Dell Openmanage Server Administrator; Managing The Perc 5/E And Perc 6/E Controllers And The Powervault Md1Xxx Family Storage Enclosures; Using The Create Virtual Disk Wizards - Dell PowerVault MD1120 Optimization Manual

A REFERENCE GUIDE FOR OPTIMIZING DELL™ POWERVAULT™ MD1XXX FAMILY SAS SOLUTION VER A02

6. Dell OpenManage Server Administrator

Dell OpenManage Server Administrator is a management application for configuring PowerEdge
servers. The Server Administrator's configuration abilities for host-based RAID and non-RAID disk
storage are of particular interest for this paper. The Server Administrator enables you to perform
controller and enclosure functions from a single, graphical or command line interface. The
graphical user interface (GUI) is wizard-driven with features for novice and advanced users and
detailed online help. The command-line interface is fully-featured and scriptable.
The Server Administrator provides SAS support with the PERC 5/E and PERC 6/E controllers and
the PowerVault MD1xxx Family storage enclosures. Server Administrator also supports the SCSI
and ATA for RAID technologies.
Managing the PERC 5/E and PERC 6/E Controllers and the PowerVault MD1xxx
Family Storage Enclosures
After installing Server Administrator, the user can expand the storage object in the tree view to
display the storage components attached to the system. These components include supported
controllers and enclosures, virtual disks, physical disks, and the connectors (SAS ports and/or
SCSI channels) that comprise the topography of all attached storage.
The PERC 5/E and PERC 6/E controllers and the PowerVault MD1xxx Family storage enclosures
are represented in Server Administrator's tree view. You can select the PERC 5/E and PERC 6/E
objects and the PowerVault MD1xxx Family object to display the status and to provide access to
PERC 5/E and PERC 6/E controllers and PowerVault storage enclosure tasks.

Using the Create Virtual Disk Wizards

You can create virtual disks using either Server Administrator's Create Virtual Disk Express or the
Create Virtual Disk Advanced wizard. These wizards enable you to quickly configure virtual disk
attributes, such as the RAID level, size, and physical disk selection.
The Express wizard displays the RAID levels supported by the controller and enables you to select
the desired RAID level and the disk size for a virtual disk. After you select the RAID level, the
Express wizard selects an appropriate number of physical disks for the RAID level. If there is
available space on disks of this RAID level, these disks will be used for the creation of the virtual
disk. Otherwise, new disks of maximum size are used to create the virtual disk. The Express
wizard displays the physical disks it has selected so that you can confirm the selection before
creating the virtual disk. The Express wizard also assigns a hotspare to your virtual disk, if
applicable.
The Advanced wizard allows you to select physical disks and specify additional virtual disk
properties such as the read, write, and cache policies.
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