Intel KM4AM Introduction, RAID Basics, RAID 0 Striping, RAID 1 Mirroring, RAID Level, Capacity

MS-6734 M-ATX Mainboard

Introduction

This section gives a brief introduction on the RAID-related background knowledge and a brief introduction on VIA SATA RAID Host Controller. For users wishing to install their VIA SATA RAID driver and RAID software, proceed to Driver and RAID Software Installation section.

RAID Basics

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a method of combining two or more hard disk drives into one logical unit. The advantage of an Array is to provide better performance or data fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is achieved through data redun- dant operation, where if one drives fails, a mirrored copy of the data can be found on another drive. This can prevent data loss if the operating system fails or hangs. The individual disk drives in an array are called “members”. The configuration information of each member is recorded in the “reserved sector” that identifies the drive as a member. All disk members in a formed disk array are recognized as a single physical drive to the operating system.

Hard disk drives can be combined together through a few different methods. The different methods are referred to as different RAID levels. Different RAID levels represent different performance levels, security levels and implementation costs. The RAID levels which the VIA VT8237 SATA RAID Host Controller supports are RAID 0 and RAID 1. The table below briefly introduced these RAID levels.

RAID Level	No. of Drives	Capacity	Benefits
RAID 0	2	Number drives * 2	Highest performance without data
(Striping)			protection
RAID 1	2	Smallest size	Data protection
(Mirroring)

RAID 0 (Striping)

RAID 0 reads and writes sectors of data interleaved between multiple drives. If any disk member fails, it affects the entire array. The disk array data capacity is equal to the number of drive members times the capacity of the smallest member. The striping block size can be set from 4KB to 64KB. RAID 0 does not support fault tolerance.

RAID 1 (Mirroring)

RAID 1 writes duplicate data onto a pair of drives and reads both sets of data in parallel. If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure or does not respond, the remaining drive will continue to function. Due to redundancy, the drive capacity of the array is the capacity of the smallest drive. Under a RAID 1 setup, an extra drive called the .spare drive. can be attached. Such a drive will be activated to replace a failed drive that is part of a mirrored array. Due to the fault tolerance, if any RAID 1 drive fails, data access will not be affected as long as there are other working drives in the array.

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