ASRock SATA Hard Disks User Manual

Guide to SATA Hard Dis k s
Installation a nd RAID Configuration
1. Guide to SATA Hard Disk s In stallation ……………..2
1.1 Serial AT A (SAT A) Hard Disks Installation …… 2
1.2 Making An SAT A Driver Diskette ……………… 3
2. Guide to RAID Configurations (RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD) …………………………. . 4
2.2 RAID Configuration Precautions……………… 5
2.3 RAID 0 Configuration …………………………… 6
2.4 RAID 1 Configuration …………………….…….13
2.5 JBOD Configuration …………………………… 19
3. Guide to Windows 2000 / Windows XP Installation …………………………...23
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1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation
1.1 Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation
This motherboard adopts SiS 965L south bridge chipset that supports Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks. You may install SATA hard disks in this motherboard for internal storage devices. This section will guide you to install the SATA hard disks.
STEP 1: Install the SATA hard disks into the drive bays of your chassis. STEP 2: Connect one end of the SATA data cable to the motherboard’s
primary SATA connector (SATA1).
STEP 3: Connect the other end of the SAT A data cable to the primary SATA
hard disk.
STEP 4: Connect the SATA power cable to the SATA hard disk. If you just
want to install only one SATA HDD, the installation process is complete at this step. If you want to install two SATA HDDs or you want to use RAID function, please continue to do the following steps.
STEP 5: Connect one end of the second SATA data cable to the
motherboard’s secondary SATA connector (SATA2).
STEP 6: Connect the other end of the SATA data cable to the secondary
SATA hard disk.
STEP 7: Connect the SATA power cable to the SATA hard disk.
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1.2 Making An SATA Driver Diskette
If you want to install Windows 2000 or Windows XP on SATA HDDs, you will need to make an SATA driver diskette before you start the OS installation.
How to make an SATA driver diskette?
STEP 1: Insert the ASRock Support CD into your optical drive to boot 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 on your system directly without setting the RAID configuration on your system, or you may start to use “SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility” to set RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD configuration before you install the OS. You may also set the RAID configuration by using “SiS RAID Utility for Windows” in Windows environment. Please refer to the document in the Support CD, “Guide to SiS RAID Utility for Windows”, which is located in the folder at the following path:
.. \ RAID Utility for Windows
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2. Guide to RAID Configurations
(RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD)
2.1 Introduction of RAID
This motherboard adopts SiS 964 south bridge 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.
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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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.
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 ca pa city f or 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.
Please carefully read the following list of limita­tions of “SiS SATA Driver” and “SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility” before you use the RAID function.
Limitations of “SiS SATA Driver” and “SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility”
1. “SiS RAID Utility for Windows” are only available for Windows
XP / Windows 2000. There is no RAID utility supporting Win­dows 98 SE and Windows ME.
2. “SiS SATA driver/utility/BIOS” may be updated occasionally.
Please visit ASRock website for the latest driver update. ASRock website: http://www.asrock.com
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2.3 RAID 0 Configuration
This section will guide you to configure RAID 0. To set RAID0 configuration, please follow the instruction below to use “SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility”.
NOTE
In the following instruction, the term “Disk 1” refers to the SATA hard disk that you connect to “SATA1” connector on your motherboard; the term “Disk 2” refers to the SATA hard disk that you connect to “SATA2” connector on your motherboard.
STEP 1: Boot-up your computer. STEP 2: Press <Ctrl-S> key to enter “SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility” STEP 3: Press <R> key to enter RAID setup utility and start to create array.
SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility
* Current Created Raid *
[R] : Enter Raid setup utility
[Q] : Exit current menu
Location Model Capacity Mode RAID Type
Disk 1 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX Disk 2 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX
Copyright (c) 2003-2005. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp | www.sis.com
RAID Setup
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STEP 4: Press <A> key to create array.
SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility
* Current Created Raid *
Press[A]keytocreateRAID
[Q] : Exit current menu
Location Model Capacity Mode RAID Type
Disk 1 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX Disk 2 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX
Copyright (c) 2003-2005. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp | www.sis.com
RAID Setup
STEP 5: Press <2> and <Enter> to select RAID 0.
SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility
* Current Created Raid *
RAID Type: <1> JBOD <2> RAID0 <3> RAID1: 2
[Q] : Exit current menu
Location Model Capacity Mode RAID Type
Disk 1 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX Disk 2 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX
RAID Setup
Copyright (c) 2003-2005. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp | www.sis.com
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STEP 6: Press <1> or <2> to select Create options. If you select <1> “Auto
Create”, “Disk 1” will be the Source disk. If you select <2> “Manual Create”, the first selected disk will be the Source disk.
SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility
* Current Created Raid *
RAID 0 <1> Auto Create<2> Manual Create:2
[Q] : Exit current menu
Location Model Capacity Mode RAID Type
Disk 1 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX Disk 2 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX
Copyright (c) 2003-2005. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp | www.sis.com
RAID Setup
WARNING!!
The SOURCE disk should be correctly selected, otherwise, the inside data will be cleared after RAID 0 created.
STEP 7: If you select <2> “Manual Create” in STEP 6, then the following
screen will appear. Please press <1>-<5> keys and <Enter> to select Block Size. (Default : 64K)
SiS RAID BIOS Setting Utility
* Current Created Raid *
RAID Setup
RAID 0 Block Size:
<1>16K <2>32K<3>64K <4>128K <5>256K:3
[Q] : Exit current menu
Location Model Capacity Mode RAID Type
Disk 1 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX Disk 2 XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX
Copyright (c) 2003-2005. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp | www.sis.com
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