16 Overview
Operating System Support
The PERC 6 and CERC 6/i controllers support the following operating systems:
• Citrix
®
XenServer
®
Dell Edition
• Microsoft
®
Windows Server
®
2003
• Microsoft Windows
®
XP
• Microsoft Windows Vista
®
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (including Hyper-V™ virtualization)
•Novell
®
NetWare
®
6.5
•Red Hat
®
Enterprise Linux
®
Version 4 and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Version 5
• Solaris™ 10 (64-bit)
•SUSE
®
Linux Enterprise Server Version 9 (64-bit), Version 10 (64-bit),
and Version 11 (64-bit)
•VMware
®
ESX 3.5 and 3.5i
NOTE: Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems are supported with a
PERC 6 controller only when the controller is installed in a Dell Precision™
workstation.
NOTE: For the latest list of supported operating systems and driver installation
instructions, see the system documentation on the Dell Support website
at support.dell.com. For specific operating system service pack requirements,
see the Drivers and Downloads section on the Dell Support site at support.dell.com.
RAID Description
RAID is a group of independent physical disks that provides high performance by
increasing the number of drives used for saving and accessing data. A RAID disk
subsystem improves I/O performance and data availability. The physical disk
group appears to the host system either as a single storage unit or multiple
logical units. Data throughput improves because several disks are accessed
simultaneously. RAID systems also improve data storage availability and fault
tolerance. Data loss caused by a physical disk failure can be recovered by rebuilding
missing data from the remaining physical disks containing data or parity.
CAUTION: In the event of a physical disk failure, a RAID 0 virtual disk fails,
resulting in data loss.
Dell_PERC6.2_UG.book Page 16 Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:08 PM