SIIG CN2483 User guide

UltraATA 100 PCI RAID

Users Manual

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PRODUCT NAME MODEL NUMBER

UltraATA 100 PCI RAID CN2483

FCC RULES: TESTED TO COMPLY WITH FCC PART 15, CLASS B OPERATING ENVIRONMENT: FOR HOME OR OFFICE USE

FCC COMPLIANCE STATEMENT:

This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

FCC NOTICE:

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio and television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

• Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna

• Increase the separation between the equipment and the receiver

• Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected

• Consult the dealer or an experienced radio or TV technician for help

Caution:

Any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate this equipment

THE PARTY RESPONSIBLE FOR

PRODUCT COMPLIANCE

SIIG, Inc.

6078 Stewart Ave.

Fremont, CA 94538-3152

UltraATA 100 PCI RAID is a trademark of SIIG, Inc. SIIG and SIIG logo are registered trademarks of SIIG, Inc. Microsoft, Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Other names used in publication are for identification only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

User's Manual

Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

1-1 Unpacking Y our UltraATA100 PCI RAID .................. 1-1

1-1.1 Static Electricity Precaution .............................. 1-2

1-1.2 Record the Serial Number................................. 1-2

1-2 Introducing the UltraATA100 PCI RAID .................... 1-3

1-2.1 Key Features and Benefits ................................. 1-3

1-2.2 System Requirements......................................... 1-3

1-2.3 Board Layout ....................................................... 1-4

Chapter 2: RAID Arrays

2-1 RAID Overview ............................................................ 2-1

2-1.1 RAID 0 (striping) ................................................ 2-1

2-1.2 RAID 1 (mirroring) ............................................. 2-2

2-1.3 RAID 0+1 (Mirror-Striping)............................... 2-2

2-2 BIOS Overview ............................................................. 2-2

2-3 Creating RAID Arrays................................................ 2-10

2-3.1 RAID 0 (striping) .............................................. 2-10

2-3.2 RAID 1 (mirroring) New Installation..............2-11

2-3.3 RAID 1 (mirroring) Existing Installation........2-11

2-3.4 RAID 0+1 (mirror-striping) ............................. 2-12

2-4 Deleting RAID Arrays................................................ 2-13

2-5 Using Auto RAID setup ............................................. 2-13

2-5.1 RAID 0 (striping) .............................................. 2-13

2-5.2 RAID 1 (mirroring) ........................................... 2-13

2-5.3 RAID 0+1 (mirror-striping) ............................. 2-14

2-6 Creating a Spare Drive............................................... 2-14

2-7 Resolving Conflicts..................................................... 2-14

2-8 Rebuilding a Failed Mirrored Set ............................. 2-15

2-9 Rebuilding a Failed Mirrored-Striped Set............... 2-16

Contents

Chapter 3: Installation

3-1 Hardwar e Installation .................................................. 3-1

3-2 Device Connection........................................................ 3-2

3-3 Software Installation .................................................... 3-3

3-3.1 Windows 98/98SE Driver Installation............. 3-4

3-3.2 Windows Me Driver Installation ...................... 3-5

3-3.3 Verify 98/98SE/Me Installation ....................... 3-5

3-3.4 Windows NT 4.0 Installation............................. 3-6

3-3.5 Verify NT 4.0 Installation ................................... 3-7

3-3.6 Windows 2000 Driver Installation.................... 3-7

3-3.7 Verify Windows 2000 Installation..................... 3-8

3-4 CMD Medley GUI Installation ................................... 3-8

Chapter 4: Using Utilities

4-1 Introducing the CMD Medley GUI............................ 4-1

4-2 Using the CMD Medley GUI ...................................... 4-1

4-3 CMD Medley Configuration Menu ........................... 4-7

Chapter 5: Technical Support and Product Return

5-1 Overview ....................................................................... 5-1

5-2 Web Site.......................................................................... 5-1

5-3 Technical Support ......................................................... 5-2

5-4 Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA).............. 5-2

User's Manual

About This Manual

The purpose of this manual is to introduce you to your UltraATA 100 PCI RAID. It will guide you on how to install the card and software for pr oper operation in your computer . Please save this manual for future reference in the event you wish to connect other devices to your system.

This manual is comprised of the following sections:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Provides unpacking instructions, and introduces featur es and specifications of this board.

Chapter 2: Installation

Describes how to install the card, drivers and utilities to your system.

Chapter 3: RAID Arrays

General overview of RAID with instructions on how to configure your RAID arrays.

