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3-8
Chapter 3: Starting-Up
3.4.1 Install the Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks
The VIA
®
VT8237 southbridge chipset supports Serial ATA hard disk drives. For
optimal performance, install identical drives of the same model and capacity when
creating a RAID set.
• If you are creating a RAID 0 (striping) array for perfomance, use two new
drives.
• If you are creating a RAID 1 (mirroring) array for protection, you can use two
new drives or use an existing drive and a new drive (the new drive must be of
the same size or larger than the existing drive). If you use two drives of different
sizes, the smaller capacity hard disk will be the base storage size. For example,
one hard disk has an 80GB storage capacity and the other hard disk has 60GB
storage capacity, the maximum storage capacity for the RAID 1 set is 60GB.
Follow these steps to install the SATA hard disks for RAID configuration.
1. Install the Serial ATA hard disks into the drive bays.
2. Connect one end of the Serial ATA cable to the motherboard’s primary Serial
ATA connector (SATA1).
3. Connect the other end of Serial ATA cable to the master Serial ATA hard disk.
4. Connect one end of the second Serial ATA cable to the motherboard’s
secondary Serial ATA connector (SATA2).
5. Connect the other end of Serial ATA cable to the secondary Serial ATA hard
disk.
6. Connect the Serial ATA power cable to the power connector on each drive.
7. Proceed to section 5.4.2 “Entering VIA
®
Tech RAID BIOS Utility” for the next
procedure.
• Before setting up your new RAID array, verify the status of your hard disks.
Make sure the Master/Slave jumpers are configured properly.
• Both the data and power SATA cables are new cables. You cannot use
older 40-pin 80-conductor IDE or regular IDE power cables with Serial ATA
drives. Installing Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks require the use of new Serial
ATA cable (4-conductor) which supports the Serial ATA protocol and a
Serial ATA power cable.
• Either end of the Serial ATA data cable can be connected to the SATA hard
disk or the SATA connector on the motherboard.