Guide to SATA Hard Dis k s
Installation a nd RAID Configuration
1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation ............................ 2
1.1 Serial A T A (SAT A) Hard Disks Installation...............2
2. Guide to RAID Configurations ......................................... 3
2.1 Introduction of RAID ............................................... 3
2.2 RAID Configuration Precautions ............................ 5
2.3 Setting the BIOS RAID Items .................................. 6
2.4 Configuring the Intel RAID BIOS............................. 6
2.5 Deleting RAID Volume.......................................... 10
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1. Guide to SAT A Hard Dis ks Installation
1.1 Serial A TA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation
Intel ICH8DH southbridge chipset supports Serial
ATA (SATA) hard disks with RAID functions, including RAID 0,
RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, a nd Intel Matrix Storage. Ple ase read the
RAID configurations in this guide carefully according to the Intel
southbridge chipset that your motherboard adopts. You may
install SATA hard disks on this motherboard for internal storage
devices. For SATA installation guide, please refer to Serial ATA
(SATA) Hard Disks Installation of “User Manual” in the support CD.
This section will guide you how to create RAID on SATA ports.
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2. Guide to RAID Configurations
2.1 Introduction of RAID
This motherboard adopts Intel southbridge chipset that integrates
RAID controller supporting RAID 0 / RAID 1/ Intel Matrix Storage /
RAID 10 / RAID 5 function with four independent Serial ATA
(SATA) channels. This section will introduce the basic knowledge
of RAID, and the guide to configure RAID 0 / RAID 1/ Intel Matrix
Storage / RAID 10 / RAID 5 settings.
RAID
The term “RAID” stands for “Redundant Array of Independent
Disks”, which is a method combining two or more hard disk drives
into one logical unit. For optimal performance, please install
identical drives of the same model and capacity when creating a
RAID set.
RAID 0 (Data Striping)
RAID 0 is called data striping that optimizes two identical hard disk
drives to read and write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. It will
improve data access and storage since it will double the data
transfer rate of a single disk alone while the two hard disks
perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data
transfer rate.
WARNING!!
Although RAID 0 function can improve the access performance, it
does not provide any fault tolerance. Hot-Plug any HDDs of the
RAID 0 Disk will cause data damage or data loss.
RAID 1 (Data Mirroring)
RAID 1 is called data mirroring that copies and maintains an
identical image of data from one drive to a second drive. It
provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the
entire system since the disk array management software will
direct all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a
complete copy of the data in the other drive if one drive fails.
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