RAID Configuration with ORCA on a HP PC

You decide to install a Microsoft OS (client or server) and create a RAID 1 on a HP PC client or server. You can use ORCA, a simple ROM-based configuration utility that runs on all operating systems.

When using an HP Smart Array controller as your boot controller, use the Option Rom Configuration for Arrays (ORCA) utility to configure your logical boot drive. The ORCA utility can only be accessed when the system is booting.

To create a logical drive using ORCA, follow these steps:
1. Press the F8 key when the prompt appears on the screen during boot to start ORCA and configure your logical boot drive.
2. Select Create Logical Drive. The screen displays a list of all available (unconfigured) physical drives and the valid RAID options for the system.
3. Use the Arrow keys, Spacebar, and Tab to navigate around the screen and set up the logical drive, including an online spare drive if one is required.
NOTE: You cannot use ORCA to configure one spare drive to be shared among several arrays.
4. Press Enter to accept the settings.
5. Press F8 to confirm the settings and save the new configuration. After several seconds, the Configuration Saved screen appears.
6. Press Enter to continue. You can now create another logical drive by repeating the previous steps.
NOTE: Newly created logical drives are invisible to the operating system. To make the new logical drives available for data
storage, format them using the instructions given in the operating system documentation.

ORCA Limitations
For the most efficient use of drive space, do not mix drives of different capacities within the same array. The configuration utility treats all physical drives in an array as if they have the same capacity as the smallest drive in the array. The excess capacity of any larger drives is wasted because it is unavailable for data storage.
The probability that an array will experience a drive failure increases with the number of physical drives in the array. If you configure a logical drive with RAID 5, keep the probability of failure low by using no more than 14 physical drives in the array.