Promise Technology TX8 - Manuals

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 2 F EATURES AND B ENEFITS Feature Benefit Maximum fault tolerance Ensures uninterrupted data availability Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 0+1, and JBOD Allows system to be tuned for maximum performance Emulates standard SCSI-3 drive to host Compatib...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 4 Before installing a new hard drive, be sure the jumpers on the new hard drives are set for single or master operation. Consult the drive manual for the proper settings. Install new hard drives into the UltraTrak100 by doing the following: 1. Open t...

5 C ONNECTING THE SCSI C ABLES Installation of the UltraTrak100 disk array is very similar to the installation of a standard SCSI drive. The SCSI connector accepts the standard 68-pin LVD SCSI connector used on most LVD SCSI devices. Refer to your system and/or SCSI host adapter manual for additiona...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 6 (the one which is attached to the SCSI adapter) to the top connector, and place an LVD SCSI active terminator on the other connector. An LVD SCSI active terminator is included with UltraTrak100 disk array unit. • If the array is to be placed in the...

7 device has a unique SCSI ID and that only the first and last devices are terminated. (See SCSI Cable Connection and Termination on page 5). Computer or Workstation UltraTrak100 TX4 UltraTrak100 TX4 Another SCSI Device Terminator W IDE SCSI SCSI I D COM2 Figure 4. Daisy Chaining UltraTrak100 with O...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 10 For the Gigabyte Boundary feature to work, the Gigabyte Boundary feature must be set to ON when the original array is created. When enabled, the Gigabyte Boundary feature rounds the drive capacity of all drives to the common whole GB drive size. F...

11 Recommended Applications for RAID 1 • Accounting • Payroll • Financial • Any application requiring very high availability RAID 3 Advantages Disadvantages High Read data transfer rate Disk failure has an insignificant impact on throughput Parity drive can become bottleneck if a lot of writes are o...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 12 JBOD Characteristics/Advantages Disadvantages Uses 100% capacity of all hard drives The failure of just one drive will result in all data in an array being lost Should not be used in mission critical environments Recommended Applications for JBOD ...

13 M AINTENANCE D RIVE S TATUS I NDICATORS As shown in the figure below, each drive has three status LEDs. Figure 5. Location of Drive Status Indicators (TX4 shown) M EANING OF S TATUS I NDICATORS Indicator Color Meaning Power Off No disk drive power – power off or no disk installed. Green Disk powe...

15 Reconstruction begins automatically as soon as a replacement drive becomes available to the array. However, if the replacement drive was formerly part of another array, then the previous array information must be deleted (from the replacement drive – see page 29, “Delete Array”, for more details)...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 16 9. Insert screws through the holes in the Drive Carrier and into the bottom of the new hard drive. Tighten each screw; be careful not to over tighten. 10. Slide the assembled Drive Carrier back into the UltraTrak100 and lock the Drive Carrier lock...

17 Caution Risk of electrical shock. When either power supply module is removed from the chassis, AC power is accessible at the circuitry in the power supply chassis. Only trained and qualified personnel should remove the power supplies. S C S I- IN S C S I- O U T/T E R M C O M - 1 O I 115 O I 115 O...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 18 U LTRA T RAK 100 F RONT P ANEL I NTERFACE The front panel interface for the UltraTrak100 consist of following items: ARRAY SCSI BUS UltraTrak100 TX4 EXIT SEL Type of Interface Name Comments LED Indicators Array Activity Indicator SCSI Bus Activity...

19 T HE LCD M ESSAGES The UltraTrak100 LCD message display panel has the following modes of operation: • Idle mode • Error mode • Configuration mode Idle Mode Provides an errormessage Error Mode View StatusConfigure ArrayConfigure CacheConfigure SCSI Configuration Mode I DLE M ODE The Idle mode mess...

21 View Status Cache Memory SizeCache Block SizeCache Read HitCache Write Hit View Cache Stats Array x Size RAID x Status View Array Information TemperatureFan 1 Status Fan 2 Status Fan 3 Status Fan 4 Status View Enclosure Memory SizeHardware RevFirmware Rev View Controller Info V IEW S TATUS M ENU ...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 22 V IEW C ONTROLLER I NFORMATION The View Controller Information mode displays UltraTrak100 firmware revision, memory size, and hardware revision: Memory Size: 16 MB Hardware Rev: PDC20265 Where the values shown are simply examples. Firmware Rev: V1...

23 V IEW A RRAY I NFORMATION The View Array Information mode displays the array ID, array size, RAID level and array status (Functional, Critical, Offline, Rebuilding and Synchronizing). If these modes of display require more than 2 lines to display information the up and down keys will be used to s...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 26 You will see the following message if all of the drives are already configured: No Free Disk What you can do: Press SEL : Pressing SEL will save the array. Press : Does nothing. Press : Does nothing. Press EXIT : Press EXIT to cancel this function...

