Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA, ALIVENF4G-DVI, K8NF4G-SATA2 R2.0 User Manual

Guide to SATA Hard Disks

Installation a nd RAID Configuration

1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation............................. 2

1.1 Serial A TA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation............... 2

1.2 Making a SATA Driver Diskette ................................. 3

2. Guide to RAID Configurations.......................................... 4

2.1 Introduction of RAID ................................................ 4

2.2 RAID Configuration Precautions ............................ 6

2.3 BIOS Configuration Utility ....................................... 7

2.3.1 Enter BIOS Configuration Utility................ 7

2.3.2 Create Disk Array....................................... 8

1

1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation

1.1 Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation

This motherboard adopts nVidia nForce3 chipset that supports
Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks with RAID functions, including RAID
0, RAID 1, and JBOD. 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.

2

1.2 Making a SATA Driver Diskette

If you just want to install Windows 2000, Windows XP or
Windows XP 64-bit on your SATA HDDs without RAID functions,
there is no need to make a SATA driver diskette. However, if you
want to install Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows XP 64­bit on your SATA HDDs with RAID functions, you will need to
make an SATA driver diskette before you start the OS installation.

STEP 1: Insert the Support CD into your opt ical dr ive to bo ot your

system. (Do NOT insert any floppy diskette into the
floppy drive at this moment!)

STEP 2: During POST at the beginning of system boot-up, press

<F11> key, and then a window for boot devices
selection appears. Please select CD-ROM as the boot
device.

STEP 3: When you see the message on the screen, “Do you

want to generate Serial ATA driver diskette [YN]?”,
press <Y>.

STEP 4: Then you will see these messages,

Please insert a diskette into the floppy drive.
WARNING! Formatting the floppy diskette will
lose ALL data in it!
Start to format and copy files [YN]?

Please insert a floppy diskette into the floppy drive, and
press <Y>.

STEP 5: The system will start to format the floppy diskette and

copy SATA drivers into the floppy diskette.

Once you have the SATA driver diskette ready, you may start to
install Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows XP 64-bit on your
system directly without setting the RAID configuration on your
system, or you may start to use “RAID BIOS Setting Utility” in the
section 2.3 to set RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD configuration before you
install the OS. You may also set the RAID configuration by using
“RAID Utility for Windows” in Windows environment. Please refer
to the document in the Support CD, “Guide to RAID Utility for
Windows”, which is located in the folder at the following path:

.. \ RAID Utility for Windows

3

2. Guide to RAID Configurations

2.1 Introduction of RAID

This motherboard adopts nVidia nForce3 chipset that integrates
RAID controller supporting RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD function with
two independent Serial ATA (SATA) channels. This section will
introduce the basic knowledge of RAID, and the guide to
configure RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD 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.

4

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.

JBOD (Spanning)

A spanning disk array is equal to the sum of all drives. Spanning
stores data onto a drive until it is full then proceeds to store files
onto the next drive in the array. When any member disk fails, it
will affect the entire array. JBOD is not really a RAID, and it does
not support fault tolerance.

5

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.
In the process you create RAID, the system will ask if you want to “Clear
Disk Data” or not. It is recommended to select “Yes”, and then your future
data building will operate under a clean environment.

6