Introduction To Storage Arrays - Dell PowerVault MD3600i Deployment Manual

• Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server. Operating system installations can be either native or
hypervisor guest configurations. Supported hypervisors include Microsoft
Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and VMware. For information about the
supported versions, see the Support Matrix at support.dell.com.
• Administrator or equivalent permissions.

Introduction to Storage Arrays

A storage array includes various hardware components, such as physical disks,
RAID controller modules, fans, and power supplies, gathered into enclosures.
An enclosure containing physical disks accessed through RAID controller
modules is called a storage array.
One or more host servers attached to the storage array can access the data on
the storage array. You can also establish multiple physical paths between the
host(s) and the storage array so that loss of any single path (for example,
through failure of a host server port) does not result in loss of access to data
on the storage array.
The storage array is managed by MDSM running on a:
• Host server—On a host server, MDSM and the storage array communicate
management requests and event information using iSCSI ports.
• Management station—On a management station, MDSM communicates
with the storage array either through an Ethernet connection to the
storage array management port or though an Ethernet connection to a
host server, which passes management information between the
management station and the storage array using iSCSI ports.
Using MDSM, you can configure the physical disks in the storage array into
logical components called disk groups and then divide the disk groups into
virtual disks. Disk groups are created in the unconfigured capacity of a storage
array. Virtual disks are created in the free capacity of a disk group.
Unconfigured capacity comprises physical disks not already assigned to a disk
group. When a virtual disk is created using unconfigured capacity, a disk
group is automatically created. If the only virtual disk in a disk group is
deleted, the disk group is also deleted. Free capacity is space in a disk group
that is not assigned to any virtual disk.
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Introduction