Accusys ExaRAID GUI - Manual (Page 282)

Appendix
B-13
unwanted performance impact. When the rebuilding is done, the paused
tasks will be automatically resumed.
• Task priority control
Executing the background tasks needs to occupy system resources, like
CPU time, memory bandwidth, or access to disk drive. The administrator can
choose the priority of the background tasks to speed up the task execution
or to prevent the task from disturbing the host accesses. For more flexibility,
the priority control is independently set for different types of background
task.
B.12 Extensive Supportive Tools
In addition to the fundamental storage functions, the RAID controller
firmware also provides extensive supportive tools that help the administrator
to do a better job when managing the storage resources. These tools are
aimed to offer full control to the storage devices so as to make the most of
the storage system as well as to simplify the management tasks. Most of
these features are derived from the feedback of our customers or users who
are experts of storage and servers. They might not be considered when
doing specification comparison, but the administrator will definitely discover
their usefulness when doing the real-world jobs.
• Object names and creation time
Most of the major manageable logical objects, like disk groups, logical disks,
or host groups, can be labeled with text as their names or memos. The
administrator is then freed from memorizing those identifiers. The creation
time is also recorded so that the administrator can easily trace the age of
the objects.
• Augmented RAID parameters
In addition to frequently used RAID configurations, like RAID levels, the
firmware provides also alignment offset and disk group size truncation. The
former is to improve IO performance by shifting the starting LBA so as to
align the data stripes with the data organization of file systems. And the later
is to truncate the size of disk drives in a disk group such that disk drives of
slightly smaller size can still be used.
• Real time management with NTP
The controller is equipped with real-time clock (RTC) chip, so that controller
can record events or conduct scheduled maintenance tasks following the
wall-clock time and calendar. The firmware also supports Network Time
Protocol (NTP) to synchronize its date and time with an external time server.
This ensures that all the IT equipments have common time base to act upon.
• Configuration management
The controller stores the configurations on either the disk drives or the
NVRAM of the controller. The administrator can download the