Configuring a disk drive or solid-state drive for use in an IBM i system or IBM i logical partition

To configure a newly installed disk drive or solid-state drive (SSD) for your environment, complete the steps in this procedure.

1. To display unconfigured drives, complete the following steps:
   1. If necessary, start System Service Tools (SST) by typing strsst on the command line of the IBM® i session, and then press Enter.
   2. Type your service tools user ID and service tools password on the Start Service Tools (STRSST) Sign On display, and then press Enter.

      The service tools password is case-sensitive.

   3. Select Work with Disk Units > Display disk configuration > Display non-configured units. The drives that you installed are listed. The serial numbers must match the serial numbers that you recorded (the last four digits).
      Note: The new drives might take up to five minutes to appear in the list. If the drive is not listed, ensure that the drives were installed properly.
   4. Press F12 twice to return to the Work with Disk Units window.
2. Choose from the following options:
   • To configure a new drive with device parity protection, go to step 3.
   • To configure a new drive with mirror protection, go to step 4.
   • To configure a new drive with hot-spare protection, go to step 5.
3. To configure a drive with IBM i device-parity protection, complete the following steps:
   1. Select Work with disk configuration > Work with device parity protection.
   2. Select the type of device-parity you want on the set: RAID-5, RAID-6, or RAID-10. Hot-Spare disk protection can also be selected.
      Note: The following conditions must be met before device-parity starts.

      • Enough drives must be available to create a new parity set.
      • All drives in a parity set must be the same capacity with a minimum number of two, three, or four drives (depending on RAID level) and maximum of 32 drives in the resulting parity set.
      • All drives that are attached to an advanced function input/output adapter must be recognized by the system. If not, repeat this step (a-c).
   3. After the conditions are met and device-parity is started, press F12 twice to return to the Work with Disk Units display.
   4. If you have an attached printer, print the configuration list. From the Hardware service manager menu, press F6 (print the configuration). The configuration prints. Save this list for future use.
4. To configure a drive with IBM i mirror-protection, complete the following steps:
   1. Select Work with disk configuration.
   2. Select the option to Add units to auxiliary storage pools (ASPs) and to balance data.
   3. Specify the number of the ASP to which you want to add the drive, and then press Enter. The system ASP is ASP 1. The Confirm Add Units display shows the configuration in your system when the add operation completes.
      Note: If you selected the wrong ASP, press F12 to change your options.
   4. Press F10 to Confirm Add and Balance. The add process takes several minutes to complete. The balancing of the data between the disks in the ASP might take hours to complete. However, the balancing task runs in the background and you can run normal operations.
      Notes:

      • If the ASP is mirror protected, drives must be added in pairs of the same capacity.
      • When one or more pairs of drives are added to a mirrored ASP, they automatically become mirror protected.
      • To start mirrored protection on an ASP, go to the IBM i Knowledge Center website and select the version of the IBM i operating system you are using. Then, search on "working with mirrored protection".
   5. When the message Selected units have been added successfully is shown, press F3 three times and press Enter to return to the Main menu display.
   6. If you have an attached printer, print the configuration list. From the Hardware service manager menu, press F6 (print the configuration). The configuration prints. Save this list for future use.
5. To configure a drive with IBM i hot-spare protection, complete the following steps:
   1. Select Work with disk configuration > Start hot spare. A list of non-configured disk units that can be a Hot-Spare unit under an IOA are displayed.
   2. Select the disk units that you want to set for a Hot-Spare configuration.
   3. If you have an attached printer, print the configuration list. From the Hardware service manager menu, press F6 (print the configuration). The configuration prints. Save this list for future use.
6. If you are a service provider and completed this task, return to the procedure that sent you here.