Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 3 User's Manual

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www.dell.com | support.dell.com Dell™ PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 3/QC, 3/DC, 3/DCL and 3/SC PERC 3 User’s Guide ...

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____________________ Information in this document is subject to change without notice. © 2002 Dell Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Computer Corporation is stric...

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1 Safety Instructions CAUTION: Safety Instructions Use the following safety guidelines to help ensure your own personal safety and to help protect your computer and working environment from potential damage. General • Do not attempt to service t...

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2 www.dell.com | support.dell.com • To help protect your computer from sudden, transient increases and decreases in electrical power, use a surge suppressor, line conditioner, or uninterruptible power supply (UPS). • Ensure that nothing rests o...

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3 NOTE: The voltage selection switch must be set to the 115-V position even though the AC power available in Japan is 100 V. • 100 V/50 Hz in eastern Japan and 100 V/60 Hz in western Japan • 230 V/50 Hz in some regions in the Caribbean and ...

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4 www.dell.com | support.dell.com • When you disconnect a cable, pull on its connector or on its strain- relief loop, not on the cable itself. Some cables have a connector with locking tabs; if you are disconnecting this type of cable, press in on...

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5 Ergonomic Computing Habits CAUTION: Improper or prolonged keyboard use may result in injury. CAUTION: Viewing the monitor screen for extended periods of time may result in eye strain. Battery Disposal Do not dispose of the battery along with...

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6 www.dell.com | support.dell.com ...

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Contents 7 Contents Safety Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 Overview PERC 3 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 PERC 3 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 ...

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8 Contents Parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Hot Spares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Disk Rebuilds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Hot Swap . . . . . . . . . ...

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9 Contents PERC 3/SC Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 PCI Bridge/CPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Cache Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 PERC 3/SC BIOS . . . . . . . ....

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10 Contents SCSI Firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 RAID Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 6 PERC 3/QC Features Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Configuratio...

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11 Contents Physical Device Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Configuring Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Arranging Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Creating Hot Spares . ....

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12 Contents Step 5—Install PERC 3/SC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Step 6—Connect SCSI Cables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Step 7—Set Target IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Step 8—Power On Host System . ....

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13 Contents Optional Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 PERC 3/QC Card Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Installation Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Step 1—Unpack the PERC 3...

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14 Contents PERC 3/QC and PERC 3/DC Default Settings . . . . . . . . . 161 PERC 3/SC and PERC 3/DCL Default Settings . . . . . . . . . 161 Reserved Disk Space during Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Designating Drives as Hot Spares . . . . . ...

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Contents 15 Dell Manager Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Initialize Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Objects Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Format Menu . . . . . . . . . ...

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16 Contents 14 Appendix A: SCSI Cables and Connectors 15 Appendix B: Warranties and Return Policy Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

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Figures 17 Figures Figure 2-1. Example of Disk Striping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Figure 2-2. Example of Disk Mirroring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Figure 2-3. Example of Disk Spanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Figure 2-4....

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18 Figures ...

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Tables 19 Tables Table 1-1. Maximum Cable Length for SCSI Standards . . . . . . 26 Table 1-2. SCSI Bus Widths and Maximum Throughput . . . . . . 27 Table 2-1. Spanning for RAID 10 and RAID 50 . . . . . . . . . . 36 Table 2-2. Types of Parity . ...

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20 Tables Table 6-3. Hardware Architecture Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Table 6-4. Array Performance Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Table 6-5. Fault Tolerance Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Table 6-6. Software Util...

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Tables 21 Table 9-6. J13 Dirty Cache LED Pinout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Table 9-7. J14 SCSI Activity Pinout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Table 9-8. J16 and J18 TERMPWR Enable Settings . . . . . . . 124 Table 9-9. J17 I2C Connector ...

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22 Tables Table 12-9. Rebuild Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Table 13-1. General Problems and Suggested Solutions . . . . . . 204 Table 13-2. BIOS Boot Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Table 13-3. Other BIOS Err...

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SECTION 1 Overview PERC 3 Overview PERC 3 Features ...

