Hello all
I am trying to figure out how to setup a RAID configuration on a DS20E
server with a 4 disk internal disk bank.  This is a new system with
nothing on it.  I am able to do a basic configuration using the ORCA
utility from the console.
My question is to end up with a system disk and a user disk in OpenVMS
7.3-2 what is the best approach.  I want to utilize the redundancy of
the array on the user disk and system disk.  Do I need to create on
array with all 4 physical disks from ORCA and then create logical user
and system disks after the OS install? I am reading about an ACU-XE
utility that supposedly allows a browser type configuration is this a
possibility? I am a rookie on DEC hardware configuration so any advice
will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, 
Heath Harber
Special Metals Corportation
Huntington, Wv

ropegun1@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hello all
> I am trying to figure out how to setup a RAID configuration on a DS20E
> server with a 4 disk internal disk bank.  This is a new system with
> nothing on it.  I am able to do a basic configuration using the ORCA
> utility from the console.
> My question is to end up with a system disk and a user disk in OpenVMS
> 7.3-2 what is the best approach.  I want to utilize the redundancy of
> the array on the user disk and system disk.  Do I need to create on
> array with all 4 physical disks from ORCA and then create logical user
> and system disks after the OS install?

You must create the system disk first with ORCA or you will not be able 
to install the OS on it.

You can also create any other volumes at that time, or you can wait 
until after you install the ACU-XE utility that you mention below.

As to how you should best configure things, that really depends on what 
you are planing to do with your system.

If you go for fault tolerance with the highest speed for writes, and be 
simple to maintain, then creating a mirror with two entire disks for the 
system disk would be an option, with the other two entire disks for a 
data disk.

By keeping the physical disks assigned to the logical volumes that you 
intend on creating separate, you will create the fastest writable pair 
of fault tolerant drives.

Or you can put all four disks in to two mirror sets.  But simultaneous 
writes to the same physical disk may be a bottleneck.

If capacity is an issue, 4 disks allow you do use RAID 5 and divide it 
up into as many logical volumes as you want.  However simultaneous 
access to those volumes may be a bottleneck.

Or you can go with a 3 disk RAID 5 and a hot spare.

Only you can predict what your fault tolerance and performance needs are.

In general having more than one volume share a physical disk as in 
partitioning schemes will not improve performance.

For many applications on OpenVMS, you could just make one or two large 
volumes, and use concealed rooted logical names to make it a single 
volume look like a number of volumes.  And unlike partitions, you do not 
have to preset the size of the area pointed to by those logical names.

I use the concealed rooted logical names to make it look like each
major application, or group of files have their own volume, and I use
the same ones for each system.

That way I can have over 100 systems with different number of disks on 
them, yet I know that all of the user files can be found by the name 
user_root:, and application foo on foo_root:.  On some systems those 
files are all on the system disk, on others they are on their own disks 
for performance reasons.

This way when you add more disks, you can move things, and in most cases 
not even have to reinstall or reconfigure anything except the 
SYLOGICALS.COM file to change where the logical disks are.

> I am reading about an ACU-XE
> utility that supposedly allows a browser type configuration is this a
> possibility? I am a rookie on DEC hardware configuration so any advice
> will be greatly appreciated.

If you have a simple configuration planned, I would recommend as long as 
you are in the ORCA utility to set it all up, and then get to know the 
ACU-XE as you get comfortable.

Welcome and feel free to ask questions.

-John
malmberg@dskwld.zko.dec.compaq.hp
Personal Opinion Only

1)

>>>set heap_expand 2MB
>>>init


2)

>>>set boot_bios pyao
>>>init

That should do the trick

-- 
________________________________________________
David B Turner
Island Computers US Corp
2700 Gregory St, Suite 180
Savannah GA 31404
Tel: 912 447 6622 X201
Mobile: 912 447 6622 X251
Fax: 912 201 0402
Email: dbturner@icusc.com
Web: http://www.islandco.com
________________________________________________
<ropegun1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1106663598.252966.216370@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hello all
> I am trying to figure out how to setup a RAID configuration on a DS20E
> server with a 4 disk internal disk bank.  This is a new system with
> nothing on it.  I am able to do a basic configuration using the ORCA
> utility from the console.
> My question is to end up with a system disk and a user disk in OpenVMS
> 7.3-2 what is the best approach.  I want to utilize the redundancy of
> the array on the user disk and system disk.  Do I need to create on
> array with all 4 physical disks from ORCA and then create logical user
> and system disks after the OS install? I am reading about an ACU-XE
> utility that supposedly allows a browser type configuration is this a
> possibility? I am a rookie on DEC hardware configuration so any advice
> will be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks,
> Heath Harber
> Special Metals Corportation
> Huntington, Wv
>