Creating a three drive RAID 5 data volume

Procedure
  1. Click Create Volume to begin.
  2. Select the NVMe Devices controller if not already selected. Next select Efficient data hosting and protection (RAID 5). Then, select Next to continue.
  3. To configure the volume, you can first specify the Name of the volume. In this example it has been left as default (Volume_0000). Next, select three available drives to be included in the volume. As this system has direct connections for the NVMe drives to the board, there are two drives per Intel VMD controller. The volume must be spanned across them. This will light up the WARNING: RAID volume spanned across Intel VMD controllers cannot be used as bootable volume. The check in the box to enable Intel VMD controller spanning must be selected before you will be allowed to select drives from additional controllers. Then click Next.
    NOTE:

    With this scenario, a warning has appeared indicating that there is a difference in the size of the drives that is greater than 10%. This indicates that there will be unused space on the larger drive. To avoid this, use drives of the same size if possible for the new array.

  4. Click Create Volume.
  5. Click OK to finish.
  6. Under the Volumes section the new Array and RAID Volume are displayed. By selecting the RAID volume (Volume_0000), the “Properties” pane (to the right) will refresh to show the current status, properties and available options of the newly created RAID volume.
  7. For RAID 5 volumes, the option to enable RAID Write Hole closure is available. This is a means of allowing for data integrity to be maintained even if a power loss is experienced. It is best selected at the onset of creation of the volume, before data is transferred to it. Changing the mode with data existing can put that data at risk. It will allow you to select a drive that has not already been associated to the array as the additional disk member and allow you to select the mode of distributed or journaling within the advanced pane during creation of the RAID or at time of addition. It is recommended that if this feature is to be used, it be enabled during the volume creation to prevent risk of data loss.
    NOTE:

    The arrow is pointing to the help icon that will provide additional information for RAID Write Hole.