IBM ServeRAID M5210

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ServeRAID M5210 SAS/SATA Controller for IBM System x User’s Guide
July 2014
Chapter 1: Overview
Hardware Specifications
A foreign configuration is a storage configuration that already exists on the new drive that you install in the system.
The configuration utilities allow you to import the foreign configuration to the controller, or to clear the configuration
so you can create a new configuration using the new drive.
1.5.12 Automatic Rebuilds on New Drives
Automatic rebuilds occur when the drive slot status changes. For example, an automatic rebuild occurs when you
insert a new drive or when you remove a drive and a hot spare replaces the removed drive.
1.5.13 System (JBOD) Drives
The iMR mode supports drives in pass-through mode, which are identified as "system" drives. These drives are also
known as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) drives. When a drive without valid metadata is inserted in a system, if the drive
has a drive state of unconfigured good, it is identified as unconfigured good; otherwise, the drive is marked as a
system drive.
System drives are exposed directly to the operating system. The host system can read data from and write data to the
system drives; however, you cannot use system drives in a RAID configuration.
You can change system drives into unconfigured good drives (you can also change unconfigured good drives into
system drives). When a system drive is changed to an unconfigured good drive, the unconfigured good drive state of
the drive is maintained after reboot, drive removal, or drive insertion.
You can use system drives as bootable drives. iMR supports up to 63 system drives and up to 16 unconfigured good
drives.
1.6 Hardware Specifications
You can install your ServeRAID M5210 controller in a computer with a mainboard that has a PCI Express slot. Table 1.3
describes the hardware configuration features of the controller.
NOTE See the ServeRAID-M Software User’s Guide for the procedures used to import a foreign configuration
or change a drive state from unconfigured bad to unconfigured good.
Table 3 ServeRAID M5210 SAS/SATA Controller
RAID Levels iMR Mode: 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50
MR Mode: 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and, 60
NOTE To use certain RAID levels with this controller, you
need to install a Feature on Demand upgrade and/or a
transportable memory module. See Section1.3.1 for more
information
Devices Supported per Port Up to 8 SAS devices or 8 SATA devices (such as drives and
expanders)
Ports Eight Internal
Data Transfer Rate Up to 12Gb/s per phy
Bus PCI Express 3.0
Cache Function No. See the note at the bottom of this table