6.1RAID configurations

The server system/motherboard comes with the Intel® ICH7R and the LSI Software RAID technology built-in the Intel® ICH7R SouthBridge chipset that allows you to configure IDE and Serial ATA hard disk drives as RAID sets. The motherboard supports the following RAID configurations:

6.1.1RAID definitions

RAID 0 (Data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate, double that of a single disk alone, thus improving data access and storage. Use of two new identical hard disk drives is required for this setup.

RAID 1 (Data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of data from one drive to a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array management software directs all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of the data in the other drive. This RAID configuration provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use two new drives or use an existing drive and a new drive for this setup. The new drive must be of the same size or larger than the existing drive.

Intel® Matrix Storage. The Intel® Matrix Storage technology supported by the ICH7R chip allows you to create a RAID 0 and a RAID 1 set using only two identical hard disk drives. The Intel® Matrix Storage technology creates two partitions on each hard disk drive to create a virtual RAID 0 and RAID 1 sets. This technology also allows you to change the hard disk drive partition size without losing any data.

If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a created RAID set, copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk before you install an operating system to the selected hard disk drive. Refer to section 7.1 RAID driver installation for details.

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Chapter 6: RAID Configuration