The NAS 6000 base unit contains twelve 160GB hard disks. This table describes the standard factory configuration.

In the procedure outlined below, the Windows Logical Disk Manager is used to span the disk space for existing drives E: and F: into a larger single E: drive on a base unit or all of the user space on the base plus expansion units.

Procedure(s):

Part 1: Protect User Data

1. This procedure assumes:
   • The NAS 6000 is installed and running with Terminal Services access to the Server Desktop
   • That the two-user volumes on the NAS 6000 base unit (E: and F:) will be reconfigured into a single user volume.

   In order to span multiple arrays into a single volume, each physical array must be configured in the identical RAID type. If expansion units are present, this procedure assumes that each expansion unit has the same RAID configuration as the base unit.

   This procedure destroys all user data on drives E: and F:. Please make sure to backup all user data.

2. Gain administrator access to the MaxAttach NAS 6000 desktop via Terminal Services.
3. Create a backup version of the MaxAttach OS on the server desktop:
   • Select "Start" → "Run"
   • In the Run Window, type “C:\BackupMaxAttach6000.bat” and click the “OK” button or press “Enter”. The backup OS creation process takes about 10 minutes.
4. Backup all user data volumes using an appropriate backup system.

Part 2: Uninstall Microsoft QFE Q286733

There is an issue that arises when spanning user volumes on the NAS 6000 due to a Microsoft QFE (Quick Fix Engineering) that is currently installed on the system. Microsoft QFE Q286733, (Potential Data Loss Because of Lack of Shutdown Notification) will prevent a NAS 6000 with spanned user volumes from automatically turning off the power at the end of a system shutdown. As a consequence, the NAS 6000 hardware watchdog timer will initiate a system reboot 655 seconds (approximately 11 minutes) after a system shutdown. This problem is eliminated when QFE 286733 is removed with the Windows Add/Remove programs interface.

1. Access the NAS 6000 through Terminal Service Client
2. From the Terminal Window click “Start” → “Settings” → “Control Panel” → “Add/Remove Programs”
3. Select “Windows Hot Fix (Pre-SP3) [Refer to Q286733 for more information]” and click the “Remove” button. The NAS 6000 will reboot within a minute.

The removal of QFE 286733 has absolutely no impact on the functionality of the NAS 6000 server.

Part 3: Run the Logical Disk Manager

1. On the server desktop, right click on “My Computer“ and select “Manage“ from the menu.
2. In the Computer Management window, double click on the Disk Management Item under Storage. This starts the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) with three windows:
   • The Console Tree
   • The Volumes List
   • The Disks window (in the lower right of the window)

Part 4: Decommission the existing User Volumes

Please note that the following procedures will delete all existing user data, including Persistent Storage Manager (PSM) snapshots.

1. From the Disks Window, locate “Disk2”.
2. Right click on the blue bar over the disk information area and select "Delete Partition" from the menu. Click on "Yes" when prompted.
3. Locate “Disk3”.
4. Right click on the blue bar over the disk information area and select "Delete Partition" from the menu. Click on "Yes" when prompted.
5. If there are user volumes on the expansion unit drives (presumably Disk4, Disk5, Disk6 and Disk7), delete them.

Part 5: Convert the Volumes to Support Spanning and Create the New User Volume

1. From the Disks Window, locate “Disk2”.
2. Right click on the Disk 2 status box (with the Disk2 name and the “online” status) and select "Upgrade to Dynamic Disk" from the menu.
3. In the window that appears with the heading “Upgrade to Dynamic Disk”, select “Disk2“and “Disk3” then click on the “OK” button. If this is a base plus two expansion units configuration, upgrade “Disk4“, “Disk5“, “Disk6“ and “Disk7“ as well.
4. In the Disks window, locate “Disk2”. Right click on the black bar over the disk information area and select “Create Volume“ from the menu. A Create Disk Volume Wizard will appear.
5. In the Create Disk Volume Wizard, click “Next”
   • Select “Spanning” and click “Next”
   • Select all the disks in “Available dynamic disks” list and click the "Add" button to include them in the “Selected dynamic disks” list, and click “Next”
   • Assign drive letter E: and click “Next”
   • Select “quick format”, label the volume as desired, select the “NTFS“ file system, select the default block size and click “Next”

   The volume creation and quick formatting process will take about 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of disks that are being spanned.

Part 6: Special Considerations and Limitation: PLEASE READ!

