Asus TS300-E5 Server User Manual


 
6-2 Chapter 6: RAID conguration
6.1 Setting up RAID
For PA4 model, the Intel
®
ICH7R Southbridge chip comes with the LSI Logic
Embedded SATA RAID Utility and the Intel
®
Matrix Storage Manager. These utilities
support SATA hard disk drives and allow creation of RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and
RAID 10 conguration. For PX4 model, the ASUS SASsaby 1064E SAS RAID
controller card provides RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 1E conguration.
6.1.1 RAIDdenitions
RAID 0
(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. Use of two new identical hard disk drives
is required for this setup.
RAID 1
(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 conguration provides data protection and
increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use two new drives or use an
existing drive and a new drive for this setup. The new drive must be of the same
size or larger than the existing drive.
RAID 1E
(Enhanced RAID 1)
has a striped layout with each stripe unit having a
secondary (or alternate) copy stored on a different disk. You can use three or more
hard disk drives for this conguration.
RAID 5
stripes both data and parity information across three or more hard
disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5 conguration include better
HDD performance, fault tolerance, and higher storage capacity. The RAID
5 conguration is best suited for transaction processing, relational database
applications, enterprise resource planning, and other business systems. Use a
minimum of three identical hard disk drives for this setup.
RAID 10 is a striped conguration with RAID 1 segments whose segments are
RAID 1 arrays. This conguration has the same fault tolerance as RAID 1, and
has the same overhead for fault-tolerance as mirroring alone. RAID 10 achieves
high input/output rates by striping RAID 1 segments. In some instances, a RAID
10 conguration can sustain multiple simultaneous drive failure. A minimum of four
hard disk drives is required for this setup.
Intel
®
Matrix Storage.
The Intel
®
Matrix Storage technology supported by the
ICHR chip allows you to create a RAID 0 and RAID 1 set using only two identical
hard disk drives. The Intel
®
Matrix Storage technology creates two partitions on
each hard disk drive to create a virtual RAID 0 and RAID 1 sets. This technology
also allows you to change the hard disk drive partition size without losing any data.
If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a created RAID
set, copy rst the RAID driver from the support CD to a oppy disk before you
install an operating system to the selected hard disk drive.