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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 1  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM
 Dell PowerEdge
RAID Controller (PERC) S100,
PERC S300
User’s Guide
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 2  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Notes, Cautions, and Warnings  NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of  your computer.  CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates potential damage to hardware or loss of data if  instructions are not followed.  WARNING:  A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal  injury, or death. ____________________ Information in this publication is subject to change without notice. © 2008—2011 Dell Inc. Al
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 3  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Contents 1 WARNING: Safety Instructions . . . . . . . . . 7 SAFETY: General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 SAFETY: When Working Inside Your System . . . . . . . 8 Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge . . . . . . . 9 2Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11 General Information, Intended Audience, and  Prerequisites for Use . . . . . . 
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 4  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM General Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31 Installing the PERC S300 Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . .  32 Connect Physical Disks to the PERC S300 Adapter . . .  35 Complete the Hardware Installation . . . . . . . . . .  35 5 Installing the Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37 Installing the Microsoft Windows Drivers . . . . . . .  37 6 RAID Configuration and  Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 C
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 5  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Supported RAID Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  79 Virtual Disk Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  80 9 Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 RAID Technology - Understanding Disk Arrays  and Virtual Disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  81 10 Appendix C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Regulatory Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  89 FCC Notice (U.S. Only) . .
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 6  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM 6 Contents                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 7  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM 1 WARNING: Safety Instructions Use the following safety guidelines to help ensure your own personal safety  and to help protect your system and working environment from potential  damage.  WARNING: Do not expose the Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller  (PERC) S300 adapter to liquids. To reduce risk of fire hazard, do not cover or  obstruct the ventilation openings of the system in which it is installed. Do not  install the controlle
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 8  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM SAFETY: General Observe and follow service markings: • Do not service any product except as explained in the user documentation.  Opening or removing covers that are marked with a triangular symbol with  a lightning bolt might expose you to electrical shock. Components inside  these compartments must be serviced only by a trained service technician. • Use the product only with Dell-approved equipment. • Operate the product only from the t
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 9  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM In addition, take note of these safety guidelines when appropriate: • When you disconnect any 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 the locking  tabs before disconnecting the cable. As you pull connectors apart, keep  them evenly aligned to avoid bending any connector pins. Also, before y
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 10  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM 10 WARNING: Safety Instructions                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 11  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM 2 Overview Introduction The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) S300 provides an integrated  software RAID solution for Dell PowerEdge Value Servers. The PERC S300  controllers support SAS and SATA interfaces. Containing two internal  connectors with four ports each, the PERC S300 adapter features  eight ports for connecting drives with a maximum burst speed of up to  3 Gbps per port.  The PERC S100 adaper is targeted as a low-cost RAI
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 12  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM This document is intended for use by system administrators and technicians  who are familiar with the storage system installation and configuration. Prerequisites for configuring and using the controller include familiarity with: • Servers and computer networks • RAID technology • Storage-interface technology, such as SAS and SATA Related Documentation For more information about the PERC S100 adapter or PERC S300 adapter  and its relatio
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 13  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Supported Platforms Table 2-1. Dell Systems and Support Matrix for the PERC S100 Adapter and  PERC S300 Adapter PowerEdge Server PERC Controller, with Chipset and Adapter Support per Platform PowerEdge R210 PERC S100 adapter – Intel Ibex Peak chipsets PERC S300 adapter – Dell 3Gb/s SAS Adapter PowerEdge R210 II PERC S100 adapter – Intel Cougar Point chipsets PERC S300 adapter – Dell 3Gb/s SAS Adapter PowerEdge R310 PERC S100 adapter – In
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 14  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Platform Requirements for the PERC S100 Controller and PERC S300  Controller Table 2-2. Platform Requirements — PERC S100 Controller or PERC S300 Controller Component Requirements Processor x86, 32-bit compatible processor greater than 500 MHz. Memory 512 MB or greater. Physical At least one Hard Disk Drives (HDD) or Solid State Disk (SSD) Drives. disk NOTE: The PERC S100 controller supports cabled configurations of up to  4 SATA HDD or 
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 15  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Table 2-2. Platform Requirements — PERC S100 Controller or PERC S300 Controller  Component Requirements Operating • Microsoft Windows Essential Business Server (x64)  systems • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (x64)  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (x64)  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (x86)  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Foundation    • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition  •
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 16  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Table 2-2. Platform Requirements — PERC S100 Controller or PERC S300 Controller  Component Requirements • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Web Edition (x64)  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Web Edition (x86)  • Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008    • Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 SP2    • Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 SP2 (x86 or x64) • Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011    • Microsoft Wi
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 17  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM About RAID A RAID disk array is a group of independent physical disks that provides high  performance by increasing the number of drives used for saving and accessing  data. A RAID disk subsystem improves I/O performance and data availability.  The physical disks appear to the host system either as a single storage unit or  multiple logical units. Data throughput improves because several disks are  accessed simultaneously. RAID systems a
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 18  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM RAID Terminology Disk Striping Disk striping allows you to write data across multiple physical disks instead of  just one physical disk. Disk striping involves partitioning each physical disk  storage space into stripes of the various sizes. These stripes are interleaved in  a repeated sequential manner. The part of the stripe on a single physical disk  is called a stripe element. For example, in a four-disk system using only disk stripi
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 19  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM  NOTE: Mirrored physical disks improve read performance by read load balancing.  NOTE: The PERC S300 controller only supports physical disks (SAS and SATA). SSD  devices cannot be migrated to a PERC S300 controller.  Figure 2-2. Example of Disk Mirroring (RAID 1) Stripe element 1 Stripe element 1 Duplicated Stripe element 2 Stripe element 2 Duplicated Stripe element 3 Stripe element 3 Duplicated Stripe element 4 Stripe element 4 Duplicat
                    
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                        A5_bk0.book  Page 20  Thursday, February 10, 2011  8:34 PM Figure 2-3. Example of Distributed Parity (RAID 5) stripe element1 stripe element2 stripe element3 stripe element4 stripe element5 parity (1-5) stripe element7 stripe element8 stripe element9 stripe element10 parity (6-10) stripe element6 stripe element13 stripe element14 stripe element15 parity (11-15) stripe element11 stripe element12 stripe element19 stripe element20 parity (16-20) stripe element16 stripe element17 stripe element18 st