1. The new volume will not be visible or usable (after the creation and formatting are complete) until the current Terminal Services session and Administrator login session has ended. Close the LDM and logout user Administrator from the MaxAttach NAS 6000 server desktop. This action will also end the Terminal Services session.
2. The QFE Q286733 described earlier may be included in the upcoming Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) Release. The installation of SP3 makes the spanned volume-QFE interaction permanent. Seagate has informed Microsoft of this limitation and a resolution is in process. 

This Knowledge Base article describes a specific RAID reconfiguration; it describes how to re-configure the arrays using a Mylex Spanning feature to create a single 1.45 TB user volume spanned across Arrays 0 and 1 without a performance reduction. This procedure is data destructive for both user volumes. This procedure does not require the use of any special service tools. This procedure does not require system downtime, but the performance of the system will be affected significantly for about 10 minutes. System performance will also be slightly reduced for about 30 hours during the “background” creation of the redundant data on the arrays.

The standard configuration for a NAS 6000 base unit includes two user volumes, one with 723 GB and the second one with 768 GB. These volumes are on separate arrays. The NAS 6000 base unit has twelve 160 GB hard disks. This table describes the standard factory configuration.

In the procedure outlined below, an array spanning feature of the Mylex RAID controller is used to span the disk space for drives E: and F: into a large single E: drive. Spanning is limited to two arrays so the biggest possible user volume is 1.5 Terabytes. Alternative procedures have significant side effects (such as using the LDM to span volumes).

Procedure

This procedure is written for base unit configurations only and does not consider the use of previously connected expansion units.

Protect the User Data

This procedure assumes:

• The NAS 6000 is installed and running with Terminal Services access to the Server Desktop.
• This procedure assumes that the two user volumes on the base unit, (E: and F:) will be reconfigured.
• This procedure destroys all user data on drives E: and F:.

Procedure:

1. Logon to the NAS 6000 via Terminal Services. Enter the Administrator username and password when prompted.
2. On the server desktop, select “Start” → “Run” and enter the name of the hidden backup batch file C:\BackupMaxAttach6000.bat. Click on “OK”. This process takes about 10 minutes.
3. Backup all user data stored on drives E: and F: using an appropriate backup system. Run the Logical Disk Manager to Decommission the Existing User Volumes
4. On the server desktop, right click on “My Computer” and select “Manage” from the menu.
5. In the Computer Management window that appears, double click on the “Disk Management” Item under Storage. This starts the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) with three windows, the Console Tree, the Volumes List and the Disks window (in the lower right of the window)
6. In the Disks window, locate Disk2. Right click on the blue bar over the disk information area and select "Delete Partition" from the menu. Click on "Yes" when prompted.
7. In the Disks window, locate Disk3. Right click on the blue bar over the disk information area and select "Delete Partition" from the menu. Click on "Yes" when prompted.
8. Close the Logical Disk Manager and all other applications.
9. Search and modify the file gam2cl.ini located in the C:\Program Files\Mylex\Global Array Manager Client\ directory. Change setting for the line:
   ENABLE_SYSTEM_DRIVE_SPAN=0 to ENABLE_SYSTEM_DRIVE_SPAN=1
10. Start Mylex Global Array Manager Client application from Start > Programs menu.
11. Double click on the localhost item and login into Mylex controller administration window as Username: gamroot, no password.
12. Select the “Administration” Tab → “RAID Assist” → “Manual Configuration” → “New Configuration”.
13. Click and drag with the mouse Unused Disk Drives 0-0, 0-1, 0-2, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 icons, one by one, and drop each into the most left empty place on the top row on the Disk Array A0.
    NOTE: the sequence and the position of the drives in the array is critical!
14. Click the “Add Array” button to create array A1.
15. Click and drag  with the mouse Unused Disk Drives 0-3, 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-0 icons, one by one, and drop each into the most left empty place on the top row on the Disk Array A1.
    NOTE: the sequence and the position of the drives in the array is critical!
16. Select “3”. Logical Drives tab.
17. Create Primary OS logical volume:
    Under RAID Level select “RAID 0+1”,
    Under Capacity, Logical type “7152”,
    Click the “Write Cache” radio button.
    Click the “Add Drive” button at the bottom left of the window.
18. Create Backup OS logical volume:
    Under RAID Level select “RAID 0+1”,
    Under Capacity, Logical type “14304”,
    Click the “Write Cache” radio button.
    Click the “Add Drive” button at the bottom left of the window.
19. Create User logical volume:
    Under RAID Level select "RAID 5",
    Under Capacity, Logical accept default size of “1527360”,
    Click the “Write Cache” radio button.
    Click the “Add Drive” button at the bottom left of the window.
20. Click the “Apply” button at the bottom right of the window.
21. Select “Yes” at the next window to proceed.
22. Type ”Yes” in the space provided and click the “OK” button. At this moment the Mylex RAID controller is being re-configured. The screen will seem to “freeze”, the MS Windows Clock icon will appear and all the drives in the enclosure will start blinking. That event may take few minutes.
23. Close and exit “Global Array Manager Client” application. When the Microsoft Windows Clock icon disappears, the system is ready to be used and user volumes can be created with the Logical Disk Manager (LDM). When in it, the empty space for volume creation will span all free space of the two arrays A0 and A1.

