systemwithoutusingtheThinkServerEasyStartupDVDandneedappropriatedevicedriverstoconfigure
yourserver.
•InstalltherequireddevicedriversdirectlyontheserveronwhichyouarerunningtheThinkServer
EasyStartupDVD.
•ViewinformationaboutallservermodelssupportedbytheThinkServerEasyStartupprogramand
informationaboutthedevicedriversforeachservermodel,includingthedriverversionsanddriver
locationsintherootdirectoryoftheThinkServerEasyStartupDVD.
Note:Themostup-to-datedevicedriversforvariousservermodelsarealwaysavailablefordownloadon
theLenovoSupportWebsiteat:
http://www.lenovo.com/drivers
ConfiguringRAID
ThistopicprovidesinformationaboutRAIDandtheutilityprogramsthatareavailableforyoutoconfigure
RAID.
Thistopiccontainsthefollowingitems:
•“AboutRAID”onpage47
•“RAIDforyourserver”onpage48
•“ConfiguringthesystemBIOStoenableonboardSATARAIDfunctionality”onpage49
•“ConfiguringtheadvancedSATAorSAShardwareRAID”onpage50
AboutRAID
RAID,anacronymforRedundantArrayofIndependentDisks,isatechnologythatprovidesincreased
storagefunctionsandreliabilitythroughredundancy.Thisisachievedbycombiningmultipleharddiskdrives
intoalogicalunit,wheredataisdistributedacrossthedrivesinoneofseveralwayscalledRAIDlevels.
WhenagroupofindependentphysicalharddiskdrivesaresetuptouseRAIDtechnology,theyareina
RAIDarray.Thisarraydistributesdataacrossmultipleharddiskdrives,butthearrayappearstothehost
serverasonesinglestorageunit.CreatingandusingRAIDarraysprovideshighperformance,suchasthe
expeditedI/Operformance,becauseseveraldrivescanbeaccessedsimultaneously.
RAIDdrivegroupsalsoimprovedatastoragereliabilityandfaulttolerancecomparedtosingle-drivestorage
systems.Datalossresultingfromadrivefailurecanbepreventedbyreconstructingmissingdatafromthe
remainingdrives.
ThefollowinglistdescribessomeofthemostcommonlyusedRAIDlevels:
•RAID0:block-levelstripingwithoutparityormirroring
SimplestripesetsarenormallyreferredtoasRAID0.RAID0usesstripingtoprovidehighdata
throughput,especiallyforlargefilesinanenvironmentthatdoesnotrequirefaulttolerance.RAID0hasno
redundancyanditprovidesimprovedperformanceandadditionalstoragewithoutfaulttolerance.Any
drivefailuredestroysthearrayandthelikelihoodoffailureincreaseswithmoredrivesinthearray.RAID
0doesnotimplementerrorchecking,soanyerrorisuncorrectable.Moredrivesinthearraymeans
higherbandwidth,butgreaterriskofdataloss.
RAID0requiresaminimumnumberoftwoharddiskdrives.
Chapter5.Configuringtheserver47