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24 Overview www.dell.com | support.dell.com PERC 3 Overview The Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 3 (PERC 3) PCI card is a high-performance, intelligent peripheral component interconnect (PCI)-to-SCSI host adapter with RAID control ca...

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Overview 25 • Two internal and four external connectors for the PERC 3/QC, two internal and two external connectors for the PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL, and one internal and one external connector for the PERC 3/SC • RAID levels 0 (striping), 1 (...

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26 Overview www.dell.com | support.dell.com PERC 3/SC has one ultra-high-density 68-pin external connector for the external storage subsystem and one high-density 68-pin internal connector. Single-Ended and LVD SCSI Buses The SCSI standard defines t...

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Overview 27 Operating System Support PERC 3 supports the following operating systems: •Microsoft ® Windows ® 2000: Server, Advanced Server, Small Business Server •Microsoft Windows NT ® 4: Server, Terminal Server, Enterprise Server, Small...

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28 Overview www.dell.com | support.dell.com ...

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SECTION 2 Introduction to RAID RAID Definition PERC 3 Host-Based RAID Solution Components and Features ...

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30 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com RAID Definition RAID is an array of multiple independent hard disk drives that provides high performance and fault tolerance. The RAID array appears to the host computer as a single storage un...

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Introduction to RAID 31 • The number of SCSI channels and SCSI hard drives Components and Features RAID versions, or levels, are specifications that describe a system for ensuring the availability and stability of data stored on large disk subsy...

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32 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com A hot spare is an unused online disk that, in case of a disk failure in a redundant RAID array, can be used to rebuild the data and re-establish redundancy. After the hot spare is automaticall...

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Introduction to RAID 33 Figure 2-1. Example of Disk Striping Stripe Width Stripe width is the number of disks involved in an array where striping is implemented. For example, a four-disk array with disk striping has a stripe width of four. Stripe S...

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34 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com Disk Mirroring With mirroring (used in RAID 1), data written to one disk is simultaneously written to another disk. If one disk fails, the contents of the other disk can be used to run the sys...

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Introduction to RAID 35 Disk Spanning Disk spanning allows multiple physical drives to function like one big drive. Spanning overcomes lack of disk space and simplifies storage management by combining existing resources or adding relatively inexpen...

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36 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com Spanning for RAID 10 or RAID 50 Table 2-1 describes how to configure RAID 10 and RAID 50 by spanning. NOTE: Spanning two contiguous RAID 0 logical drives does not produce a new RAID level ...

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Introduction to RAID 37 Figure 2-4. Example of Parity Hot Spares A hot spare is an extra, unused disk drive that is part of the disk subsystem. It is usually in standby mode, ready for service if a drive fails. Hot spares permit you to replace fail...

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38 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com NOTE: Refer to Chapter 11 "PERC 3 BIOS Configuration Utility" for the procedures used to designate a drive as a hot spare. There are two types of hot spares: • Global Hot Spare...

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Introduction to RAID 39 Rebuilding can be done only in arrays with data redundancy, which includes as RAID 1, 5, 10 and 50. A hot spare can be used to rebuild disk drives in RAID 1, 5, 10, or 50 systems. If a hot spare is not available, the failed ...

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40 Introduction to RAID www.dell.com | support.dell.com Logical Drive States The logical drive states are listed in Table 2-4. Enclosure Management Enclosure management is the intelligent monitoring of the disk subsystem by software and/or hardwar...

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SECTION 3 RAID Levels Overview Selecting a RAID Level RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 RAID 50 ...

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42 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Overview There are six official RAID levels (RAID 0 through RAID 5.) PERC 3 supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50. The RAID levels that PERC 3 supports are shown in Table 3-1. PERC 3 also supports i...

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RAID Levels 43 RAID 0 RAID 0 provides disk striping across all drives in the RAID subsystem. RAID 0 does not provide any data redundancy, but does offer the best performance of any RAID level. RAID 0 breaks up data into smaller blocks and then wri...

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44 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 3-1 displays an example of a RAID 0 array. Figure 3-1. RAID 0 Array Segment 1 Segment 5 Segment 7 Segment 2 Segment 6 Segment 10 Segment 3 Segment 7 Segment 11 Segment 4 Segment 8 Segment 12 ...

