5-14
Intel
Integrated RAID Controller GSU31
User
’
s Manual
Rev 1.0
RAID Features
5.2.8.2
Sequential Write-Back (Volume)
The host operating system is given a successful write reply immediately while the write data is held
in the RAID controller cache until the actual write to disk occurs. Only data determined to be
sequential is cached.
Note:
The RAID controller/software offers two types of write-back cache. Write-back cache enabled per
volume stores cached data in SDRAM memory located on the RAID controller. Write-back cache
enabled per disk stores cache data in the memory located on the specific hard drive.
5.2.8.3
Full Write-Back (Volume)
The host operating system is given a successful write reply immediately while the write data is held
in the RAID controller cache until the actual write to disk occurs. Caching occurs for both
sequential and random data.
5.2.8.4
Disk Write Cache Enabled
The RAID controller writes data directly to the hard drive
’
s cache memory. When the hard drive
’
s
memory fills up it immediately writes the data to the disk and sends a successfull write reply back
to the controller.
5.2.9
RAID Levels Examples
5.2.9.1
Striping
Disk striping is the
interleaving
of data across multiple drives in an array. Data is sequentially
stored in allocated sizes, based on the RAID level. Striping improves performance because it
makes data available for reading and writing on multiple disks simultaneously. See
Table 5-1
for
more information on RAID levels and the level of performance and protection they offer.
Strip size refers to the allocated space on a disk.
Stripe
size is the number of drives x the strip size.
For example, 4 drives x a strip size of 64k is equal to a stripe size of 256k in a Raid level 5
configuration.
Figure 5-2
illustrates how data is striped across a group of disks. Strip size is
specified when you create a RAID volume.
Figure 5-2. Stripes and Strips in a RAID Volume
Disk #0
Disk #1
Disk #2
Disk #3
Vol 1
Vol 0
Strips D0, D1, D2 and D3 constitute the first stripe in Volume 0. Strip size is
specified when you create a RAID volume.
D16
D12
D8
D4
D0
D17
D13
D9
D5
D1
D18
D14
D10
D6
D2
D19
D15
D11
D7
D3