Disk Group - MD3000i

 - Go to Configure --> Create Virtual Disks or Disk Groups,

 - Select Unconfigured Capacity (and disk type if you have that option)

 - Select Manual

 - Select RAID 5

 - Select and add all the disks you want to add to the disk group

 - Click on calculate capacity

 - If you have 1st generation firmware (Version starts with 06.xx.xx.xx),
    Type in the Virtual Disk capacity that you want to use.(The disk group is automatically created and initialized)

 - If you have 2nd generation firmware (Version starts with 07.xx.xx.xx)
    Click on Finish to finish creating and initializing the disk group.
    Select Create a Virtual Disk using the new disk group
    Type in the Virtual Disk capacity that you want to use

 - Map the VD appropriately

  You can get your version info by clicking on Support-->Storage Array Profile --> Summary Tab --> under the Current Configuration heading.

Great. Thanks.

One more question. In terms of performance for a Virtual Machine, what is better?

I'm creating a File Server with four Drives/Shares. It will be a VM. What setup is better?

1. Disk Group 558.GB VM on same Disk Group/LUN and within the VM create four drives(VMDK files) and use each drive as a share.

2. Disk Group 558GB. Create the VM on same Disk Group and create separate Virtual DIsks(LUNS) and attached them via iSCSI individually to the VM.

Thanks in advance!

Performance wise I don't think it'll make much of a difference, however, option 1 is easier to manage, and option 2 allows you to use the MD3000i's snapshot features (assuming you purchased the license to enable this capability) and present a snapshot of the RDM to a backup server.

Great. Thanks again for all your help!

Phil

Here is a link that kinda explores the same

http://vmetc.com/2009/04/13/use-rdms-for-practical-reasons-and-not-performance-reasons/

I did hear that the using the VM file system had a higher IO overhead but that might not be the case any more as the blog above mentions.

 - Mohan