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RAID Levels 45 RAID 1 In RAID 1, the RAID controller duplicates all data from one drive to a second drive. RAID 1 provides complete data redundancy, but at the cost of doubling the required data storage capacity, as shown in Figure 3-2. Table 3- 3 ...

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46 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 3-2. RAID 1 Array RAID 5 RAID 5 includes disk striping at the block level and parity. In RAID 5, the parity information is written to several drives. RAID 5 is best suited for networks that perf...

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RAID Levels 47 Table 3-4. RAID 5 Overview Uses RAID 5 provides high data throughput, especially for large files. Use RAID 5 for transaction processing applications because each drive can read and write independently. If a drive fails, PERC 3 uses ...

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48 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 3-3 displays an example of a RAID 5 array. Figure 3-3. RAID 5 Array RAID 10 RAID 10 is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1. RAID 10 has mirrored drives. RAID 10 breaks up data into smaller blocks,...

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RAID Levels 49 Table 3-5. RAID 10 Overview Uses RAID 10 works best for data storage that needs 100% redundancy of mirrored arrays and that also needs the enhanced I/O performance of RAID 0 (striped arrays.) RAID 10 works well for medium-sized data...

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50 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 3-4. RAID 10 Array RAID 50 RAID 50 provides the features of both RAID 0 and RAID 5. RAID 50 includes both parity and disk striping across multiple drives. RAID 50 is best implemented on two RAID...

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RAID Levels 51 RAID 50 can sustain one to four drive failures while maintaining data integrity if each failed disk is in a different RAID 5 array. Table 3-6 provides an overview of RAID 50. Table 3-6. RAID 50 Overview Uses RAID 50 works best when us...

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52 RAID Levels www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 3-5 displays an example of a RAID 50 array. Figure 3-5. RAID 50 Array Segment 1 Segment 6 Parity (9-10) Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3 Disk 4 Disk 5 Disk 6 Data Flow RAID 5 RAID 5 Segment 2 Parity (5-6) Seg...

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SECTION 4 PERC 3/SC Features Hardware Requirements Configuration Features Hardware Architecture Features Array Performance Features PERC 3/SC Fault Tolerance Features Software Utilities Operating System Software Drivers PERC 3/SC Specifications ...

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54 PERC 3/SC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Requirements PERC 3/SC has one SCSI) channel that supports 160M and Wide SCSI at data transfer rates up to 160 MB/s. The SCSI channel supports up to 15 Wide devices or up to seven narro...

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PERC 3/SC Features 55 SMART Technology The PERC 3/SC self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) detects predictable drive failures. SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and drive electronics. Configuration o...

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56 PERC 3/SC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Architecture Features The PERC 3/SC hardware architecture features are shown in Table 4-3. Array Performance Features The PERC 3/SC array performance features are shown in Table 4-4. User...

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PERC 3/SC Features 57 PERC 3/SC Fault Tolerance Features The PERC 3/SC fault tolerance features are shown in Table 4-5. Software Utilities The PERC 3/SC software utilities are shown in Table 4-6. Maximum scatter/gathers 26 elements Maximum size of I/...

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58 PERC 3/SC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Operating System Software Drivers Operating System Drivers PERC 3/SC includes a disk operating system (DOS) software configuration utility and drivers for Microsoft ® Windows NT ® V4.0, Wind...

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PERC 3/SC Features 59 PCI Bridge/CPU PERC 3/SC uses the Intel i960RM PCI bridge with an embedded i960RM RISC processor running at 100 MHz. The RM bridge handles data transfers between the primary (host) PCI bus, the secondary PCI bus, cache memory,...

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60 PERC 3/SC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com PERC 3/SC BIOS The BIOS resides on a 1 MB × 8 flash ROM for easy upgrade. The PERC 3/SC BIOS supports INT 13h calls to boot DOS without special software or device drivers. The PERC 3/SC BIOS pr...

