RAID configuration practices on IBM X3650 M3 servers

Source: Internet
Author: User

Background: RAID is a Redundant Array composed of multiple low-cost disks. It appears as an independent large storage device in the operating system. RAID can give full play to the advantages of multiple hard disks, increase the speed of the hard disk, increase the capacity, and provide Fault Tolerance functions to ensure data security. In the case of any disk failure, you can continue to work, the disk will not be damaged. RAID can be divided into soft raid and hard raid. Generally, medium and high-grade servers use hardware raid controllers. Hardware Raid is based on Raid cards, and software RAID is based on operating systems.

The organization has a new IBM X3650 M3 server ready for testing and has not personally performed RAID for some time. Looking at the machine configuration parameter list, we can find that RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 are supported by the RAID card. Generally, when a hard disk is connected to a RAID card, the operating system cannot directly view the physical hard disk. Therefore, you need to create a RAID so that the system can correctly identify it and then install the system. Perform RAID10 on the machine as needed. The specific steps are as follows:
1. START the machine. A <CTRL> + <H> prompt is displayed during the self-check process. Press these two keys and then click START To Go To The WEBBIOS graphic setting interface. Description:

 

2. click Configuration Wizard to enter the array setting Wizard.
 

Clear Configuration: Clear existing Configuration information. Note that all data will be lost.
New Configuration: clears existing Configuration information and creates New configurations.
Add Configuration: Retain the original Configuration information and Add a new hard disk to the original Configuration. (This configuration usually does not cause data loss, but this operation is risky. We recommend that you back up data first !)
Note: If you select the first two options (Clear Configuration and New Configuration), all
Data! Back up all data first! If it is a new machine, you don't have to worry about it.
Next, select New Configuration, click Select disk on the left, and then select addtoarray to add it to diskgroups on the right. Add two disks to a group. After creating the first group, click accept dg.

To configure raid10, you must create two Disk groups with the same number of physical hard disks, as shown in.

Select the corresponding hard Disk. After configuring the Disk Group, click the Accept button. Click Next to Go to The Span configuration page. Select an existing Disk Group and click Add to SPAN to Add it to Span. Click Next.

Go to the configure RAID10 parameters page and modify the parameters as needed. Such as Strip Size and RAID Level. (The default setting is recommended .) After the configuration is complete, click the Accept button.

Go to the Virtual Disk preview page. After confirming that there are no errors, click the Accept button.

The system prompts you to save the configuration information. Click Yes.
 

The system prompts that all data will be lost. After confirmation, click "Yes.
 

The interface that is displayed after the configuration is complete.
 

When you click the Home button to return to the main interface, you can see the status of all hard disks.
 

Click Exit to save and Exit. Restart the machine and mount the boot disk to install the system.

Supplement:

