Chapter 5: Disk Array Concepts
About FastTrak TX4000
FastTrak TX4000 is a high performance Ultra ATA RAID controller card that features concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS. The channels on the FastTrak TX4000 support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped I/O under
About Adapter BIOS
The FastTrak TX4000 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 TX4000 BIOS appears during boot up, press
FastBuild Auto Menu Setup
This setup utility is used to build and manage FastTrak TX4000 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 TX4000 connectors or cards within the system without reconfiguring or rebuilding.
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