Users guide

Intel® RAID Software User Guide iii
Table of Contents
1 Overview ................................................................................................................1
1.1 Supported Hardware .....................................................................................................1
1.2 Software ........................................................................................................................4
1.3 RAID Terminology ........................................................................................................5
1.3.1 Fault Tolerance ..................................................................................................5
1.3.2 Enclosure Management .....................................................................................7
1.3.3 Performance ......................................................................................................7
2 RAID Levels ...........................................................................................................9
2.1 Summary of RAID Levels .............................................................................................9
2.2 Selecting a RAID Level ...............................................................................................10
2.2.1 RAID 0 - Data Striping .....................................................................................10
2.2.2 RAID 1 - Disk Mirroring/Disk Duplexing ...........................................................11
2.2.3 RAID 5 - Data Striping with Striped Parity .......................................................11
2.2.4 RAID 6 - Distributed Parity and Disk Striping ..................................................12
2.2.5 RAID IME .........................................................................................................14
2.2.6 RAID 10 - Combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0 ...............................................14
2.2.7 RAID 50 - Combination of RAID 5 and RAID 0 ...............................................15
2.2.8 RAID 60 - Combination of RAID 0 and RAID 6 ...............................................16
2.3 RAID Configuration Strategies ....................................................................................19
2.3.1 Maximizing Fault Tolerance .............................................................................19
2.3.2 Maximizing Performance .................................................................................20
2.3.3 Maximizing Storage Capacity ..........................................................................22
2.4 RAID Availability .........................................................................................................23
2.4.1 RAID Availability Concept ................................................................................23
2.4.2 Spare Drives ....................................................................................................23
2.4.3 Rebuilding ........................................................................................................23
2.4.4 Drive in Foreign State ......................................................................................24
2.4.5 Copyback .........................................................................................................24
2.4.6 Configuration Planning ....................................................................................25
2.4.7 Dimmer Switch Feature ...................................................................................25
2.4.8 Serial ATA III Features ....................................................................................25
2.4.9 UEFI 2.0 Support .............................................................................................26
2.4.10 Number of Physical Disks ..............................................................................26
2.4.11 MegaRAID Fast Path .....................................................................................26
2.4.12 4K Sector Drive Support ................................................................................26
2.4.13 Larger than 2TB Drive Support ......................................................................27
2.4.14 Power Save settings ......................................................................................27
2.4.15 Shield State ...................................................................................................27
2.4.16 Array Purpose ................................................................................................28