Intel RS2BL080 - RAID Controller User Manual

4 Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL080 Hardware User’s Guide
Redundancy and Error Handling
• In-band and out-of-band SES2.
• Enclosure management support.
• Support the internal SAS Sideband signal SFF-8485 (SGPIO) interface.
• Drive coercion (auto-resizing to match existing disks).
• Auto-detection of failed drives with transparent rebuild. There must be disk activity
(I/O to the drive) for a missing drive to be marked as failed.
• Auto-resume on reboot of initialization or rebuild (must be enabled before virtual
disk creation).
• Smart initialization automatically checks consistency of virtual disks if there are five
or more disks in a RAID 5 array, which optimizes performance by enabling read-
modify-write mode. RAID 5 arrays of only three or four drives use Peer Read mode.
• Dirty cache LED plus error reporting for cache write to disk.
• Smart Technology predicts failures of drives and electronic components.
• Patrol Read checks drives and maps bad sectors.
• Commands are retried at least four times.
• Firmware provides best effort to recognize an error and recover if possible.
• Failures are logged from controller and drive firmware, and SMART monitor.
• Failures are logged in NVRAM, viewable from OS Event Log, Intel
®
RAID Web
Console 2; CIM, LEDs, and via alarm.
• Multiple cache options allow configuration-specific performance optimization:
— Write-back: Faster because it does not wait for the disk but data will be lost if
power is lost.
— Write-through: Usually slower but ensures data is on the disk.
— Read Ahead: Predicts next read will be sequential and buffers this data into the
cache.
— Non-Read Ahead: Always reads from the drive after determining exact location
of each read.
— Adaptive Read Ahead: Reads ahead and caches data only if doing sequential
reads.
— I/O setting: Determines whether read operations check the cache before reading
from disks.
✧ Cache I/O: Checks cache first; only reads disk if data is not in the cache.
✧ Direct I/O: Reads data directly from disk (not cache).
• Redundancy through:
— Configuration stored in non-volatile RAM and on the drives (COD).
— Hot-swap support.

Intel RS2BL080 - RAID Controller Specifications

General

Category	RAID Controller
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x8
RAID Levels Supported	0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60
Max Devices Supported	128
Battery Backup	Optional
Product Name	Intel RS2BL080
Number of Ports	8
Operating System Support	Windows, Linux
Data Transfer Rate	6Gb/s per port

Summary

Chapter 1, Overview

Protocol Support

Operating System Support

Redundancy and Error Handling

Covers drive coercion, auto-detection of failures, smart initialization, and error logging.

SAS/SATA Features

Online Capacity Expansion and RAID Level Migration Rules

Chapter 2, Hardware Installation

Requirements

Installing the RAID Controller

Provides step-by-step instructions for physically installing the RAID controller into the system.

Configuring the RAID Controller

Guides users through accessing and using the Intel® RAID BIOS Console 2 for configuration.

Replacing a Controller

Resolving a Configuration Mismatch

Chapter 3, Characteristics

Technical Specifications

Lists key technical specifications including ROC, voltage, card size, bus speed, and port details.

Array Performance Features

Fault Tolerance

Details fault tolerance features like SMART support, battery backup, drive replacement, and error checking.

Electrical Characteristics

Safety Characteristics

Appendix A: Drive Roaming and Drive Migration Install

Drive Roaming

Drive Migration

Appendix B: Installation / Assembly Safety Instructions

General Safety Guidelines

Lists essential safety precautions to observe when using the computer system.

Working Inside the Computer

Provides safety instructions for operations performed inside the computer system.

Additional Safety Guidelines

Offers further safety advice, including handling cables and components carefully.

Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)

Explains methods to prevent damage from static electricity to computer components.