Asrock AM2XLI-eSATA2, 939SLI32-eSATA2, K8SLI-eSATA2 RAID Installation Guide

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 ULi RAID BIOS....................................6

2.4.1 Main Menu................................................. 7

2.4.2 Drive Select Menu ................................... 10

2.4.3 RAID Array List......................................... 10

3. Using ULi Windows RAID Utility.................................... 11

3.1 How to Create RAID under Windows................... 11

3.2 How to Delete RAID under Windows ...................14

3.3 How to Migrate RAID under Windows ..................15

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1. Guide to SAT A Hard Dis ks Installation

1.1 Serial A TA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation

ULi M1697 chipset supports Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks with
RAID functions, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, JBOD, and
RAID 5. 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

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.

RAID 0+1

RAID 0+1 is data striping and data mirroring combined without
parity (redundancy data) having to be calculated and written.
With the RAID 0+1 configuration you get all the benefits of both
RAID 0 and RAID 1 configurations. Use four new hard disk drives
or use an existing drive and three new drives for this setup.

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JBOD

JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) is also called data spanning. It will
expands the capacity of your drive and results in a useable total
capacity since it will make several hard disk types configured as a
single hard disk, and the hard drives are simply hooked up in
series. However, JBOD will not increase any performance or data
security.

RAID 5

RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or
more hard disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5
configuration include better HDD performance, fault tolerance,
and higher storage capacity. The RAID 5 configuration 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.

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2.2 RAID Configurations Precautions

1. Please use two new drives if you are creating a RAID 0
(striping) array for performance. It is recommended to
use two SATA drives of the same size. If you use two
drives of different sizes, the smaller capacity hard disk
will be the base storage size for each drive. For
example, if one hard disk has an 80GB storage capacity
and the other hard disk has 60GB, the maximum storage
capacity for the 80GB-drive becomes 60GB, and the
total storage capacity for this RAID 0 set is 120GB.

2. You may use two new drives, or use an existing drive
and a new drive to create a RAID 1 (mirroring) array for
data protection (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, if one hard disk has
an 80GB storage capacity and the other hard disk has
60GB, the maximum storage capacity for the RAID 1 set
is 60GB.

3. Please verify the status of your hard disks before you
set up your new RAID array.

WARNING!!

Please backup your data first before you create RAID functions.

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2.3 Setting the BIOS RAID Items

After installing the hard disk drives, please set the necessary RAID
items in the BIOS before setting your RAID configuration. Boot your

system, and press <F2> key to enter BIOS setup utility. Highlight
Advanced and press <Enter>, then the main interface of BIOS
setup utility will appear. Please set the option SATA Operation

Mode to [RAID]. Save your change before you exit BIOS setup.

2.4 Configuring ULi RAID BIOS

Reboot your computer. After the system BIOS detects ULi RAID
BIOS, the RAID BIOS version and drive information shows up on the

screen. When RAID BIOS is waiting after identifying drives, press
<Ctrl+A> to enter the setup menu. Then, the below screen appears.
There are three major areas in the RAID BIOS setup screen: Main

Menu, Drive Select Menu and RAID Array List:

SATAII_BLUE

SATAII_BLACK

SATAII_RED

SATAII_ORANGE

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2.4.1 Main Menu

In Main Menu, you have the following options to operate RAID:

Create RAID 0 Stripe x2 for Performance

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. An ‘S’ flashing cursor appears at
the Drive Select Menu for the user to choose the first drive for RAID 0.

2. Use ‘Space’ key to choose the desired drive for RAID 0. Then the flash
cursor changes to an ‘s’ flashing cursor for the user to choose the
second drive for RAID 0.

3. The prompt ‘Data on RAID Drives will be deleted (Y/N)’ appears after
two drives are properly assigned.

4. Press ‘Y’, and then the necessary information will be written to the
drives, which will destroy the original data in the drives.

5. Next, the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is ‘
0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

6. After the RAID array has been created successfully, its information
shows up at RAID Array List.

Create RAID 0 Stripe x4 for Performance

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item.

2. The prompt ‘Data on first 4 drives will be deleted (Y/N)’ appears.

3. Press ‘Y’, and then the necessary information will be written to the
drives, which will destroy the original data in the drives.