Run the Logical Disk Manager to Create a Big User Volume

1. On the server desktop, right click on “My Computer” and select “Manage” from the menu.
2. In the Computer Management window that appears, double click on the “Disk Management” Item under Storage. This starts the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) with three windows, the Console Tree, the Volumes List and the Disks window (in the lower right of the window)
3. In the Disks window, locate “Disk2”. Right click on the blue bar over the disk information area and select “Create Partition” from the menu. A Create Disk Partition Wizard will appear.
4. In the Create Disk Partition Wizard,
   • Use all of the space available on Disk2
   • Select "Quick Format"
   • Name the volume as desired
   • Use drive letter E:
   • Use the NTFS file system
   • Use the default block size

   • The volume creation and quick formatting will require about 10 minutes.

Special Considerations

1. The new volume will not be visible or usable (after the creation and formatting are complete) until the current Terminal Services session and Administrator login session has been ended. Close the LDM and logout user Administrator from the MaxAttach NAS 6000 server desktop. This action will also end the Terminal Services session. In the next Terminal Services session, the new volume will appear under My Computer and in the LDM.
2. At this time, the new large volume E: is available for use and it has a 1.45 Terabyte capacity. The RAID controller will initialize (create parity data) the arrays in less than 30 hours. During this background initialization, there is an impact on system response times and there will be visible disk activity even when no users are connected.

Currently only the OneTouch III Turbo 1TB (Terabyte) drives provide RAID 1 (Mirrored) support. Configuring a RAID volume is a data destructive process. It is strongly recommended that you backup any/all data on your OneTouch III Turbo drive before proceeding.

1. Double-click on the Maxtor OneTouch Manager icon on your Windows Desktop. This will launch the Onetouch Manager application. If this icon has been removed from the desktop, click Start > Programs (All Program for Windows XP) > Maxtor > OneTouch > Maxtor OneTouch^™ Manager
2. Click on the Settings button.
3. The Settings window appears. Click on the RAID Settings button.
4. The RAID Settings window appears. At any time you may click on the link "How do these RAID Settings work", located at the bottom of the screen to learn more about the offered RAID configurations for the OneTouch III Turbo Edition drives.
5. By default the OneTouch III Turbo drive is configured with a RAID 0 (Striped) volume – this RAID setting provides speed, but no redundancy in the event of of a single disk failure. To setup a RAID 1 (mirrored) volume, click on the RAID 1 – Redundancy radio button and click Next.
6. A Warning displays notifying you that configuring a RAID 1 volume is a data destructive process. It is recommended that you backup any/all critical data on your OneTouch III Turbo drive. When you are ready, click Continue
7. You will see a window stating that the RAID Setup is in progress. When the setup is finished, you will be prompted to format the newly created RAID 1 volume. Click OK to close this window. The RAID Setup process may take awhile to complete.
8. When the RAID Setup is finished, a window displays prompting you to format the new volume. Click Format to proceed.
9. To confirm that you want to prepare the RAID 1 volume, click Format.
10. At this point, the RAID volume is partitioned and formatted. This may take awhile to complete.
11. When the format is complete, click OK. The OneTouch III Turbo Drive is now configured with a RAID 1 volume.

Maxtor OneTouch III Video Tutorial – Performing Diagnostics From a Windows PC

This page will link you to a Flash Video that shows you how to configure a RAID 1 (mirrored) volume on your Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo drive.

Flash Turorial: http://support.seagate.com/rightnow/flash/OneTouchIII/RAID/one/one.html