Dell PowerVault MD3260 Administrator's Guide - Page 67

A progress dialog is displayed, which indicates the number of virtual disks being changed. Choosing An Appropriate Physical Disk Type You can create disk groups and virtual disks in the storage array. You must select the capacity that you want to allocate for the virtual disk from either unconfigured capacity or free capacity available in the storage array. Then you define basic and optional advanced parameters for the virtual disk. With the advent of different physical disk technologies, it is now possible to mix physical disks with different media types and different interface types within a single storage array. Physical Disk Security With Self Encrypting Disk Self Encrypting Disk (SED) technology prevents unauthorized access to the data on a physical disk that is physically removed from the storage array. The storage array has a security key. Self encrypting disks provide access to data only through an array that has the correct security key. The self encrypting disk or a security capable physical disk encrypts data during writes and decrypts data during reads. For more information, see the online help topics. You can create a secure disk group from security capable physical disks. When you create a secure disk group from security capable physical disks, the physical disks in that disk group become security enabled. When a security capable physical disk has been security enabled, the physical disk requires the correct security key from a RAID controller module to read or write the data. All of the physical disks and RAID controller modules in a storage array share the same security key. The shared security key provides read and write access to the physical disks, while the physical disk encryption key on each physical disk is used to encrypt the data. A security capable physical disk works like any other physical disk until it is security enabled. Whenever the power is turned off and turned on again, all of the security enabled physical disks change to a security locked state. In this state, the data is inaccessible until the correct security key is provided by a RAID controller module. You can view the self encrypting disk status of any physical disk in the storage array from the Physical Disk Properties dialog. The status information reports whether the physical disk is: • Security capable • Secure - Security enabled or disabled • Read/Write Accessible - Security locked or unlocked You can view the self encrypting disk status of any disk group in the storage array. The status information reports whether the storage array is: • Security capable • Secure The following table shows how to interpret the security status of a disk group. Table 3. Interpretation of Security Status of Disk Group Secure Security Capable - Yes Security Capable - No Yes The disk group is composed of all SED Not applicable. Only SED physical disks can be in physical disks and is in a Secure state. a Secure state. No The disk group is composed of all SED The disk group is not entirely composed of SED physical disks and is in a Non-Secure state. physical disks. The Physical Disk Security menu is displayed in the Storage Array menu. The Physical Disk Security menu has the following options: 67