4. Next, the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is
‘0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

5. After the RAID array has been created successfully, its information
shows up at RAID Array List.

Create RAID 1 Mirroring for Reliability

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. An ‘M’ flash cursor appears at the ‘
Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose the first (source) drive for
RAID 1.

2. Use ‘Space’ key to choose the desired drive for RAID 1. Then flash
cursor changes to an ‘m’ flash cursor for the user to choose the
second (target) drive for RAID 1.

3. The prompt ‘Create RAID 1(Y/N)’ appears after two drives are properly
assigned.

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4. Press ‘Y’, and then the necessary information will be written to drives,
which may destroy the original data in the drives.

5. Next, the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is
‘0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

6. Lastly a prompt message ‘Duplicate Data from M to m (Y/N)?’ asks
whether to do drive copy. The source and target drives are indicated
by ‘M’ and ‘m’ in ‘Drive Select Menu’ respectively. Pressing ‘Y’ will
duplicate the data in source drive to the target drive. Make sure the
source drive is the correct one. If you press ‘N’, the data will be
inconsistent in the two drives.

7. After the RAID array has been created successfully, its information
shows up at RAID Array List.

8. The process status bar shows up during the duplication process.

Create RAID 0+1 for Striping, Mirroring

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. An ‘+’ flash cursor appears at the
‘Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose the first drive for RAID 0+1.

2. Use ‘Space’ key to choose the desired drive for RAID 0+1. Then flash
cursor changes to an ‘+’ flash cursor for the user to choose the
second, third and fourth drives for RAID 0+1.

3. The prompt ‘Create RAID 1(Y/N)’ appears after two drives are properly
assigned.

4. Press ‘Y’, and then the necessary information will be written to drives,
which may destroy the original data in the drives.

5. Next, the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is
‘0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

6. After the RAID array has been created successfully, its information
shows up at RAID Array List.

7. The process status bar shows up during the duplication process.

Create JBOD for Integrated Capacity

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. A ‘J’ flash cursor appears at the
‘Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose the first drive for JBOD.

2. Use ‘Space’ key to choose the desired drive for JBOD array. Use ‘Enter’
key to finish JBOD drive selection. The maximum number of drives for
JBOD array is four and the minimum is two.

3. The prompt ‘Create JBOD (Y/N)’ appears.

4. Press ‘Y’ key and then the necessary information will be written to
drives, which may destroy the original data in the drives.

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5. Next the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is
‘0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

Create RAID 5 for Reliability

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. A ‘5’ flashing cursor appears at the
‘Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose the first drive for RAID 5.

2. Use ‘Space’ key to choose the desired drives for RAID 5 array. Use
‘Enter’ key to finish RAID 5 drive selection. The maximum number of
drives for RAID 5 array is four and the minimum is three. Using four
drives for RAID 5 will have better READ performance.

3. The prompt ‘Data on RAID drives will be deleted (Y/N) ?’ appears.

4. Press ‘Y’ key and then the necessary information will be written to
drives, which may destroy the original data in the drives.

5. Next the Array Name input line appears for the user to key in a name for
the newly created array. The effective characters for an array name is
‘0’-‘9’, ‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’, space and underscore.

Stripe Size

This option is effective for RAID 0/5/0+1. The user can choose a stripe
size from 64KByte, 32KByte, 16KByte (default), 8KByte and 4KByte. If the
user uses RAID 0 for most A/V editing applications and files, 64KByte is
recommended.

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. Then 64K, 32K, 16K, 8K, 4K items
appears at the bottom of Main Menu.

2. Use the up or down arrow keys to choose the stripe size.

Rebuild RAID Array

When a drive is replaced or BIOS detects a broken RAID, the user can use
Rebuild RAID Array to keep data coherency for RAID 1, 5 or 0+1.

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. An ‘R’ flashing cursor appears at
the ‘Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose the valid drive (the
original RAID drive except the broken or the replaced drive) of previ
ously defined RAID 1, 5 or 0+1 to perform rebuild.

2. BIOS shows the source (marked with ‘M’) and target (marked with ‘m’)
drives.

3. Lastly a prompt message ‘Duplicate Data from M to m (Y/N)?’ asks
whether to do drive copy. The source and target drives are indicated
by ‘M’ and ‘m’ in ‘Drive Select Menu’ respectively. Press ‘Y’ to start the
rebuild process and data duplication.

