Lindy ATA-133 User Manual

Low Profile Ultra ATA-133 RAID PCI Host

1. Introducti on

This Low Profile Ultra ATA-133 RAID PCI Host Adapter is a PCI to dual Ultra
ATA-133 host controller board which can support Low profile PCI and
regular size PCI both. It provides a 32bit, 33/66 MHz PCI interface on the
host side and dual, fully compliant Ultra ATA-133 ports on the device side to
access ATA Hard disk drive.

The board can be used to upgrade your desktop computer to have dual Ultra
ATA-133 Channels and support RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 features. It
comes completely with drivers for Windows 98, Windows Millennium,
Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and XP.

RAID, Redundant Array of Independent Disks, greatly enhances two main
areas of data storage: performance and data integrity. By using RAID 0, also
known as Striping, performance of sustained data transfer rates is greatly
enhanced by simultaneously writing data to 2, 3 or 4 drives. The second
benefit of RAID is data redundancy. RAID 1, Mirroring, writes identical data
on two drives or sets of drives, thus protecting the data from a disk failure. If,
for any reason, one drive were to fail, your data is secure and available from the
mirrored second drive.

1.1. Features

1.1.1. PCI Interface

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Compliant with PCI Specification, revision 2.2.

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Integrated PCI DMA engines.

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32 bit, 33/66MHz fully compliant PCI host interface.

1.1.2. High Speed Ultra ATA - 133 Interface

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Supports two independent ATA channels.

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Supports ATA 133.

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Supports full speed burst transfers on the ATA bus.

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Supports software-controlled ATA bus tri-state.

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Supports device specific timing registers.

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Supports device read-ahead and write-ahead capability under Virtual
DMA.

=Features one 256-byte FIFO (32-bit x 64 deep) per IDE channel for host

reads and writes.

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Features ATA to PCI interrupt masking.

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Features command buffering from the PCI to ATA.

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Features Virtual DMA: Bus master transfer on the PCI bus and PIO
transfer on the ATA bus.

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Features Watch Dog Timer for fault resiliency.

=Provides RAID 0 (Stripping) to greatly increase the performance of data

transfer by simultaneously writing data to 2 drives.

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Provides RAID 1 (Mirroring) to protect the data from a disk failure by
writing identical data on 2 drives.

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RAID 0+1 (Mirrored-Stripping) combine both Striping and Mirroring
technologies to provide both the performance enhancements that come
from Striping and the data availability and integrity that comes from
Mirroring.

1.2. Package Contents

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Low Profile Ultra ATA-133 RAID PCI Host Adapter

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This Users Manual

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Driver Diskette

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Regular Size PCI Bracket

2. What Is RAID

RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks

RAID technology manages multiple disk drives to enhance I/O performance
and provide redundancy in order to withstand the failure of any individual
member, without loss of data. This card provides two RAID Set types, Striped
(RAID 0), Mirrored (RAID 1) and Mirrored-Striping (RAID 0+1).

Disk Striping (RAID 0)

Striping is a performance-oriented, non-redundant data mapping technique.
While Striping is discussed as a RAID Set type, it is actually does not provide

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fault tolerance. With modern SATA bus mastering technology, multiple I/O
operations can be done in parallel, enhancing performance. Striping arrays
use multiple disks to form a larger virtual disk.

Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)

Disk mirroring creates an identical twin for a selected disk by having the data
simultaneously written to two disks. This redundancy provides instantaneous
protection from a single disk failure. If a read failure occurs on one drive, the
system reads the data from the other drive.

Mirrored-Striping (RAID 0+1 also known as RAID 10)

A Mirrored-Striping Set does just what it says, combining both Striping and
Mirroring technologies to provide both the performance enhancements that
come from Striping and the data availability and integrity that comes from
Mirroring. When data is written to a Mirrored-Striped Set, instead of creating
just one virtual disk as Striping would do, a second, Mirrored virtual disk is
created as well.

3. BIOS Installation ( R AID Setting )

Creating and deleting RAID sets is a function found in the BIOS. During boot
up, the RAID setting message will appear and pause for a few moments to
allow the user to choose what to do. This board will act as normal NON-RAID
card when BIOS not configured for RAID. Just proceed to Software Installation
section directly. If you use traditional parallel AT A HDD, make sure your hard
drives be set up as master mode before the RAID setting.

3.1. Crea ting Striped Set s (RAID 0)

1. As the BIOS boots, press F3 to enter the raid bios utility.

2. Select Create RAID set. Press F2.

3. Select Create Striped Set press F1.

4. Select Auto config. Press A.

5. Press 2 and then press Y to ESC exit the setup.

6. Continue with conventional Fdisk and Format steps as if you are installing
a conventional hard drive.

7. Your RAID configuration is complete. Please proceed to software installation
section.

3.2. Creating Mirror ed Sets (RAID 1)

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