Learn About Creating Logical Drives and Arrays

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A logical drive is the logical entity that will store your data. You can create a single logical drive from either unconfigured capacity or free capacity . Use the Configure >> Create Logical Drive option for each new logical drive you want to create.

An array is a set of drives that the controller logically groups together to provide one or more logical drives to an application host. When you create a logical drive from unconfigured capacity, you create an array and the logical drive at the same time. When you create a logical drive from free capacity, you are creating an additional logical drive on an already existing array. With the advent of larger capacity drives and the ability to distribute logical drives across controllers, creating more than one logical drive per array is a good way to make use of your storage capacity and protect your data.

Important:

Creating a Logical Drive from Unconfigured Capacity

To create an individual logical drive from unconfigured capacity you first define the parameters for the array. To do so, you specify the RAID level and the capacity. The RAID level indicates how the data will be striped across the drives in the array and its level of data protection. The capacity indicates how many drives you want to include in the array. You use the Select Array dialog to specify the RAID level and capacity. Note that the Select Array dialog only appears when you are creating a logical drive from an unconfigured capacity node. For more information, see Selecting an Array.

Next, you specify the parameters for the individual logical drive you will create on the array, using the Specify Logical Drive Parameters dialog.

Creating a Logical Drive from Free Capacity

Because free capacity resides only on an existing array, the overall capacity (number of drives) and RAID level have already been specified. Therefore, the Select Array dialog is by-passed when you create a logical drive from free capacity. When you select a Free Capacity node, the only need to specify the parameters for the individual logical drive you plan to create on the array. Use the Specify Logical Drive Parameters dialog to specify those parameters. For more information, see Specifying Logical Drive Parameters.

Related Topics

Creating a Storage Subsystem Logical Drive

Selecting an Array

Specifying Logical Drive Parameters

Learn About Creating Storage Partitions