C H A P T E R 1

Introduction to Integrated RAID

This chapter provides an overview of the LSI Integrated RAID solution for LSI SAS integrated disk controllers and adapters usesd in Sun servers. The chapter includes these sections:

- Does Your LSI Controller Support Integrated RAID?

- Integrated RAID Features

- Using this Manual

You can use the LSI Integrated RAID solution with the following LSI SAS controllers that have MPT firmware that supports IR (integrated RAID):

- LSISAS1064/1064E

- LSISAS1068/1068E

- LSISAS1078

Note - If your LSI controller uses MPT firmware that supports IT (initiator-target) technology, this manual does not apply to you. For more on how to find out your MPT firmware version, see Does Your LSI Controller Support Integrated RAID?.

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Does Your LSI Controller Support Integrated RAID?

This document describes how to use your LSI-based integrated disk controller or adapter to configure integrated RAID (IR) volumes on your storage. In order to use integrated RAID, your controller firmware must support it.

To find out if your LSI controller supports integrated RAID, do the following:

1. Boot the system.

As the BIOS loads you will see a message about the LSI Configuration Utility.

2. Press Ctrl-C to start the LSI Configuration Utility.

You will see the following message as the utility starts:

`Please wait, invoking SAS Configuration Utility...`

After a brief pause, the main menu (Adapter List Screen) appears.

In the example above, there are two SAS adapters listed. Under the `FW Revision` column, you see the following firmware versions for each adapter’s LSI controller:

- `1.08.01.00-IR`. The IR in the version shows that this adapter supports integrated RAID and can be used to configure hardware RAID (which is controlled at the firmware level) for attached storage. Use the instructions in this document to create your integrated RAID volumes.

- `1.18.00.00-IT`. The IT in the version shows that this adapter is initiator-target based and does not support integrated RAID. LSI controllers that utilize IT firmware can be used to configure software RAID (which is controlled through software at the operating system level) for attached storage using operating system-based utilities. The instructions for configuring RAID described in this document do not apply to LSI controllers using IT firmware.

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Integrated RAID Features

The components of Integrated RAID are:

- Integrated Mirroring (IM), which supports two-disk mirrored arrays and hot-spare disks.

- Integrated Mirroring Enhanced (IME), which supports mirrored arrays with three to ten disks, plus hot-spare disks.

- Integrated Striping (IS), which supports striped arrays with two to ten disks.

Integrated RAID has the following features:

- Support for up to ten disks per IME or IS volume, with one or two storage volumes per SAS controller. Each controller can support up to 12 volume disks, plus one or two hot-spare disks, for a maximum of 14 disks per controller. (Support for this number of disks requires Integrated RAID firmware v1.20.00 or above.)

- Support for two-disk IM mirrored volumes

- System can boot from an IM, IME, or IS volume.

- Nonvolatile write journaling

- Physical disks are not visible to OS or to application software.

- Functionality is contained in device hardware and firmware.

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Using this Manual

Chapters 2 and 3 of this User’s Guide list IM/IME features and explain how to create IM/IME volumes and optional hot-spare disks.

Chapters 4 and 5 of this User’s Guide list IS features and explain how to create IS volumes and optional hot-spare disks.

Copyright © 2006, 2007 by LSI Logic Corporation. All rights reserved. © 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.