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5-18
Chapter 5: Software support
5.6 RAID configurations
The motherboard includes the Promise
®
PDC20378 controller chipset and
the VIA VT8237 controller integrated in the SouthBridge to support
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) configurations. Using four
Serial ATA hard disks and two UltraDMA133 hard disks, you can set up
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, Multi-RAID and JBOD configurations. The
following defines the different RAID set configurations:
RAID 0 (called data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to
read and write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform
the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate,
double that of a single disk alone, thus improving data access and
storage.
RAID 1 (called data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of
data from one drive to a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array
management software directs all applications to the surviving drive as it
contains a complete copy of the data in the other drive. This RAID
configuration provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the
entire system.
RAID 0+1 is data striping and data mirroring combined without parity
(redundancy data) having to be calculated and written. The advantage of
RAID 0 + 1 is fast data access (like RAID 0), but with the ability to loose
one drive and have a complete duplicate surviving drive or set of drives
(like RAID 1).
Multiple RAID allows both RAID 0 and RAID 1 configurations to co-exist
on a system. This RAID configuration delivers the advantages of data
striping and data mirroring on separate RAID sets in one system.
JBOD stands for Just a Bunch of Disks or also called spanning, refers to
hard disks that are not yet configured according to RAID. The JBOD
configuration stores the same data redundantly on multiple disks that
appear as a single disk on the operating system. Spanning does not
deliver any advantage over using separate disks independently and does
not provide fault tolerance or performance benefits of RAID.
If you use either Windows
®
XP or Windows
®
2000 operating system
(OS), copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk
before creating RAID configurations. Refer to section “5.7 Creating a
RAID driver disk” for details.