Guide to SATA Hard Disks
Installation and RAID Confi guration
1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation ..............................2
1.1 Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation ................2
2. Guide to RAID Confi gurations ...........................................3
2.1 Introduction of RAID .................................................3
2.2 RAID Confi guration Precautions ..............................5
2.3 Installing Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista
VistaTM 64-bit With RAID Functions ..........................6
2.4 Setting the BIOS RAID Items ...................................7
2.5 Confi guring the Intel RAID BIOS ..............................7
2.6 Deleting RAID Volumes ..........................................11
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1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation
1.1 Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation
Intel Z77 chipset supports Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks with
RAID functions, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10
and Intel Rapid Storage. Please read the RAID confi gurations
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 Confi gurations
2.1 Introduction of RAID
This motherboard adopts Intel southbridge chipset that integrates RAID controller supporting RAID 0 / RAID 1/ Intel Rapid
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 confi gure RAID 0 / RAID
1/ Intel Rapid 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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Intel Rapid Storage
The Intel Rapid Storage technology supported allows you to
create a RAID 0 and RAID 1 set using only two identical hard
disk drives. The Intel Rapid Storage technology creates two
partitions on each hard disk drive to create a virtual RAID 0
and RAID 1 sets. This technology also allows you to change
the hard disk drive partition size without losing any data.
RAID 10
RAID 10 is a striped confi guration with RAID 1 segments
whose segments are RAID 1 arrays. This confi guration has the
same fault tolerance as RAID 1, and has the same overhead
for fault-tolerance as mirroring alone. RAID 10 achieves high
input / output rates by striping RAID 1 segments. In some
instances, a RAID 10 confi guration can sustain multiple simul-
taneous drive failure. A minimum of four hard disk drives is
required for this setup.
RAID 5
RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or
more hard disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5 confi -
guration include better HDD performance, fault tolerance, and
higher storage capacity. The RAID 5 confi guration is best sui-
ted 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 Confi gurations 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 fi rst 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.
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2.3 Installing Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista
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VistaTM 64-bit With RAID Functions
RAID mode is not supported under Windows® XP / XP 64-bit.
If you want to install Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / VistaTM / VistaTM
64-bit OS on your SATA / SATA2 / SATA3 HDDs with RAID
functions, please follow the procedures below.
STEP 1: Set up BIOS.
A. Enter BIOS SETUP UTILITY Advanced screen
Storage Confi guration.
B. Set “SATA Mode Selection” to [RAID].
STEP 2: Use “RAID Installation Guide” to set RAID
confi guration.
Before you start to confi gure the RAID function, you
need to check the installation guide in the Support
CD for proper confi guration. Please refer to the
document in the Support CD, “Guide to SATA Hard
Disks Installation and RAID Confi guration”, which is
located in the folder at the following path:
.. \ RAID Installation Guide
STEP 3: Install Windows
64-bit OS on your system.
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7 / 7 64-bit / VistaTM / Vista
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After the installation of Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / VistaTM / VistaTM 64-bit OS, if you want
to manage RAID functions, you are allowed to use both “RAID Installation Guide” and
“Intel Rapid Storage Information” for RAID confi guration. Please refer to the document
in the Support CD, “Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation and RAID Confi guration”,
which is located in the folder at the following path: .. \ RAID Installation Guide and
the document in the support CD, “Guide to Intel Rapid Storage”, which is located in
the folder at the following path: .. \ Intel Rapid Storage Information
If you want to use “Intel Rapid Storage” in Windows® environment,
install “SATA2 driver” from the Support CD again so that “Intel Rapid
Storage” will be installed to your system as well.
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2.4 Setting the BIOS RAID Items
After installing the hard disk drives, please set the necessary
RAID items in the BIOS before setting your RAID confi guration.
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
Confi gure SATA as to [RAID]. Save your change before you
exit BIOS setup.
2.5 Confi guring the Intel RAID BIOS
Reboot your computer. Wait until you see the RAID software
prompting you to press <Ctrl+I>.
Press <Ctrl+I>. Then, the Intel RAID Utility - Create RAID
Volume window appears.
Select the option Create RAID Volume and press <Enter>.
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In the Create Volume Menu, under Name item, please key-in a
unique name with 1-16 letters for your RAID volume then press
<Enter>.
Use the up or down arrow keys to select your desired RAID
Level. You may select RAID 0 (Stripe), RAID 1 (Mirror), RAID
5 or RAID 10 for your RAID level. Press <Enter>, and then you
can select Strip Size.
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If you selected RAID 0 (Stripe), use the up or down keys to
select the stripe size for your RAID 0 array then press <Enter>.
The available values range from 8 KB to 128 KB. The default
selection is 128 KB. The strip value should be chosen based
on the planned drive usage.
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After you set disk block size, press <Enter> to set disk
After setting up Capacity, please press <Enter>.
8/16 KB - low disk usage
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64 KB - typical disk usage
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128 KB - performance disk usage
Capacity.
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Press <Enter> under the Create Volume item. The utility
prompts a confi rmation message as below.
Press <Y> to complete the setup of RAID.
After the completion, you will see the detailed information about
the RAID that you set up.
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Please note that you are only allowed to create one RAID
partition at a time under BIOS RAID environment. If you want
to create an extra RAID partition, please use the RAID utility
under Windows environment to confi gure RAID functions after
you install OS.
2.6 Deleting RAID Volumes
If you want to delete a RAID volume, please select the option
Delete RAID Volume, press <Enter>, and then follow the
instructions on the screen.
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