Managing Arrays

The CTERA H Series Edge Filers are supplied with arrays that are preconfigured. These arrays cannot be changed. For an HC100 edge filer Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane is not available.

For V Series edge filers, the array and volume are created during the initial setup of the CTERA Edge Filer.

Expanding an Array (Except for H Series Edge Filers)

To expand an array after adding new disks, you add the disks to the existing array.

To expand an array:

1. In the Configuration view, select Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane.
   The Arrays page is displayed.
   
2. Click the array to expand or select the array row and click Edit.
   The Select drives to join this array wizard is displayed, which shows you all drives available to join the array.
   
3. Check the Member box for each drive to include in the array.
4. Click Next to the end of the wizard and then click Finish.
   After expanding an array, the added disk space can be used to increase volume sizes. For details, see Managing Volumes.

Creating an Array (Except for H Series Edge Filers)

This procedure is only required in the following circumstances:

• You did not set up storage during the initial setup of the CTERA Edge Filer.
• You did not set up storage using the storage setup wizard, described in Setting Up the Storage.
• You have additional disks that you want to use in a new array, separate from the existing array.

To create an array:

1. In the Configuration view, select Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane.
   The Arrays page is displayed.
   
2. Click New.
   The Select drives to join this array wizard is displayed, which shows you all drives available and asks you to select drives to join the new array.
   
3. Check the Member box for each drive you want to include in the array.
4. Click Next and then select the type of array you want to create.
   
   Note

   Only array types that can be selected are enabled.

   LVM – A Logical Volume Manager-based array. This is the default array type.
   RAID0 (Striped) – When more than one drive is specified for the array, RAID0 combines the capacity of the drives and increases the read and write speed using striping. You must have at least two drives to create a RAID0 array.
   • Specify the RAID Stripe Size. This is the size of blocks that data is divided into when it is written to the array and distributed across the drives. Reading and writing large data files sequentially generally benefits from a large stripe size. Small random reads and writes generally benefit from a smaller stripe size. The default value is 64K.
5. Click Next and enter a name for the array.
   
6. Click Next.
7. To immediately create a volume on the array, select the I want to create a logical volume on this storage array check box.
   
8. Click Finish.

If you checked the I want to create a logical volume on this storage array check box, you proceed to create a volume. For details, see Managing Volumes.

Renaming an Array

To rename an array:

1. In the Configuration view, select Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane.
   The Arrays page is displayed.
2. Click the array to rename or select the array row and click Edit.
   The Select drives to join this array wizard is displayed.
3. Click Next until the Name this Array window is displayed.
   
4. Change the Array name value.
5. Click Next.
6. Click Finish in the Wizard Completed window.

Data Scrubbing

Data scrubbing can be performed on CTERA Edge Filers using either RAID5 or RAID6. During data scrubbing, the edge filer reads all the disks in the RAID array and checks for defective blocks, thus reducing the likelihood of silent data corruption and data loss due to bit errors.

By default, automatic scrubbing is performed on a weekly basis for all defined RAID arrays. It can also be run manually for specific arrays.

To schedule data scrubbing:

1. In the Configuration view, select Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane.
   The Arrays page is displayed.
2. Click Scheduled Scrubbing.
   The Data Scrubbing window is displayed.
3. Check Enable Automatic Scrubbing.
4. Click in the Schedule field to set the schedule.
   The Scheduled Scrubbing window is displayed.
5. Select the hour at which data scrubbing starts and the days on which data scrubbing is performed, or Every Day for data scrubbing to be performed every day.
6. Click OK to close the scheduling window.
7. Click Finish.

To manually start data scrubbing:

1. In the Configuration view, select Storage > Arrays in the navigation pane.
   The Arrays page is displayed.
2. Select the array you want to scrub.
3. Click Start Scrubbing.
   A success message is displayed, informing you that data scrubbing has started.
4. Click OK.

To cancel data scrubbing:

• While scrubbing an array, you can cancel it by clicking Cancel in the Arrays page at the end of the row with the array scrub to cancel and then Yes in the confirmation window.

Deleting an Array

To delete an array:

1. Select the array row, and click Delete.
2. Click Yes to confirm.

The array is deleted.