Acer VERITON M661 User Manual

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Quick Guide for Acer Selected Veriton PC V1.1

Acer RAID Ready Systems

With Intel Matrix storage Manager

User's Guide

Acer Incorporated

Version: v1.1

Date: August, 2007

This document contains proprietary technical information, which is the property
of the Acer Incorporated and shall not be disclosed to others in whole or in
part, reproduced, copied, or used as the basis for design, manufacturing, or
sale of apparatus without written permission of Acer Incorporated.

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Revision History

Rev. # Date Explanation of Change Approved by

1.0 2007/08/15 First release

1.1 2007/8/22 Format and spelling enhancement

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 4

2. RAID TECHNOLOGY AND SELECTION .................................................................................. 5

RAID0 (STRIPING) .............................................................................................................................. 5

RAID1 (MIRRORING) ............................................................................................................................ 6

RAID5 (STRIPING WITH PARITY) ....................................................................................................... 6

RAID10 (RAID1+0: STRIPING + MIRRORING) ............................................................................... 7

3. WARNINGS AND REMINDERS ................................................................................................... 9

4. ENABLING THE RAID FUNCTION WITH INTEL MATRIX STORAGE MANAGER CONSOLE

10

5. CONFIGURING RAID0 OR RAID1 ON YOUR RAID READY ACER PC ...................... 17

6. CONFIGURING AN EXISTING HDD AS A RAID0 OR RAID1 VOLUME .................... 18

7. MIGRATING FROM RAID0/1/10 TO RAID5 SYSTEM ................................................... 19

8. PRE-INSTALLATION OF THE INTEL® MATRIX STORAGE MANAGER DRIVER ...... 20

8.1 BUILD THE RAID DRIVER ON A FLOPPY DISK .......................................................................... 20

8.2 PRE-INSTALLATION USING THE "F6" PROCESS ...................................................................... 20

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1. Introduction

This document will assist customers in evaluating, configuring and enabling
RAID functionality on Acer RAID Ready platforms using the Intel® Matrix Storage
Manager software.

This document also describes RAID volume management such as creating, deleting,
and modifying volumes, common usage models, and any special notes necessary to
enable customers to develop their RAID-compatible products.

Selected high-end Acer desktop systems are configured as Intel RAID Ready
systems. A "RAID Ready" system can be upgraded to RAID0, RAID1, RAID5 or RAID10
using the RAID migration feature built into Intel Matrix Storage Manager 7.5.
This technology enables you to install additional SATA hard drives, and then
migrate a RAID Ready configuration to a RAID0, RAID1, RAID5 or RAID10
configuration.

Before you start to build your RAID system, please do check Section 3 "Warnings
and Reminders" for more detailed information. You can also check the on-line
user's manual for the Intel Matrix Storage manager in Windows for detailed RAID
function execution.

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2. RAID Technology and Selection

RAID (a redundant array of inexpensive disks, also later known as a redundant

array of independent disks) is a system that uses multiple hard drives to share
or replicate data among the drives. Depending on the version chosen, the benefits

of RAID are one or more of the following: greater capacity, reliability,
protection of data, and/or speed compared to a single drive.

RAID0 (striping)

• RAID0 splits data evenly across two or more disks with no parity information

for redundancy.

• Multiple files can be read (and written) simultaneously and transfer time

is improved dramatically, thus increasing throughput.

• RAID0 volume capacity = number of (HDDs) x (capacity of smallest HDD)

• RAID0 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space

added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk.
For example, if a 120 GB disk is striped together with a 100 GB disk, the
size of the array will be 200 GB.

Disk 1

Block 1

Block 3

Block 5

Block 7

Disk 2

Block 2

Block 4

Block 6

Block 8

Physicaldisks

Physicaldisk

120 GB

RAID 0

Physical disk

120 GB

Block 1

Block 2
Block 3
Block 4
Block 5
Block 6
Block 7
Block 8

Logicaldisks

Logical disk

240 GB

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RAID1 (mirroring)

• RAID1 creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two or more

disks when reliability is more important than data capacity.

• A classic RAID1 mirrored pair contains two disks, which increases

reliability exponentially over a single disk.

o Mirroring allows continued operation of the system in the event of

one drive or array failing.

o Restoration can be performed using the mirrored copy.
o I/O performance may suffer during reconstruction due to the increased

activity between locations.

• RAID1 volume capacity = capacity of smallest HDD

• Such an array can only be as large as the smallest member disk.

Di sk 1

Block 1
Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Di sk 2

Block 1
Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Physicaldisks

Physical

disks

120 GB

RAID 1

Physical

disks

120 GB

Block 1
Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Logicaldisk

Logical disks

120 GB

RAID5 (striping with parity)

• RAID5 uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all

member disks.

• A RAID5 array can withstand a single disk failure without losing data or

access to data.

• RAID5 is a good all-round system that combines efficient storage with

excellent security and decent performance. It is ideal for file and
application servers.

• RAID5 volume capacity = [(number of HDDs) - 1] x (capacity of smallest HDD)

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Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3

Block A1
Block B1

Block Cp

Block A2
Block Bp

Block C1

Block Ap

Block B2

Block C2

Physical

disks

120 GB

Physical

disk

120 GB

Physical

disk

120 GB

Logical disks

240 GB

RAID10 (RAID1+0: striping + mirroring)

• A combination of RAID1 and RAID0 — mirroring and striping, but without

parity.

• RAID10 is used for both replicating and sharing data among disks.

• RAID10 is often the primary choice for high-load databases, because the

lack of parity to calculate gives it faster write speeds.

• RAID10 volume capacity = 2 x (capacity of smallest HDD)

RAID 0

RAID 1 RAID 1

Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3

Block A1
Block A3

Block A5

Block A1
Block A3

Block A5

Block A2
Block A4

Block A6

Disk 4

Block A2
Block A4

Block A6

Physical

disks

120 GB

RAID0

Physical

disks

120 GB

Physical

disks

120 GB

Physical

disks

120 GB

Logical disks

240 GB

Characteristics/Advantages Disadvantages

¾ RAID0 implements a striped

disk array, the data is broken
down into blocks and each
block is written to a separate
disk drive

¾ I/O performance is greatly

improved by spreading the I/O
load across many channels and

¾ Not a "True" RAID because it is

NOT fault-tolerant

¾ The failure of just one drive

will result in all data in an
array being lost

¾ Should never be used in

mission-critical
environments

drives

¾ Best performance is achieved

when data is striped across

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