Other Logical Drive Features; Stripe Block Size; Initialization; Gigabyte Boundary - Promise Technology FastTrak TX4650 User Manual

FastTrak TX4650, TX2650 User Manual

Other Logical Drive Features

Stripe Block Size

Stripe Block size is set to 16 KB for the FastTrak TX Series RAID controller card.

Initialization

Fast Initialization erases the Master Boot Record in all of the physical drives that
make up the logical drive. Use this function when one or more physical drives has
been used in a previous logical drive. This function is available in the FastBuild
utility and in WebPAM.
Full Initialization erases all the data in all of the physical drives that make up the
logical drive. Use this function when one or more physical drives has been used
in a previous logical drive and you want to remove all data stored on the drive.
This function is available in WebPAM.

Gigabyte Boundary

This feature is designed for fault-tolerant logical drives (RAID 1, 5, and 10).
Gigabyte Boundary affects a replacement physical drive used in a logical drive.
Normally, when an physical drive fails, the replacement drive must be the same
capacity or larger. However, the Gigabyte Boundary feature permits the
installation of a replacement drive that is slightly smaller (within 1 gigabyte) than
the remaining working drive. For example, the remaining working drives can be
80.5 GB and the replacement drive can be 80.3 GB, since all are rounded down
to 80.0 GB. This permits the smaller drive to be used.
Without Gigabyte Boundary, the FastTrak controller will not permit the use of a
replacement physical drive that is slightly smaller than the remaining working
drive(s).

Hot Spare Drive

Any extra drive that is not assigned to an array is designated Free in the View
Drive Assignments screen (see below). In order for a free drive to serve as a hot
spare drive, you must designate the free drive as a spare using the WebPAM
software.
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