# Choosing the RAID Level

Complete the following steps to choose the RAID level for the logical drive:

1. Click the RAID level radio button to choose the RAID level for the logical drive. Only the most common choices appear in the list.
2. To choose a different RAID level, click Advanced settings; then, choose a RAID level from the available options.

   Note: Not all RAID levels are available on all controllers.

   In addition to RAID Level-1E, 5EE, 6 and x0, the ServeRAID Manager supports the following RAID types for the ServeRAID-8i and ServeRAID-7t controllers:

- Simple Volume - a single disk drive or segment; not redundant.
- Spanned Volume - two or more disk drives or segments with the same or different capacity, connected end-to-end. A spanned volume offers no redundancy or performance advantage over a single drive.
- RAID Volume - two or more logical drives with the same RAID level, connected end-to-end. The logical drives may have the same or different capacity and are not striped together; they may be redundant, depending on the RAID level.
  Notes:
  1. You must create the individual logical drives before you create a RAID Volume. Use the Configuration wizard to create the logical drives; then, run the Configuration wizard again to create the RAID Volume.
  2. When you create a RAID Volume, the ServeRAID Manager replaces the individual logical drives with a single RAID Volume icon in the Logical devices view; then, it reports the logical drives as deleted in the event viewer. The event message is normal and does not indicate a loss of data.

3. When you are ready to continue, click Next. The "Create logical drives" window opens.

## More information

- Understanding RAID technology
- Understanding stripe-unit size
- Understanding physical drive capacity and unusable capacity

Glossary | Contents

x-0751-SRM-00-12-EN