27 D EFINE A RRAY The Define Array menu defines array parameters for the selected array. An array number is selected by using the up/down key to select the array number field. The SEL key is then used to select array number 1-4. The parameter to be configured, RAID Level or Stripe Block size, is the...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 28 S TRIPE B LOCK S IZE The Stripe Block Size menu allows you to select a Stripe Block Size between 4KB and 64KB: 4KB 8KB 16KB … 64KB Press or to move these items on the LCD. What you can do: Press SEL : Selects one of the active Stripe Block Size: P...

29 A DD /R EMOVE D RIVES The Add/Remove Drives menu assigns and removes drives from arrays. All free drives are displayed as one drive per line format. The SEL key toggles the drive between free and assigned. Assigned drives are designated by displaying Assigned and free drives are designated by dis...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 30 A DVANCED F EATURE Wipe out disk Synchronize Array Disable Buzzer Rebuild/Sync Pri. Press or to move these items on the LCD. What you can do: Press SEL : Selects one of the following active functions: Wipe out disk Moves the display to the Wipe ou...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 32 Configure Cache Write BackWrite Thru Write Cache C ONFIGURE C ACHE The Configure Cache menu will allow the setting of cache parameters. The following parameter is set in the Configure Cache menu: Write Cache What you can do: Press SEL : Selects on...

33 Configure SCSI IDLUN Mode List SCSI IDs 0 thru15 to be selectedfrom. SCSI ID C ONFIGURE SCSI The Configure SCSI menu will allow the setting of SCSI parameters. The following parameters are set in the configure SCSI menu: Mode SCSI ID What you can do: Press SEL : Selects one of the following activ...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 34 When using ID mode, if you have multiple arrays within an UltraTrak100 unit, each array will use a separate SCSI ID. When using LUN mode, each UltraTrak100 unit will use a single SCSI ID, with the first array being LUN 0, the second array being LU...

35 C ONTACTING P ROMISE S UPPORT Promise Technical Support provides several support options for Promise users to access information and updates. We encourage you to use one of our electronic services, which provide product information updates for the most efficient service and support. If you decide...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 36 Pacific Rim Sales Office E-mail Support [email protected] Fax Technical Support +886 3 578 23 90 Attention: Technical Support Phone Technical Support +886 3 578 23 95 9:00-5:30pm Taiwan Time If you wish to write us for support: Promise Techno...

37 L IMITED W ARRANTY Promise Technology, Inc. (Promise Technology) warrants that for two (2) years from the time of the delivery of the product to the original end user: a. the product will conform to Promise Technology’s specifications; b. the product will be free from defects in material and work...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 40 Y OUR R ESPONSIBILITIES You are responsible for determining whether the product is appropriate for your use and will interface with your equipment without malfunction or damage. You are also responsible for backing up your data before installing a...

41 A PPENDIX A - T ECHNOLOGY B ACKGROUND I NTRODUCTION TO RAID RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) allows multiple hard drives to be combined together to form one large logical drive or “array.” As far as the operating system is concerned, the array represents a single storage device, and tr...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 42 RAID 1 – M IRRORING When a disk array is mirrored, identical data is written to a pair of drives, while reads are performed in parallel. The reads are performed using elevator seek and load balancing techniques where the workload is distributed in...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 44 RAID 3 – B LOCK S TRIPING WITH P ARITY D RIVE RAID level 3 organizes data across the physical drives of the array, and stores parity information on to a drive dedicated to this purpose. This organization allows increased performance by accessing m...

45 RAID 5 – B LOCK AND P ARITY S TRIPING RAID 5 is similar to RAID 3 as described above except that the parity data is rotated across the physical drives along with the block data. Having the parity data striped across all the physical drives in this manner removes the random write performance bottl...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 46 JBOD (S PANNING ) In a Spanning array, the disk array capacity is equal to the sum of all drives, even if the drives are of different capacities. Spanning stores data onto a drive until it is completely filled then proceeds to store data on to the...

47 Appendix B - Frequently Asked Questions This section lists frequently asked questions involving pre-installation, drive issues, installation, and post-installation. Q. What kind of hard drives can I use for an UltraTrak100 array? A. You can use any Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/33/66, or EIDE hard dri...

UltraTrak100 TX4 and UltraTrak100 TX8 User Manual 48 Q. Why can’t I see the drives on the UltraTrak100 under FDISK? A. If you have not created an array, the physical drive(s) attached to the UltraTrak100 card will not be recognized by the operating system. The UltraTrak100 controller is dedicated to...