This section describes the procedure for creating a virtual disk on an array.
To create a virtual disk
1. Select the Array in the list of system of devices, as shown in Figure 1.
2. Select the Create VD tab, as shown in Figure 1.
The Create Virtual Disk screen appears as shown in Figure 2.
3. As shown in Figure 2, MSU assigns a default name to the virtual disk. You can type a new name in the Name field.
4. After selecting the Name, select the Initialization method for the virtual disk.
As shown in Figure 3, MSU has four options for Initialization, with the default being Fast Initialization.
Note: For information on Initialization, see Glossary.
5. After selecting the Initialization method, select Write Cache Mode for the virtual disk.
As shown in Figure 4, MSU has three options for Write Cache Mode, with the default being Write Back (Performance).
Note: For information on Write Cache Mode, see Glossary.
6. After selecting Write Cache Mode, select Read Cache Mode for the virtual disk.
As shown in Figure 5, MSU has two options for Read Cache Mode, with the default being Read Ahead (Performance).
Note: For information on Read Cache Mode, see Glossary.
7. After selecting Read Cache Mode, specify the RAID Size of the virtual disk, as shown in Figure 6.
Note: Hover the mouse over the array storage allocation bar to view the size of the array. If you have already created one or more virtual disks, they are displayed as segments in the storage allocation bar and sized proportional to their disk capacity. Hover the mouse over individual segments to view the virtual disk’s name and size.
8. After specifying the RAID Size, select Stripe Size for the virtual disk.
As shown in Figure 7, the RAID controller being used has four options for Stripe Size, with the default being 64K.
Note: Availability of Stripe Sizes depends on the capabilities of the controller. For information on Stripe Size, see Glossary.
9. After selecting Stripe Size, select the Gigabyte Rounding for the virtual disk.
As shown in Figure 8, the RAID controller being used has three options for Gigabyte Rounding, with the default being None.
Note: For information on Gigabyte Rounding, see Glossary.
10. After selecting Gigabyte Rounding, select Submit to create the virtual disk.
MSU creates the virtual disk and displays the Property tab for the new virtual disk, as shown in Figure 9.