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5.Installation of SATA RAID Disks
The Serial ATA channel controlled by the SiS 964 southbridge chip supports RAID 0 and RAID 1. This section explains the steps required to configure RAID disks.
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a method of combining two hard disk drives into one logical unit. The advantage of an Array is to provide better performance or data fault tolerance. Hard disk drives can be combined together through a few different methods. The different methods are referred to as different RAID levels. Differ- ent RAID levels represent different performance levels, security levels and implementa- tion costs.
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. RAID 0 does not provide fault tolerance funtionality.
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. 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.
5.1.Configuring the System BIOS for the SATA Channel
1.Connect two SATA hard disks to the SATA ports on the motherboard.
2.Reboot you system and press the <Delete> key to enter the BIOS setup screen after POST begins.
3.Under Integrated Peripherals, locate the SATA controller and SATA mode setup options. Assure that the SATA controller and SATA RAID mode are enabled.
4.Save changes and exit the BIOS Setup.
5.2.Creating RAID 0
1.Upon
2.In the SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility, press <R> to enter the RAID Setup utility.
3.In the RAID Setup window, press <A> to create RAID volume. Then, use number keys 1~3 to select a RAID type. Press 2 to select RAID 0 and then press <Enter>.
4.Use <1> or <2> key to select Auto Create or Manual Create.
5.When the next message appears, if you wish to proceed to map and stripe all current data and future data to the RAID disks, press <Y>. Or press <N> to perform striping on future data only. Then press <Enter>.
6.After the completion, you will see the RAID 0 array under the Current Created Raid list in the RAID Setup window.
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