Chapter 5: Disk Array Concepts

About FastTrak S150 TX2plus

FastTrak S150 TX2plus is a high performance Serial ATA/Ultra ATA RAID controller card that features concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS. The channels on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped I/O under multi-tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between multiple drives.

About Adapter BIOS

The FastTrak S150 TX2plus card contains a BIOS code that extends the standard disk service routine provided through Int13. The BIOS is bootable for DOS and other operating systems that rely on the system BIOS for drive operation. When the FastTrak S150 TX2plus BIOS appears during bootup, press Ctrl-F to enter the FastBuild setup to select from menu settings.

FastBuild Auto Menu Setup

This setup utility is used to build and manage FastTrak S150 TX2plus disk arrays. The utility is menu driven and features the Auto Setup (1) option that uses a simple, interactive setup process. Once the array is built, all the array members store the configuration information in the drive’s reserved area. See Chapter 3, which provides descriptions of individual functions.

Reserve Sector

Array configuration data about the drive member and other members in the disk array are saved on a special location on the disk drives called the reserve sector. If any member of the array becomes corrupt or lost, the redundant configuration data on the other members can be used for rebuilds.

Disk array members do not have a memory of their drive positions. This allows drives to be placed on different FastTrak S150 TX2plus connectors or cards within the system without reconfiguring or rebuilding.

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Promise Technology 150TX2 About FastTrak S150 TX2plus, About Adapter Bios, FastBuild Auto Menu Setup, Reserve Sector