Lenovo ThinkServer TS430 0387 - Configuring RAID; About RAID

Thismenudisplaysaseriesofchoicesandpromptstocollectinformationrequiredforoperatingsystem
installation,preparestheharddiskdriveforinstallation,andtheninitiatestheinstallationprocessusing
youroperatingsysteminstallationdisc.
•Downloaddrivers
ThismenuhelpsyoudownloadtherequireddevicedriversfromtheThinkServerEasyStartupDVDtoa
removablestoragedevicesothatyoucaneasilygetthedriversforservercongurationwhenyouneed
them.
Note:Themostup-to-datedevicedriversforvariousservermodelsarealwaysavailablefordownloadon
theLenovoSupportWebsiteat:
http://www.lenovo.com/drivers
•About
Thismenuprovidestheversioninformationandlegalnotices.
ConguringRAID
ThistopicprovidesinformationaboutRAIDandtheutilityprogramsthatareavailableforyoutocongure
RAID.
Thistopiccontainsthefollowingitems:
•“AboutRAID”onpage73
•“RAIDforyourserver”onpage74
•“ConguringRAIDusingtheThinkServerEasyStartupprogram”onpage75
•“ConguringtheonboardSATAsoftwareRAID”onpage76
•“ConguringtheadvancedSATAorSAShardwareRAID”onpage81
AboutRAID
RAID,anacronymforRedundantArrayofIndependentDisks,isatechnologythatprovidesincreased
storagefunctionsandreliabilitythroughredundancy.Thisisachievedbycombiningmultipleharddiskdrives
intoalogicalunit,wheredataisdistributedacrossthedrivesinoneofseveralwayscalledRAIDlevels.
WhenagroupofindependentphysicalharddiskdrivesaresetuptouseRAIDtechnology,theyareina
RAIDarray.Thisarraydistributesdataacrossmultipleharddiskdrives,butthearrayappearstothehost
serverasonesinglestorageunit.CreatingandusingRAIDarraysprovideshighperformance,suchasthe
expeditedI/Operformance,becauseseveraldrivescanbeaccessedsimultaneously.
RAIDdrivegroupsalsoimprovedatastoragereliabilityandfaulttolerancecomparedtosingle-drivestorage
systems.Datalossresultingfromadrivefailurecanbepreventedbyreconstructingmissingdatafromthe
remainingdrives.
ThefollowinglistdescribessomeofthemostcommonlyusedRAIDlevels:
•RAID0:block-levelstripingwithoutparityormirroring
SimplestripesetsarenormallyreferredtoasRAID0.RAID0usesstripingtoprovidehighdata
throughput,especiallyforlargelesinanenvironmentthatdoesnotrequirefaulttolerance.RAID0hasno
redundancyanditprovidesimprovedperformanceandadditionalstoragewithoutfaulttolerance.Any
drivefailuredestroysthearrayandthelikelihoodoffailureincreaseswithmoredrivesinthearray.RAID
0doesnotimplementerrorchecking,soanyerrorisuncorrectable.Moredrivesinthearraymeans
higherbandwidth,butgreaterriskofdataloss.
RAID0requiresaminimumnumberoftwoharddiskdrives.
Chapter5.Conguringtheserver73