Previously, we showed you how to create a RAID 5 volume with an Adaptec RAID controller.
In this new tutorial, we will show you this with our new Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller (which offers the option to run in RAID, HBA or both mode at the same time on the same Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller).
Once the Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller is plugged into your computer or server, this will appear on the screen each time you start your computer / server.
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Microsemi SAS/SATA BIOS V1.3.4.6. (c) 2018 Microsemi Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Controller #00 found at PCI Slot:0, Bus:19, Dev:00, Func:00. Controller Firmware starting & Scanning for devices...
Once the hard drives detection is complete, this message will be displayed :
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Press <Ctrl><A> for Microsemi SAS/SATA Configuration Utility!
This means that to enter the configuration utility of your Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller, you will have to press the "CTRL + A" keys (on a QWERTY keyboard, since it's in English) or "CTRL + Q "(on an AZERTY keyboard).
Note that information will then be displayed regarding your Adaptec SmartRAID controller :
Since no RAID volume has been created yet, there is no logical drive created on your Microsemi SmartRAID controller and the "No Logical Drives Found" message is displayed.
This only affects logical drives created on your Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller and NOT your physical hard drives.
If you have pressed the "CTRL + A" keys, the "Microsemi SAS/SATA Configuration Utility will be invoked after initialization" message will be displayed.
Note that this message doesn't always appear instantly, however pressing these keys will still be taken into account.
To view information about your Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller from this "Microsemi SAS/SATA Configuration Utility", select "Controller Details" and press Enter.
A lot of information about your Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller will be displayed :
By default, your MSCC SmartRAID controller is configured to operate in RAID mode on all ports (internal and external, if applicable) that it has.
However, if you want to use HBA mode on one or more of its ports, go to "Configure Controller Settings".
Then, go to : Configure Controller Port Mode.
As you can see, our MSCC SmartRAID controller has 4 ports :
To know which are the internal and external ports (if any), just look in the web interface of maxView Storage Manager.
Select your SmartRAID controller from the list on the left, then go to the "Connectors" tab. You will see the list of ports available on your SmartRAID controller, along with their locations : Internal or External.
For informations about the hard drives connected to your Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID controller, go to : Disk Utilities.
As you can see, in our case, we have a "MSCC Smart Adapter" controller whose firmware version is 1.60.
You can also see that 3 hard drives are connected to this SmartRAID controller :
To create a RAID volume using this SmartRAID controller, go to : Array Configuration.
Then, select "Create Array" and press Enter.
Since we are going to create a RAID 5, we have connected 3 identical hard drives (which is preferable) and we will select them here.
To do this, select the desired hard drive with the arrows on the keyboard, then press the space bar to add it to the list of selected hard drives.
In our case, we just have to press the space bar 3 times to select our 3 hard drives.
Once selected, they will appear in the "Selected Drives" list on the right and grayed out in the left one.
As explained previously, we are going to create a RAID 5.
In our case, with 3 hard disks, the proposed RAID Levels are :
However, our Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID 3154-8i8e controller supports RAID levels : 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60, 1 ADM and 10 ADM.
As indicated on the Adaptec SmartRAID 3154-8i8e page of the Microchip website.
Enter a name for your RAID volume (Logical Drive Name).
This name is purely indicative and simply allows you to find your RAID volume more easily in the web interface of maxView Storage Manager and in this configuration tool (ACU).
Select the desired stripes size (Strip/Full Stripe Size).
However, the appropriate value changes depending on the selected RAID level and the number of hard drives selected in the previous step.
It's therefore recommended to leave the value selected by default.
Source : What is the optimum stripe size setting for RAID 5? - Microchip Adaptec Support Knowledgebase
For information :
Only when you create a RAID 50 or 60, you will be able to choose the number of parity groups.
In the case of a RAID 50, if you choose 2, your RAID controller will create a RAID 50 based on a array of 2 RAID 5.
In our case, with a RAID 5, this is not applicable, so we leave the "Not Applicable" option.
For the Build Method of the RAID volume, you have the choice between :
By default, the logical drive size is set to the maximum size available on your physical hard drives with the selected RAID level.
In our case, given that we are using 3 hard disks of 3.6 TiB and the last one is used for parity of RAID 5, we can therefore store maximum : 3.6 TiB x 2 hard disks = 7.2 TiB.
By default, the RAID volume will take all available space on the previously selected hard drives and the logical drive will take all available space on that RAID volume.
Note that you can also reduce this size to create multiple logical drives if you wish on the same RAID volume.
Also note that each logical drive created here will be seen as a full-fledged hard drive and can therefore also be partitioned from the desired operating system (Windows, Linux, ...).
In our case, we leave the default value to simplify the tutorial.
The next step is simply to select the unit for the size (capacity) of your logical drive : TiB, GiB or MiB.
Finally, you will need to select the desired acceleration method :
Once setup is complete, just press Enter.
The logical drive will be created, then the "Array/Logical Drive creation successful" message will appear.
RAID 4/8/2022
RAID 4/15/2022
RAID 5/6/2022
RAID 4/27/2022
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