Several RAID Modes

1. RAID0 is the Data Stripping technology. RAID 0 can connect multiple hard disks into a larger hard disk group to improve disk performance and throughput. RAID 0 has no redundancy or error repair capability. It is low in cost and requires at least two disks. Generally, RAID 0 is used only when the data security requirements are not high. (1) RAID 0 is the simplest way to concatenate x hard disks in the form of hardware through a smart disk controller or a disk driver in the operating system in the form of software, an independent logical drive is formed, x times the capacity of a separate hard disk. Data is written to each disk in turn during computer data writing. When the space of a disk is exhausted, data is automatically written to the next disk. The advantage is that the disk capacity can be increased. The speed is the same as that of any disk. If any disk fails, the entire system will be damaged. The reliability is 1/n of a single hard disk. (2) another method of RAID 0 is to use n hard disks to select a reasonable disk size to create a disk set. It is best to assign a dedicated disk controller to each hard disk, data is read and written to n disks at the same time during computer data reading and writing, improving the speed by n times. Improve system performance. 2. RAID 1 RAID 1 is called a disk image: It mirrors data from one disk to another, ensuring system reliability and maintainability without affecting performance, it has a high data redundancy capability, but the disk utilization is 50%, so the cost is the highest. It is used to store critical data. RAID 1 has the following features: (1) Each disk in RAID 1 has a corresponding image disk, and data is synchronized to the image at any time, the system can read data from any disk of an image disk. (2) the space used by the disk is only half of the total disk capacity, and the system cost is high. (3) As long as there is at least one disk on any one of the image disks in the system, the system can run normally even when half of the hard disks are faulty. (4) If the RAID system is no longer reliable due to a hard disk failure, the damaged hard disk should be replaced in a timely manner. Otherwise, the entire system will crash if there are problems with the remaining image disks. (5) After the new disk is changed, the original data will require a long time synchronization Image, and external access to the data will not be affected, but the performance of the entire system will decrease. (6) RAID 1 has a large disk controller load. Using Multiple disk controllers can improve data security and availability. 3. RAID0 + 1 combines RAID0 and RAID1 technologies. In addition to data distributed across multiple disks, each disk has its physical image disk, providing full redundancy, the following disk failures are allowed, without affecting data availability, and are capable of fast reading/writing. For RAID 0 + 1, you must create at least four hard disks with a zone set in the disk image. 4. When data is written to RAID2, the computer saves the data bits on one disk, and saves the Hamming checkcode obtained by the bitwise operation of the data to another disk, the Hamming code can correct errors in case of data errors to ensure correct output. However, the Hamming Code uses data redundancy technology, so that the output data rate depends on the slowest disk in the drive group. The RAID2 controller is easy to design. 5. RAID3: parallel transmission of RAID 3 with a parity code uses a dedicated disk to store all the verification data, and creates read/write operations with the scattered data in the remaining disk. When reading data from an intact RAID 3 system, you only need to find the corresponding data block in the data storage disk for read operations. However, when writing data to RAID 3, you must calculate the check value of all data blocks in the same zone as the data block and re-write the new value to the check block, this increases the system overhead. When a disk fails, all data blocks on the disk must be re-created using the verification information. If the data block to be read is located on the damaged disk, the system must read all other data blocks in the same zone at the same time and reconstruct the lost data based on the check value, which slows down the system. After a damaged disk is replaced, the system must create a data block and a data block to reconstruct the data in the bad disk. The performance of the entire system will be seriously affected. The biggest disadvantage of RAID 3 is that the verification disk can easily become the bottleneck of the entire system. Applications that often perform a large number of write operations will cause the performance of the entire RAID system to decline. RAID 3 is suitable for databases and WEB servers. 6. RAID4RAID4 is an independent disk structure with a parity code. RAID4 and RAID3 are very similar. It accesses data by data block, that is, by disk, each time a disk is created, RAID4 features exactly the same as RAID3. However, in case of failure recovery, it is much more difficult than RAID3, and the controller design is much more difficult, in addition, the data access efficiency is not very good. 7. RAID 5 disperses the verification block to all data disks. RAID 5 uses a special algorithm to calculate the storage location of any band verification block. This ensures that any read/write operations on the verification block are balanced across all RAID disks, eliminating the possibility of bottlenecks. The reading efficiency of RAID5 is very high, the writing efficiency is average, and the block-based collective access efficiency is good. RAID 5 improves the system reliability, but it does not solve the data transmission concurrency well, and the controller design is also quite difficult. 8. RAID6RAID6 is an independent disk structure with two parity codes for distributed storage. It is an extension of RAID5 and is mainly used when data is absolutely error-free, two parity values are used, so we need N + two disks. At the same time, the design of the controller becomes very complex and the write speed is not good, it takes a lot of time to calculate the parity value and verify the correctness of the data, resulting in unnecessary load, which is rarely used. 9. RAID7RAID7 is an optimized high-speed data transmission disk structure. All I/O transfers are synchronized and can be controlled separately, this improves the system concurrency and the speed at which the system accesses data. Each disk has a high-speed buffer memory. The real-time operating system can use any real-time operating chip to meet the needs of different real-time systems. The SNMP protocol can be used for management and monitoring, and an independent transfer channel can be specified for the verification area to improve efficiency. Multiple hosts can be connected. When multiple users access the system, the access time is close to 0. However, if the system is powered off, all the data in the high-speed buffer memory will be lost. Therefore, it is necessary to work with the UPS, And the RAID7 system costs a lot. 10. RAID10RAID10 is a high-reliability and efficient disk structure. It is a zone-based structure and a mirror structure, which can achieve both high efficiency and high speed.

This article is from the "dripping water and stone" blog. Please keep this source

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