Advanced disk and volume management, Drive configurations, Software-raid nas system drive configuration – Dell PowerVault 725N (Rackmount NAS Appliance) User Manual
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Advanced Disk and Volume Management
Dell™ PowerVault™ 725N NAS Systems Administrator's Guide
Using Array Manager to Manage Your Disks and Volumes
Working With Software-RAID NAS System Mirrors
This section provides information about the drives on your NAS system and how to use Dell OpenManage™ Array Manager to manage your disks and volumes
and your physical hard drives.
Drive Configurations
The following subsections describe the following two NAS system drive configurations:
l
Software RAID — If your NAS system uses software RAID, see "
Software-RAID NAS System Drive Configuration
" in this section of the guide.
l
Hardware RAID — If your NAS system uses hardware RAID, see "
Hardware-RAID NAS System Drive Configuration
" in this section of the guide.
Software-RAID NAS System Drive Configuration
The NAS system with software RAID contains four IDE hard drives that are in a RAID configuration. Each drive contains both a copy of the operating system
and one or more data partitions. See
. The working copies of the Microsoft® Windows® Powered operating system and boot sectors
are installed on two hard drives in partitions that are RAID 1 (mirrored) partitions. An additional copy of the operating system is placed on the other two drives
in RAID 1 partitions. Data can be stored on all four IDE hard drives in partitions that are configured as RAID 5 by default.
Table 3-1. Software RAID Default Hard-Drive Partitions
Figure 3-1. Software RAID Default Hard-Drive Partitions
NOTE:
For instructions on how to determine if you have a software-RAID or a hardware-RAID NAS system, see "
Determining if a NAS System Uses
Software RAID or Hardware RAID
" in the "NAS Manager" section of this guide.
NOTICE:
The software RAID and hardware RAID hard-drive carriers operate differently and are not interchangeable between the two types of NAS
systems. The hardware RAID hard-drive carriers have a "HW-RAID" identification label and the software RAID hard-drive carriers have a "SW-RAID"
identification label.
Volume Hard Drives and RAID Layout Description
C:
0 and 1: RAID 1
Primary operating system volume
D:
2 and 3: RAID 1
Recovery operating system volume
E:
0, 1, 2, and 3: RAID 5
Data volume
NOTE:
The data volume can be reconfigured as RAID 0. See "
Reconfiguring a Software-RAID NAS System Volume
" in the "NAS Manager" section of this
guide.