User Guide

Specifications: Dell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 2 Installation Guide

PERC 2 Controller Technical Specification

Component	Description
Computer bus	32 or 64-bit PCI local bus
On-board processor	233 MHz StrongARM RISC microprocessor
Interface protocol	Bus master DMA
Cache memory	Up to 128 MB ECC-protected, EDO 50ns non-registered battery-backed DRAM
Battery holdover times	Up to 72 hours for DIMMs up to 64MB; up to 48 hours for 128MB DIMMS
Host burst data transfer rate	Up to 266 MB/sec. burst rate (64-bit)
SCSI synchronous data rate	Up to 80 MB/sec. per channel
Device protocol	Fast, Wide, Ultra-, and Ultra2 SCSI
RAID support	JBOD (volume set), RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0/1, and RAID 5
Container (array) support	Up to 64 containers per controller; 64 partitions maximum per container
PCI bus	64-bit, 33 MHz (32-bit, 33 MHz-compatible) Hot-plug PCI-ready1
Ultra2SCSI (LVD) channels	4 channels (4 external and 2 internal connectors)
Device support	Up to 60 SCSI devices per controller (15 per channel) Up to 8 RAID controllers per server2 Supports RAID array as boot device
Operating system support	Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 6A or higher) Windows 2000 NetWare 4.2 (Support Pack 9 or higher) NetWare 5.0 (Support Pack 5 or higher) NetWare 5.1 (Support Pack 1 or higher) Red Hat Linux 7.0
Remote management	Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 6A or higher) and Windows 2000
Recommended minimum system requirements
PCI-based, 2.1-compliant, 90 MHz Pentium or equivalent motherboard
32 MB system memory
Full-sized 3.3 or 5 V PCI slot that supports bus mastering
Physical and environmental
Dimensions	Full-sized PCI card (12.283 in. x 4.2 in.; 31.191 cm x 10.668 cm)
Operating temperature	0 to 40 ° C
Storage temperature	-40 to 64 ° C
Humidity (operating)	20 to 90%, noncondensing
Power requirements	5 V

1 If you are hot-plugging a PERC 2 controller on a NetWare 5.x system, do not use the NCMCON.NLM utility to load or reload the device drivers, since the NetWare system's probe routine will time out before the controller boots. Manually reload the drivers at least 60 seconds after repowering the PCI slot that contains the hot-plugged controller. 2 The actual number of controllers that will function in a system depends on the system motherboard, the amount of system memory installed, and other PCI controllers installed in the system. Refer to your system specifications.

Minimum and Maximum Subsystem Values

RAID Element	Minimum	Maximum	Default
Containers
Total containers per controller	—	64	—
On-disk partition slots available	—	—	30
In-memory partition slots available per controller	—	—	256
Mirror set (RAID 1) limits
Partitions	2	2	2
RAID-5 set limits
Partitions	3	16	—
Chunk size limits	8 KB	64 KB	32 KB
Stripe set (RAID 0) limits
Partitions	1	48	—
Chunk size limits	8 KB	64 KB	32 KB
Stripe set of mirror sets (RAID 0/1) limits
Partitions	2	32	—
Chunk size limits	8 KB	64 KB	32 KB
Volume set limits
Partitions	—	32	—
SCSI
Number of channels per controller	Up to 4 (2 shared internal/ external)
Number of devices per channel	151
Number of logical units per device	8

1 UltraSCSI data transfer speeds can currently support a maximum of 8 devices per channel. The maximum devices per channel are dependant on the type of enclosure or backplane.