are managed into a separate folder than other disks. When

Storage Center detects new disks, it manages the disk into

the appropriate folder.

Storage Center disables the automatic disk management function when a user creates a new disk folder. Deleting the user-created

disk folder enables the automatic disk management function. The automatic disk management function will not automatically

manage any disk that has been previously released by Storage Center. If you are attempting to manage a previously released disk,

you must manually manage the disk into the appropriate folder.

Disk Management on SCv2000 Series Controllers

Storage Centers with SCv2000 series controllers manage disks automatically, limiting the disk management options. After adding

disks, Storage Center recognizes the new disks, creates a new disk folder if necessary, then manages the disks in the disk folder. If a

disk is intentionally down for testing purposes, then is deleted, you can restore the disk to manage the disk again in a disk folder.

The following disk management options are not available with SCv2000 series controllers:

• Creating disk folders

• Adding disks to disk folders

• Managing disk spares