Dell PERC 4/SI - Manual (Page 5)

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Overview
Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 4/Di/Si and 4e/Di/Si User's Guide
Features
RAID and SCSI Modes
Changing the Mode on the Embedded RAID Controller from RAID/RAID to RAID/SCSI Mode or from RAID/SCSI to RAID/RAID Mode
The Dell T M PowerEdge T M Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 4/Di/Si and 4e/Di/Si are embedded subsystems on the motherboard that offer RAID control
capabilities. The RAID controller supports all low-voltage differential (LVD) SCSI devices on Ultra320 and Wide SCSI channels with data transfer rates up to 320
MB/sec. PERC 4/Si and 4e/Si support a single channel, while PERC 4/Di and 4e/Di support two channels.
The RAID controller provides reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant disk subsystem management. It is an ideal RAID solution with Dell PowerEdge
systems. This RAID controller offers a cost-effective way to implement RAID in a server and provides reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant disk
subsystem management.
Features
The RAID controller features include:
l Wide Ultra320 LVD SCSI performance of up to 320 MB/s
l Support for 256 MB (DDR2) memory
l 64-bit/66 MHz peripheral component interconnect (PCI) host interface for PERC 4/Di/Si
l PCI Express x8 host interface for PERC 4e/Di/Si
l RAID levels 0 (striping), 1 (mirroring), 5 (distributed parity), 10 (combination of striping and mirroring), and 50 (combination of striping and distributed
parity)
l Advanced array configuration and management utilities
l Ability to boot from any array
l One electrical bus: a LVD bus.
Hardware Architecture
PERC 4/Di/Si supports a (PCI) host interface, while PERC 4e/Di/Si supports PCI Express x8 host interface. PCI-Express are high-performance I/O bus
architectures designed to increase data transfers without slowing down the CPU. PCI-Express goes beyond the PCI specification in that it is intended as a
unifying I/O architecture for various systems: desktops, workstations, mobile, server, communications, and embedded devices.
Maximum Cable Length for 320M SCSI
The maximum length of cable that you can use for LVD 320M SCSI is 12 meters (39' 4"), with a maximum number of 15 devices.
Operating System Support
The RAID controller supports the following operating systems:
l Microsoft ® Windows ® 2000: Server, AS
l Windows Server 2003: Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Small Business Edition
l Novell ® NetWare ®
NOTE: The PERC 4/Di/Si and 4e/Di/Si RAID controllers support hard disk drives only; they do not support CD-ROMs, tape drives, tape libraries, or
scanners.