3Ware 7000-2 User Guide - Page 53

3ware Disk Array Configuration Utility results in the most efficient access times for your computer system. There may be instances when you always want the computer to wait for the drive to write all the data to disk before going on to its next task. For this case, you must disable the write cache. To disable the write cache, select disable from the array's Write Cache State selection. The default for Write Cache State is enable. Confirm array configuration Select the OK button to confirm creating the array or Cancel to reject it. The array is not actually created and no data will be overwritten until you have finished making all your changes and select the F8 key. Note: The current limitation is 2 TB for any physical or logical unit. If you attempt to create an array over 2 TB the BIOS will display the following message: "The amount of disk space available exceeds the maximum allowable capacity. The array capacity will be limited to 2 TB." For RAID 5 Arrays Because of the Read-Modify-Write operations, zeros are first written to all drives in the array before the array is functional. The screen shown in Figure 14 appears after selecting OK to confirm array creation. If desired, the write-zeros operation can be aborted by rebooting the system. Once booted to the operating system, the array goes into initialization mode after a delay of up to ten minutes. The advantage of doing this is that the RAID 5 can be used immediately, although it will not be fault tolerant until the initialization is complete. The disadvantage of doing this is that it will take longer for www.3ware.com 53