Configuring a RAID array applies to a blade server in which disk drives or solid-state drives are installed.
Disk drives and solid-state drives in the PS703 or PS704 blade server can be used to implement and manage various types of RAID arrays in operating systems that are on the ServerProven® list. For the blade server, you must configure the RAID array through "smit sasdam," which is the SAS RAID Disk Array Manager for AIX®. The AIX Disk Array Manager is packaged with the Diagnostics utilities on the Diagnostics CD. Use "smit sasdam" to configure the disk drives for use with the SAS controller. For more information, see "Using the Disk Array Manager" in the Systems Hardware Information Center at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/index.jsp?topic=/p7ebj/sasusingthesasdiskarraymanager.htm.
Before you can create a RAID array, you must reformat the drives so that the sector size of the drives changes from 512 bytes to 528 bytes. If you later decide to remove the drives, delete the RAID array before you remove the drives. If you decide to delete the RAID array and reuse the drives, you might need to reformat the drives so that the sector size of the drives changes from 528 bytes to 512 bytes.