VNX: How to create a RAID Group

Prior to creating a RAID Group, Dell Technologies recommends verifying that creating a RAID Group is beneficial for your situation.
In general Storage Pools offer more benefits than RAID Groups, as Storage Pools can leverage multiple tiers, FAST VP, the ability to continually expand Storage Pools as needed, and many more benefits.

Unisphere (Process is identical for both VNX1 and VNX2 Arrays)

1. Browse to "RAID Groups"
   • "Storage" --> "Storage Configuration" --> "Storage Pools" --> "RAID Groups" Tab
2. Click the "Create" button.
   • Storage Pool Type: Type of Storage Object selected to be created, when selecting the "Create" button Under the "RAID Groups" view, the "RAID Group" radio button is automatically selected.
   • Storage Pool ID: Identification number for the RAID Group. Must be a unique number across all RAID Groups.
   • RAID Configuration: RAID Type/Configuration that is used for the RAID Group. By default, the recommended and preferred RAID Type/Configuration for the available disks are selected.
   • Number of Disks: Number of disks specified to be used for the RAID Group. If disks are available, the number of disks is pre-selected with the number of disks that adhere to the recommended RAID Type/Configuration.
   • Disks: Lists of Disks that have been selected to be used for the creation of the Storage Pool.
     • Automatic: When selected, automatically selects the disks to be used, based off the Number of Disks selected in each Storage Tier.
     • Manual: When selected, allows the user to specifically select the individual disks to be used for creation of the Storage Pool.
     • Use Power Saving Eligible Disks: When checked, this allows the use of disks that have power saving features when available.
3. After selecting the wanted configuration, click "Apply."
4. A pop-up asks "Initiate create RAID Group operation?," click "Yes."
5. Upon completion of the RAID Group creation, a pop-up occurs saying "RAID Group # was created successfully.," click "Ok."

NaviSecCLI (Process is identical for both VNX1 and VNX2 Arrays)

The naviseccli command "createrg" creates RAID Groups.
The minimum syntax required to create a Storage Pool using NaviSecCLI is:

createrg rgID disks

Common options that can be used with the "createrg" command:

• rgID: Is the RAID group identification number. rgID specifies a number between 0 and the maximum number of RAID groups supported by the RAID group system.
• disks: Specifies the physical disks in this RAID group. In a RAID 1/0 or RAID 1 configuration, you can manually select the disks for the RAID group in an order that determines the primary and secondary image.
• -raidtype: Sets the RAID type of the RAID group during the time of creation. The supported RAID types are r6, r5, r3, r1_0, r0, and disk.

Additional options are available for use with the "createrg" command, and can be found in the applicable CLI Guides.

VNX1 Arrays: VNX Command Line Interface Reference for Block 5.32
VNX2 Arrays: VNX Command Line Interface Reference for Block 5.33