Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Administrator's Guide

Virtual disk group configuration

A virtual disk group requires the selection of a pool (A or B) along with a specified number of available disks, RAID level, and spare size. If the virtual pool does not exist at the time of adding the disk group, the system will automatically create it.

Multiple disk groups (up to 16) can be added to a single virtual pool. To add disk groups to a pool (Maintenance > Storage), expand the Disk Groups section for the specified pool (A or B) and then select Add Disk Group to access the panel. Panel content is dynamic, displaying options based on protection (RAID) level selected and the available disks.

Disk group configuration requires you to select a protection level. Depending on the level selected, additional configuration options may be displayed. Only fault tolerant protection levels are available for creating virtual disk groups. Supported protection levels for virtual disk groups are: RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, and ADAPT. If RAID 10 is specified, the disk group must have at least two subgroups.

Available disks are listed in the middle panel, and the summary panel will update as you select disks. The disk group will be added to the pool once you complete your selections and choose Add Disk Group.

Creating disk groups that contain only SSDs in combination with disk groups that contain only spinning disks will allow tiering within a pool. For more information, see Automated tiered storage.

If a virtual disk group comprised of spinning disks is created, you can create a read-cache disk group comprised of SSDs. A pool may contain either a read-cache disk group or a virtual disk group containing SSDs, but not both. For more information, see Read-cache disk groups .

If the owning controller fails, the partner controller assumes temporary ownership of the pool and resources owned by the failed controller. If the host fault-tolerant cabling configuration, with appropriate mapping, is used to connect the controllers to hosts, LUNs for both controllers are accessible through the partner controller, so I/O to volumes can continue without interruption.