HP ProLiant 800 SMART-2DH Array Controller Reference Guide - Page 149

D-16 Understanding Drive Arrays Consider the following example. The SMART-2DH Controller receives a request for a physical drive that is not currently active. The controller schedules the request immediately ahead of previously received requests already queued to other active drives within the array. This request management process operates concurrently with drive operations. The benefits of optimized request management increase as greater demands are made on the drive subsystem. Bus Master Data Transfers The SMART-2DH Controller is a bus master device that takes control of the PCI bus during high-speed transfers. This allows the system processor to handle application processing or other types of tasks. Data transfer occurs at rates of up to 133 megabytes/sec. for the PCI bus. Bus master high-speed transfers are particularly important when the supported models are used in conjunction with multiple expansion boards such as network interface controllers (NICs). Expanding Storage Capacity The SMART-2DH Array Controller allows the configuration of one or more separate logical drives into a single drive array. An existing drive array can be expanded by adding one or more logical drives to the array. To create the room for the additional logical drives, more physical drives must be added. See Figure D-10. Writer: Pamela King Project: SMART-2DH Array Controller Reference Guide Comments: 295469-002 File Name: K-APPD.DOC Last Saved On: 2/27/98 12:06 PM COMPAQ CONFIDENTIAL - NEED TO KNOW REQUIRED