4. The process status bar shows up during the duplication process.

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Delete RAID Setting & Partition

When RAID BIOS detects a broken RAID, the user can use Delete RAID
Setting & Partition to delete the broken RAID.

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item. An ‘E’ flash cursor appears at the
‘Drive Select Menu’ for the user to choose defined array drives to be
deleted.

2. ‘Data on RAID drives will be deleted (Y/N)?’ prompt message shows up
to confirm the user’s selection.

3. Press ‘Y’ key, and then the data in selected drives is destroyed.

4. “RAID Array List” automatically updates itself.

Delete All RAID Setting & Partition

1. Press ‘Enter’ key to activate this item.

2. ‘Data on RAID drives will be deleted (Y/N)?’ prompt message shows up
to confirm the user’s selection.

3. Press ‘Y’ key, and then the data in drives is destroyed.

4. ‘RAID array List” automatically updates itself.

2.4.2 Drive Select Menu

This menu lists the available drives and their information. There
are three indicator bars in this menu: two RAID Drive Selection
Bar and one Boot Drive Selection Bar.

SATAII_BLUE

SATAII_BLACK

SATAII_RED

SATAII_ORANGE

2.4.3 RAID Array List

This list showa the existing and newly created RAID arrays.

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3. Using ULi Windows RAID Utility

3.1 How to Create RAID under Windows

You can create RAID arrays in either the RAID BIOS setup menu as
previously described or under Windows Utility. After the driver and
utility are installed correctly, you can find ULi RAID utility from
Windows Programs as shown below, or find ULi RAID Utility at
task bar. Run ULi RAID utility from Windows Program or click on
‘Configuration’ at task bar. The Configuration dialog box appears.

ULiRAID Utility

The information of the connected drives is displayed. (RAID 0x2
indicates RAID 0 with two drives, RAID 0x4 indicates RAID 0 with
four drives.)

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Click the desired drive from the ‘Available Drives’ list, use the right
arrow key to move the drives that you plan to use to the ‘Selected
Drives’ list. You can select array type from the ‘RAID Type’ pull­down menu and select stripe size for RAID 0 from the ‘Stripe Size’
pull-down menu.

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Key in array name in ‘RAID Name’.

* The Create Option is active for RAID 1, 5 and RAID 0+1 only. The ‘Create
Only’ option will destroy data in both of the selected drives. The ‘Dupli
cate/Rebuild’ option will keep the source drive data and copy source
drive data into the target drive.

After the drives and type are configured, a dialog box appears to warn
you that the next action will destroy information in the drives. Make sure
the information in selected drivers is no longer in use before clicking on
‘Yes’. Then, click ‘Yes’ to restart your system when a dialog box appears
to confirm that you have changed the RAID settings.

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3.2 How to Delete RAID under Windows

If you wants to delete existing or newly created RAID, click on
‘Delete RAID’ tab on the main Configuration menu. Click on the RAID
from ‘Available RAID’ list, then move the selected RAID to ‘Selected
RAID’ list by clicking the right arrow key.

Click ‘OK’ after the array is selected. A dialog box appears to warn
you that the next action will destroy information in the drives. Make
sure the information in selected drivers is no longer in use before
clicking on ‘Yes’. Then, click ‘Yes’ to restart your system when a
dialog box appears to confirm that you have changed the RAID
settings.

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3.3 How to Migrate RAID under Windows

Select new array type from the ‘RAID Type’ pull-down menu and
select new stripe size for RAID from ‘Stripe Size’ pull-down menu.
Input array name in ‘RAID Name’. The following is an example of
migration from RAID 0x2 to RAID 5x3.

RAID 0x2

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Click the desired drive or RAID from the ‘Available Drives’ list. The
selected drive or RAID will be moved to ‘Selected Drives’ list by
clicking the right arrow key.

Click on ‘OK’ or ‘Apply’ to start RAID type migration. After the drives
and type are configured, a dialog box appears to warn you that the
next action will destroy information in the drives. Make sure the
information in selected drivers is no longer in use before clicking on
‘Yes’. Then, click ‘Yes’ to restart your system when a dialog box
appears to confirm that you have changed the RAID settings.

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