Avago Technologies 3ware SAS 9750-16i4e - Manual (Page 93)

Configuring a New Unit
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Stripe size, if appropriate for the RAID level
Striping is not applicable for RAID 1 units or single drives.It used only for
RAID 0, RAID 10, RAID 5, RAID 50, and RAID 6 units.
Striping is not applicable for RAID 1, because it is a mirrored array without
striping.
Using the default stripe size of 256 KB usually gives you the best
performance for mixed I/Os. If your application has some specific I/O pattern
(purely sequential or purely random), you might want to experiment with a
smaller or larger stripe size.
Boot volume size
When you create a unit through 3BM or CLI, you can create a special volume
to function as the boot volume. This is useful if you are installing an operating
system onto the unit, and want it to be installed in one volume and have a
separate volume for data.
This is an optional feature. You do not have to create a boot volume if you
plan to install the operating system on the unit.
If you are creating a very large unit and have enabled the Auto-Carving
policy, the boot volume will be created in addition to any volumes created
through auto-carving. For more information about auto-carving, see “Using
Auto-Carving for Multi LUN Support” on page 71.
This feature can only be specified in 3BM and CLI.
Initialization Method
In 3BM, you can choose to do a foreground (default) or background
initialization of the unit. 3DM2 and CLI can only use background
initialization when creating a unit.
A foreground initialization will take place before the system is booted. It can
take up to several hours, depending on the size of the unit.
A background initialization allows you to have immediate use of the unit, but
will take longer and slows down performance of the unit until it completes.
If your unit starts a foreground initialization and you want to use it
immediately, you can press
Esc and the unit will switch to using background
initialization.
Warning: Creating a unit writes the DCB and makes any earlier data on the drives
inaccessible.