Selecting Virtual Disk Parameters; Initializing Virtual Disks - Dell PowerEdge H730P User Manual

12. Set the virtual disk size in the VD Size field.
The virtual disk size is displayed in GB format.
13. Press <Tab> to access the VD Name field, and type a virtual disk name.
14. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Advanced settings
15. Press the spacebar to make the settings active so that you can change them.
An X is displayed beside Advanced settings. The settings are the stripe size, read policy, write policy,
and disk cache policy. You can also choose advanced options such as forcing the cache policy to
Write-Back, initializing the virtual disk, and configuring a dedicated hot spare. The default parameters
are displayed. You can accept the defaults or change them. To change the virtual disk parameters,
see Virtual Disk Parameters and Descriptions in

Selecting Virtual Disk Parameters

To select the virtual disk parameters:
1. On the VD Mgmt screen, press <Tab> to move the cursor to the parameters you want to change.
2. Press the down-arrow key to expand the parameters and scroll down the list of settings.
3. To change the stripe element size, press <Tab> to highlight Stripe Size.
4. Press <Enter> to display the list of stripe element sizes (64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1 MB).
The default stripe size is 64 KB.
5. Press the down-arrow key to highlight the desired option and press <Enter>.
6. To change the read policy, press <Tab> to move the cursor to Read Policy.
7. Press <Enter> to display the options (No Read Ahead, Read Ahead, or Adaptive Read Ahead).
8. Press the down-arrow key to highlight the desired option and press <Enter>.
9. To change the write policy, press <Tab> to move the cursor to Write Policy.
10. Press <Enter> to display the options (Write-Through, Write Back).
11. Press the down-arrow key to highlight an option and press <Enter>.
12. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Force WB with no battery and press <Enter>.
NOTE: If you chose Write-Through as the write policy, then the option Force WB with no
battery is not available.
CAUTION: Do not initialize virtual disks when attempting to recreate an existing
configuration.
13. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Initialize and press <Enter>.
NOTE: Fast initialization is performed at this stage.
14. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Configure Hot Spare and press <Enter>.
NOTE: The hot spare created at the stage is a dedicated hot spare.
15. If you have chosen to create hot spares in the earlier steps, a pop-up window is displayed where
disks with appropriate sizes are displayed. Press the <spacebar> to select the disk size.
16. After you select the disk size, click OK to finalize the selection or click Cancel to forfeit the selection.
17. Select OK to accept the settings and press <Enter> to exit the window or select Cancel and press
<Enter> to exit if you do not want to change any virtual disk parameters.

Initializing Virtual Disks

CAUTION: A full initialization permanently destroys any existing data on that virtual disk.
Setting Up Virtual Disks .
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