Rosewill RC211 User Manual

Raid5 SATA II - 3Gbps Host Adapter

RC211

User Manual

Installation InstructionRC211

This Manual for many Models of SATA2 RAID5 PCI Express host cards which use Silicon Image
SATA II- 3Gbps SiI3132 chipset.

Important Message for User:

1. Before controller card installation, we recommend the users to study this manual and the PDF

file of SATARaid5 Manual at enclosed CD folder\SATA PCIe_Raid5_2Port\SiI3132\Windows\

Gui ( or\Raid5 SATA2_4Port\SiI3124\ Windows\Gui ) first. This Raid manual has more

information on Raid architecture, Raid features, Raid installation, Raid setting and

Management software for Raid5 GUI (Graphical User Interface).

2. Windows Device Manager can NOT recognize the hard drives that without correct RAID

setting before.

3. The working data on your existing HDD may NOT work when you migrate it to RAID Host

Card.

4. After driver installation, if you like, you can install SATARaid5 GUI for Raid management.

Before SATARaid5 GUI installation, you must remove all the existing SATARaid GUI (or Java

SATARaid GUI) to ensure your new SATARaid5 GUI can work properly.

i.e. : (\Start\Control Panel\Add or Remove Programs\Select all SATARaid \Remove)

5. Raid sets can be created and managed by either the BIOS utility setting or the SATARAID5

GUI setting under Windows.

6. For RAID creating, BIOS utility allow the random creating but GUI just supports the building

by sequential SATA Port1, Port2, Port3 ……..

7. If you use the used HDD to Raid5 card, you must perform the "Delete Raid Set" on BIOS

setting, since your used HDD has some system data and Raid5 card may confuse on that and

no recognition.

8. RAID5 setting may cost hours for component ready and function available, please be patient

for that. Especially if Raid5 setting by BIOS, please Click “Task Manager” to make sure Raid

setting is completed. It shall be “Green” color on the selected components.

9. The “Rebuilding” function on Raid 1 or Raid 10 may spend long hours for component ready

and function available, please be patient for that.

10. Raid 0 and Raid1 need at least 2 drives, and Raid10 4 drives and Raid5 3 drives at least. If 1

drive only, make sure to have “Concatenate” or “Contiguous” setting.

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Installation InstructionRC211

1. Introduction

This Low Profile PCI-Express Host Adapter is a controller board to support Low profile PCI and

regular size PCI both in one card. The card can upgrade your desktop computer to have 2 ports

Serial ATA II transfer rate of 3 Gb/s (300 MB/s).

The board can be used to upgrade your desktop computer to have 2Ports Serial ATA Channels

and support RAID 5, RAID 0+1, RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD features. It accepts host commands

through the PCI Express bus, processes them and transfers data between the host and Serial ATA

devices. The board should be connected to SATA target device and will take the data, serialize it

and output it for transmission over the SATA interface. The board can control four independent

Serial ATA channels. Each channel has its own Serial ATA bus and will support one Serial ATA

device.

The board supports Serial ATA Generation 1 & Generation 2 transfer rate of 1.5 Gbps / 3Gbps. It

comes completely with drivers for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003.

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. External SATA II (eSATA) Connector.

2. 48 bits LBA can Break Capacity-Limit to Support HDD larger than 137GB.

3. Supports 1-lane 2.5Gbps PCI Express.

4. Hot-plug capability.

5. Supports SATA II transfer rate of 3.0Gbps.

6. Fully compliant with Serial ATA 1.0 specifications.

7. Supports two independent Serial ATA channels.

8. Independent Link, Transport, and data FIFO.

9. Independent command fetch, scatter/gather, and command execution.

10. Supports Legacy Command Queuing (LCQ).

11. Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ).

12. Supports Non-zero offsets NCQ.

13. Supports Out of order data delivery NCQ.

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