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PERC 3/SC Features 61 SCSI Firmware The PERC 3/SC firmware handles all RAID and SCSI command processing and also supports the features shown in Table 4-8. RAID Management RAID management is provided by software utilities that manage and configure t...

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62 PERC 3/SC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Dell Manager Dell Manager is a character-based, non-GUI utility that changes policies and parameters, and monitors RAID systems. Dell Manager runs under Novell NetWare 5.x, 6.x, and Red Hat Linu...

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SECTION 5 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features Hardware Requirements Configuration Features Hardware Architecture Features Array Performance Features Fault Tolerance Features Software Utilities Operating System Software Drivers PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL...

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64 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Requirements NOTE: The PERC 3/DC has a battery option, while the PERC 3/DCL does not have a battery option. PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL have two SCSI channels that suppor...

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PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features 65 SMART Technology The PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) detects predictable drive failures. SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and driv...

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66 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Architecture Features Table 5-3 displays the PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL hardware architecture features. More than 200 qtags per array Yes Hardware clustering support on the ...

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PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features 67 Array Performance Features Table 5-4 displays the PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL array performance features. Fault Tolerance Features Table 5-5 lists the fault tolerance features. Table 5-4. Array Performance Features ...

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68 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Software Utilities Table 5-6 lists the software utilities. Operating System Software Drivers PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL include a Disk Operating System (DOS) software configuration u...

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PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features 69 PCI Bridge/CPU Both PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL use the Intel i960RN PCI bridge with an embedded i960RN RISC processor running at 100 MHz. The RN bridge handles data transfers between the primary (host) PCI bus, th...

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70 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Cache Memory Either 64 MB or 128 MB of PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL cache memory reside in a memory bank that uses a 64 MB or 128 MB SDRAM DIMM. PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL support write...

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PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features 71 SCSI Connectors The PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL adapter has two types of SCSI connectors: • Two 68-pin high density internal connectors • Two 68-pin external ultra-high-density connectors Only one connector typ...

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72 PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com RAID Management RAID management is provided by software utilities that manage and configure the RAID system and PERC 3/DC and PERC 3/DCL, create and manage multiple disk arrays, c...

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SECTION 6 PERC 3/QC Features Hardware Requirements Configuration Features Hardware Architecture Features Array Performance Features Fault Tolerance Features Software Utilities Operating System Software Drivers PERC 3/QC Specifications ...

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74 PERC 3/QC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Requirements PERC 3/QC is a high-performance intelligent peripheral component interconnect (PCI)-to-SCSI host adapter with RAID control capabilities. PERC 3/QC has four SCSI channels th...

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PERC 3/QC Features 75 NOTE: The PERC 3/QC does not support clustering. SMART Technology The PERC 3/QC self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) detects predictable drive failures. SMART monitors the internal performance of all mo...

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76 PERC 3/QC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Hardware Architecture Features Table 6-3 lists the PERC 3/QC hardware architecture features. Array Performance Features Table 6-4 lists the array performance features. User-specified rebuild rate ...

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PERC 3/QC Features 77 Fault Tolerance Features The fault tolerance features are listed in Table 6-5. Software Utilities The software utilities are listed in Table 6-6. Drive data transfer rate 160 MB/s Maximum scatter/gathers 26 elements Maximum size...

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78 PERC 3/QC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Operating System Software Drivers PERC 3/QC includes a DOS software configuration utility and drivers for Microsoft ® Windows NT ® 4.0, Windows ® 2000, Novell ® NetWare ® and Red Hat L...

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PERC 3/QC Features 79 PCI Bridge/CPU PERC 3/QC uses the Intel i960RN PCI bridge with an embedded i960RN RISC processor running at 100 MHz. The RN bridge handles data transfers between the primary (host) PCI bus, the secondary PCI bus, cache memory,...

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80 PERC 3/QC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com PERC 3/QC BIOS The BIOS resides on a 1 MB × 8 flash ROM for easy upgrade. The PERC 3/QC BIOS supports INT 13h calls to boot DOS without special software or device drivers. The PERC 3/QC BIOS pr...

