Dell Sas 6ir Manual

Safety Instructions9
 CAUTION: Safety Instructions
Use the following safety guidelines to help ensure your own personal safety and to help protect 
your system and working environment from potential damage.
 NOTE: See the caution and safety statements in your Dell™ PowerEdge™ system 
or Dell Precision™ workstation.
SAFETY: General
 Observe and follow service markings. Do not service any product except as explained in 
your user documentation. Opening or removing covers that are marked with the triangular...

10Safety Instructions
1Turn off the system and any devices.
2Ground yourself by touching an unpainted metal surface on the chassis before touching 
anything inside the system. 
3While you work, periodically touch an unpainted metal surface on the chassis to dissipate any 
static electricity that might harm the internal components.
4Disconnect your system and devices from their power sources. To reduce the potential of 
personal injury or shock, disconnect any telecommunication lines from the system. 
In...

Overview11
Overview
The Dell™ Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) 6/iR controller is Dell’s next generation 
controller with integrated redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 
capabilities. SAS technology is not backward compatible with the previous 
generation of SCSI devices. All SAS 6/iR controllers are half-length, standard-
height PCI-E cards, except for the SAS 6/iR Integrated controller on the blade 
servers and on the Precision workstations. The SAS 6/iR controllers are 
supported on platforms with...

12Overview
About RAID
RAID is a group of multiple independent physical disks that provide high 
performance or better data availability by increasing the number of drives 
used for saving and accessing data. A RAID disk subsystem improves 
I/O performance and data availability. The physical disk group appears to the 
host system as a single storage unit. Data throughput improves because 
multiple disks can be accessed simultaneously. RAID systems also improve 
data storage availability and fault...

Overview13
Figure 2-2. Example of Integrated Striping (RAID 0)
Integrated Mirroring
With Integrated Mirroring (RAID 1), data written to one disk is 
simultaneously written to another disk. If one disk fails, the contents of the 
other disk can be used to run the system and rebuild the failed physical disk. 
The primary advantage of Integrated Mirroring is that it provides 100 percent 
data redundancy. Because the contents of the disk are completely written to a 
second disk, the system can sustain the...

14Overview
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SAS 6/iR Features15
SAS 6/iR Features
This section provides the specifications of Dell™ Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) 
6/iR controller. The following table compares the specifications of the 
SAS 6/iR Adapter and SAS 6/iR Integrated.
Table 3-1. Specifications of SAS 6/iR
Specification SAS 6/iR Adapter SAS 6/iR Integrated
SAS technology Yes Yes
Support for x4, x8, or x16 
PCI Express Host InterfaceYe s Ye s
Fo r m  Fa c t o rStandard-Height, 
Half-Length PCI AdapterStandard-Height, Half-
Length PCI on all...

16SAS 6/iR Features
SAS Connectors 2 x4 Internal 2 x4 Internal connectors on 
all systems, with two 
exceptions: 4 x1 on 
Precision workstations with 
controller integrated on the 
motherboard, no SAS 
connector on the controller 
for the blades (I/O is routed 
though the PCI connector)
Lead Free Yes Yes
Supported operating 
systemsMicrosoft
® Windows Server® 2003 Family, Windows® XP, 
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Family, Windows Vista™, 
Red Hat
® Enterprise Linux® Versions 4 and 5, SUSE® 
Linux...

SAS 6/iR Features17
Storage management 
softwareOpenManage™ Storage 
Services, SAS RAID 
Storage ManagerOpenManage Storage 
Services, SAS RAID 
Storage Manager
NOTE: The management software that is supported depends on the specific platform.
Support for internal tape 
driveNo No
Support for Global 
HotspareYe s Ye s
Maximum number of 
Hotspares22 Table 3-1. Specifications of SAS 6/iR (continued)
Specification SAS 6/iR Adapter SAS 6/iR Integrated
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18SAS 6/iR Features
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