Infortrend RAID Controller Manual

9.2 Supported Features
Hardware Features:
Fibre Chip
Fibre loops (1 Gbit FC-AL) comply with (FC-PH) X2.230:1994, (SCSI-
FCP) X3.269:1996, (FC-AL-2) Project 1133-D rev.6.5, and (SCSI-2)
X3.131-1994, supporting sustained 1 Gigabit/sec (100MB/sec)
transfer rates. Each Fibre loop can be independently configured for
connection to host or drive.
Loop ID:
Each channel configured as host loop supports two hard loop IDs in
the range from 0 to 125.
Supported ways to address a Fibre port include Hard assigned and
Soft assigned. The controller supports automatic loop ID assignment
on drive channel. Usually, a hard loop address ID can be assigned to
disk drives by switching jumpers on enclosure backplane. If the
AL_PA configuration on the backplane is set to a neutral status,
physical IDs will be assigned to drives automatically.
Firmware Features:
1. Host-Side Connection Mode:
Choosing the right connection mode is necessary for different link
services. The selection for host-side connection protocol should
comply with your Fibre channel topology. The controller default is
"Loop Only." For example, if you combine two EonRAID controllers
in a Fibre loop, your Fibre channel topology will necessarily be a
private or public loop. You MUST select "loop only" in "View and
Edit Host-side Parameters."
So far all the Fibre cards (HBA) are using "FC-AL" protocol even when
they are used in point-to-point topology. For those supporting pointto-point
connectivity, FC-AL is supported to maintain backward
compatibility. It is safe to use "loop only" for most of the time and is
not necessary to change this option.
The available options are:
• Loop only
• Point-to-point only
• Loop preferred, otherwise point-to-point
• Point-to-point preferred, otherwise loop
2. LUN Filtering: (RAID-Based Mapping)
LUN Filtering is a method used for separating and controlling
accesses to data from the RAID controller. One major benefit of Fibre
channel is the capability to share a common storage pool with
multiple servers or workstations. However, allocation becomes an
Fibre Operation 9-3