# Choosing between Express and Custom configuration

Note: If you intend to use your ServeRAID controllers in a Microsoft Windows failover or clustering environment, review the ServeRAID publications before configuring ServeRAID.

In the Configuration wizard, you can choose from two paths to configure your ServeRAID subsystem:

- Click Express configuration for a quick and easy path for you to automatically configure your ServeRAID controller. This path creates the most efficient ServeRAID configuration based on the number and capacity of the ready physical drives available in your system. If four or more ready drives of the same capacity are available, this choice also will define a hot-spare drive.

  Express configuration does the following:

  - Creates arrays by grouping together same-sized physical drives.
  - Creates one logical drive per array up to 2 terabytes (TB) maximum.
  - Assigns a RAID level based on the number of physical drives in an array:
    - An array with a single physical drive is assigned RAID level-0.
    - An array with two physical drives is assigned RAID level-1.
    - An array with three or more physical drives is assigned RAID level-5.

      Note: If the physical drive size exceeds 2TB, Express configuration removes drives until the size is less than 2 TB. It creates an additional array with the left-over drive(s).

  - Designates a hot-spare drive for the controller. If one or more arrays has four or more physical drives, the largest-sized drive from those arrays will be designated the hot-spare drive.

  Note: When you choose Express configuration, you have the opportunity to review and approve the configuration before the ServeRAID Manager applies the configuration. If you need to modify the configuration, you can do it from the configuration summary.

- Click Custom configuration for a path that lets you manually configure your ServeRAID controller. Choose this path to do any of the following:
  - Configure your controller manually.
  - Assign RAID level-1E, RAID level-5E, RAID level-5EE, or RAID level-x0 to a logical drive.
  - Create more than one logical drive per array.
  Using the Custom path, you can:
  - Select the physical drives that you want to include in each array and that you want to use as hot-spare drives.
  - Define the number, size, and RAID level of the logical drives for each array.
  - Review the configuration summary.

Click Automatically initialize new logical drives. Initializing a logical drive erases the first 1024 sectors on the drive and prevents access to any data previously stored on the drive. You can initialize the drive later if you do not choose automatic initialization.

When you are ready to continue, click Next.

## More information

- Understanding stripe-unit size
- Initializing a logical drive
- Understanding physical drive capacity and unusable capacity

Glossary | Contents

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