Dell MD3200i Specifications download pdf (Page 32)

DELL PowerVault MD3200i/MD3220i Technical Guide Book

each physical disk stores that physical disk’s state and status, the worldwide name of its disk group,

the virtual disks it contains and the definitions for those virtual disks.

Storing metadata in this nonvolatile region provides the highest availability and enables easier

reconfigurations and migrations. As system configuration data resides on every configured physical

disk, controllers and/or multiple physical disks can be removed or swapped without losing the system

configuration. Physical disks can be relocated within the storage system to improve channel

utilization/protection or even migrated as a complete disk group into another storage system. In

instances, all configuration metadata and user data remains intact on the physical disks.

Global Hot Spares

If a physical disk fails in the MD3200i or MD3220i storage array, the controller uses redundancy data to

reconstruct the data onto a hot spare physical disk. The hot spare is automatically substituted for the

failed physical disk without requiring user intervention. Once the failed drive is replaced, the data is

then automatically copied back to the new drive. The user then has a choice of allowing the hot spare

to return to its role as a hot spare drive or become a permanent member of a disk group, therefore,

eliminating the copy back process. The replacement drive, in this case, would then be in an

unassigned state. This feature may be appealing as it reduces the degraded mode time by avoiding the

copy back process. The MD3200i and MD3220i storage arrays both support an unlimited number of

global hot spare physical disks, and each can be a spare for any like-technology disk in the array (i.e.

SAS for SAS, near-line SAS for near-line SAS and SSD for SSD). Generally speaking, the physical disks

that are assigned as a hot spares should have a capacity that is equal to or greater than the capacity of

the largest physical disk in the storage array.

Storage Partitioning

The MD3200i series of arrays Storage Partitioning feature enables a single

storage array to be logically partitioned and function as up to 32 virtual

arrays. A storage partition is a logical entity consisting of one or more

virtual disks that are accessed by a single host or shared among a collection

of hosts that are part of a host group. A storage partition is created when

one or more virtual disks are mapped to an individual host or host group.

This virtual disk-to-LUN mapping allows you to define what host or host

group will have access to a particular virtual disk in your storage system.

Hosts and host groups can only access data through assigned virtual disk-to-

LUN mappings. Partition access is maintained at the controller level,

ensuring complete data integrity in multi-host, multi-OS environments.

The virtual disk-to-LUN mapping implementation creates valuable flexibility

for the storage administrator as any available virtual disk can be mapped to

any attached server. So, while the individual servers see a virtual array that

consists of only their LUNs/virtual disks, the virtual disks can be intermixed

throughout the storage system within one or more disk groups.

The system’s logical partitioning combined with its configuration capabilities

enables administrators to choose from a range of virtual disks with different

characteristics to meet a server's exact needs for a given application. A

given host can concurrently have virtual disks with different capacities,

different RAID levels, and different physical disk types. This flexibility enables hosts with different

capacity, performance or data protection demands to effectively share a single storage array.

LUN

Logical

partition

Logical

partition

unmapped

virtual disk

Host A

Host B

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Dell MD3200i Specifications Page 32

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