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PERC 3/QC Features 81 SCSI Firmware The PERC 3/QC firmware handles all RAID and SCSI command processing and supports the features described in Table 6-8. RAID Management RAID management is provided by software utilities that manage and configure t...

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82 PERC 3/QC Features www.dell.com | support.dell.com Dell Manager Dell Manager is a character-based, non-GUI utility that changes policies, and parameters, and monitors RAID systems. Dell Manager runs under Novell NetWare 5.x, 6.x, and Red Hat Lin...

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SECTION 7 Configuring PERC 3 Configuring SCSI Physical Drives Current Configuration Logical Drive Configuration Physical Device Layout Configuring Arrays Configuration Strategies Assigning RAID Levels Configuring Logical Drives Optimizing Data Storag...

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84 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Configuring SCSI Physical Drives Physical SCSI drives must be organized into logical drives. The arrays and logical drives that you construct must be able to support the RAID) level that you sel...

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Configuring PERC 3 85 Use Table 7-2 to list the devices that you assign to each SCSI ID for SCSI Channel 1. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Table 7-2. Current Configuration for SCSI Channel 1 SCSI ID Device Description SCSI Channel 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11...

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86 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Use Table 7-3 to list the devices that you assign to each SCSI ID for SCSI Channel 2. 13 14 15 Table 7-3. Current Configuration for SCSI Channel 2 SCSI ID Device Description SCSI Channel 2 0 1 ...

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Configuring PERC 3 87 Use Table 7-4 to list the devices that you assign to each SCSI ID for SCSI Channel 3. Logical Drive Configuration Use Table 7-5 to list the details for each logical drive that you configure. Table 7-5. Logical Drive Configurat...

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88 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com LD2 LD3 LD4 LD5 LD6 LD7 LD8 LD9 LD10 LD11 LD12 LD13 LD14 LD15 LD16 LD17 LD18 LD19 LD20 LD21 LD22 LD23 LD24 LD25 LD26 LD27 LD28 LD29 LD30 Logical Drive RAID Stripe Size Logical Drive Size Cache ...

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Configuring PERC 3 89 Physical Device Layout Use Table 7-6 to list the details for each physical device on the channels. LD31 LD32 LD33 LD34 LD35 LD36 LD37 LD38 LD39 Logical Drive RAID Stripe Size Logical Drive Size Cache Policy Read Policy Wri...

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90 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Device type Logical drive number/ Drive number Manufacturer/Model number Firmware level Target ID Device type Logical drive number/ Drive number Manufacturer/Model number Firmware level Target...

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Configuring PERC 3 91 Manufacturer/Model number Firmware level Target ID Device type Logical drive number/ Drive number Manufacturer/Model number Firmware level Target ID Device type Logical drive number/ Drive number Manufacturer/Model number F...

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92 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Configuring Arrays Connect the physical drives to the RAID controller, configure the disks, then initialize them. PERC 3 supports up to 40 arrays. An array is a group of physical disk drives. An...

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Configuring PERC 3 93 Arranging Arrays You must arrange the arrays to provide additional organization for the drive array. You must arrange arrays so that you can create system drives that can function as boot devices. You can sequentially arrange ...

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94 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Maximizing Capacity RAID 0 achieves maximum drive capacity, but does not provide data redundancy. Maximum drive capacity for each RAID level is shown below. original equipment manufacturer (OEM)...

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Configuring PERC 3 95 Maximizing Drive Performance You can configure an array for optimal performance; however, optimal drive configuration for one type of application will probably not be optimal for any other application. A basic guideline of th...

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96 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Configuring Logical Drives After you have installed the PERC 3 controller in the server and have attached all physical disk drives, perform the following steps to prepare a RAID disk array: 1 Op...

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Configuring PERC 3 97 Servers that support Video on Demand typically read the data often, but write data infrequently. Both the read and write operations tend to be long. Data stored on a general-purpose file server involves relatively short read ...

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98 Configuring PERC 3 www.dell.com | support.dell.com Using the Array Configuration Planner Table 7-12 lists RAID levels, fault tolerance, and effective capacity for some possible drive configurations for an array consisting of one to 32 drives. Th...