*LSI Storage Authority: Creating RAID Volume

This article explains the procedure to create a RAID volume using the LSI Storage Authority software. This software is installed on VDG servers built in 2018 and later. Older servers use the Megaraid Storage Manager Utility, but they have the same functionality.

Setting up Raid Volume

How to set up a Raid volume using the LSI Storage Authority:

Step 1: Double click the LSA shortcut and select the correct IP address of your server.

Step 2: Log in using your Windows credentials.

Step 3: Next click on Configure and then Advanced Configuration.

Step 4: Select which Raid level should be used and click next.

Step 5: Choose which disks should be used for the Raid volume.

Step 6: After selecting the drives click Add Physical Drives.

Step 7: Now we can edit the Virtual Drive Settings , settings shown are recommended.

For Initialization State we use Full Initialization and set Strip Size to 512KB. Read Policy is left default.

Step 8: For Write Policy we select Always Write Back. I/O Policy is left default.

Step 9: Finally enable the Drive cache and click Add Virtual Drives.

Step 10: Now select Finish and the Virtual drive will start initializing.

After the initialization has completed you can partition the new Virtual drive using Windows disk management.

Create Storage Volume

After the new RAID volume has been created and initialized, the new volume needs to be partitioned and formatted to be used in Windows. We will make 2 partitions, an D and E drive.

We begin with creating the E drive for the Clips.

Step 1 

Start Windows Disk Management, the first time it starts and detects the new volume it will ask toinitialze the disk. Select ‘GPT’ assuming it is not a volume from which Windows should boot:

Step 2

To create a new partition right-click on the new disk and select ‘Create Simple Volume’. The following dialog appears:

Step 3

In the next dialog the volume size can be configured. By default it is set to the maximum size. Set the volume size to 100.000.

Step 4

Assign a Drive letter to the new volume, by default it should be the E:

Step 5

Format drive with ‘NTFS’ file system and '64K' Allocation unit size, optionally name the new volume:

Step 6:

Click ‘Finish’ to complete the volume configuration:

Repeat this process for the D drive and use the maximum volume size in step 3.