Disk Array Terms - Promise Technology FASTtrak100 TX User Manual

Disk Array Terms

Disk Array Description
A "d isk array" is formed from a group of 2 or more disk drives that appear to the
system as a single drive. The advantage of an array is to provide better throughput
performance and/or data fault tolerance. Better performance is accomplished by
sharing the workload among multiple physical drives. Fault tolerance is achieved
through data redundant operation where if one (or more) drive fails or has a sector
failure, a mirrored copy of the data can be found on another drive(s).
For optimal results, select identical Ultra ATA/100 drives to install in disk arrays. The
drives' matched performance allows the array to function better as a single drive.
Disk Array Member
The individual disk drives in an array are called "members." Each member of a specific
disk array is coded in their "reserved sector" with configuration information that
identifies the drive as a member. All disk members in a formed disk array are
recognized as a single physical drive to the system.
Disk Array Types
For most installations, the FastBuild
your system.
There are four disk array types in three categories that can be installed on the
FastTrak100 card. Striping is in the Performance category while Mirroring,
Striping/Mirroring are in the Fault Tolerance category. Spanning (JBOD) is in the
Capacity category.
Disk arrays within the Performance and Fault Tolerance categories conform to the
Redundant Array of Independent Disks technology, or RAID. The RAID levels
supported are 0, 1, and 0+1.
RAID Level
RAID 0 (Striping)
RAID 1 (Mirroring)
RAID 0+1 (Stripe/Mirror)
JBOD (Spanning)
FastTrak100 TX/LP™ Series User Manual
T M
setup "<1> Auto Setup" option will configure
Performance
Highest
Normal
High
Normal
Capacity
# Drives x Smallest Size
Smallest Size Drive
2 x Smallest Size Drive
100% of All Drives
80
# of
Drives
2 to 4
2
4
2 to 4