Chapter 4: Using Utilities

Describes how to use the CMD Medley GUI in Windows.

Chapter 5: Technical Support and Product Return

Provides instructions on how to obtain technical support or return a product in the event of a problem.

Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction

Thank you for your purchase of the UltraA TA 100 PCI RAID. SIIG’s goal is to provide its customers with reliable, high quality products and customer support.

The purpose of this comprehensive user’s manual is to:

• introduce you to your UltraATA 100 PCI RAID featur es

and benefits

• guide you through the steps for an easy, trouble-free

installation in your system

• provide technical support information in the event of

a problem.

Before installing the board, please review this chapter for unpacking instructions and an overview of the key features. Then refer to later chapters for installation instructions.

1-1 Unpacking the

Before installing the board, verify that the following items are included in the packaging carton:

• One UltraATA 100 PCI RAID controller board

• Two 40-pin/80-wire Ultra ATA100 cables

• One software installation diskette

• This comprehensive user’s manual

Please consult your dealer if any item is damaged or missing.

UltraATA 100 PCI RAID

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User's Manual

1-1.1 Static Electricity Precaution

One of the routine precautions you must be awar e of when working with computer components is the problem of static electricity discharge.

Note Leave the product in its static-resistant bag until you are ready to install it.

Caution Static electricity discharge may per manently damage your system. In order to avoid possible static electricity discharge during installation procedures, please follow the guidelines below:

• Discharge any static electricity build up in your body by touching a large grounded metal surface or the computer ’s case (if plugged in), for a few seconds.

• During installation procedures, avoid any contact with internal parts. Handle cards only by their edges.

1-1.2 Record the Serial Number

In order for SIIG's Technical Support or Customer Service Department to give you prompt service, you will need the following product information. The serial number label is

located on the side of the box and on the back of the board.

Serial No.

S/N XXXXXXXXXXXX XX-XXXXXX

Please take a moment to record the serial number. Serial Number: _____________________________

Part Number: _____________________________ Date purchased: _____________________________

1-2

Part No.

Introduction

1-2 Introducing the

The UltraATA100 PCI RAID is an ultra high-speed dual channel UltraATA100 RAID controller board for use in Pentium-class computers. With full support specified in ATA/ATAPI-5, it achieves burst data transfer rates up to 100MB/sec and supports drive capacities up to 128GB. And it also provides full backward support for UltraATA 66/33, EIDE/Fast ATA-2, IDE hard drives. PCI Plug-n-Play makes the installation quick and easy, the enhanced BIOS auto-detects device types and fine tunes to the best performance for each connected IDE/ATAPI hard drive.

UltraATA100 PCI RAID

1-2.1 Key Features and Benefits

• PCI Plug-n-play 2.1 compliant

• 2 independent IDE/ATA channels, supports up to four IDE/ ATA hard drives and 128 Bytes buffer

• Supports RAID 0 (striping), RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0+1 (mirror+striping)

• CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Check)

• Built in 80-pin cable detect circuitry

• Supports External BIOS

• Co-exists with onboard IDE controller

• 32-bit 33 MHz PCI Interface

• Supports bus master DMA at 133 MB/sec PCI burst rate

• Supports maximum IDE/ATA data transfer rate of 100 MB/ sec

• Compatible with Microsoft IDE/ATA drivers (Windows 98/ 98SE/Me/Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000)

• 3.3V Operating Voltage with 5V tolerant I/O

1-2.2 System Requirements

• Pentium-class computer with one available PCI slot

• Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000 and NT4

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User's Manual

1-2.3 Board Layout

IDE1 IDE2

Dual Channel Ultra ATA/100

Connectors

Full Function Ultra ATA/100

Chipset

Figure 1-1. UltraATA 100 PCI RAID Board Layout

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RAID

Chapter 2 RAID Arrays

2-1 RAID Overview

Historically, the cost of implementing RAID in the small office or home office environment has not been cost effective. When first developed, RAID was an acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives. This, however, was changed to Redundant Array of Independent Disks, for it was the more expensive SCSI disk drives with superior performance and capacity which captured the dominant share of the RAID market. But today’s technology is changing, and the performance/capacity gap between SCSI and ATA is quickly getting smaller. With the increased performance of ATA/100 host controllers and higher capacity ATA drives coming to market, the time is right to put ATA software RAID to work in the small office, home office, environment and CMD Medley is just the software to do that.

RAID was designed to greatly enhance two main categories of data storage, performance and data integrity. RAID 0 (striping) can actually increase the performance of sustained data transfer rates. The second benefit of RAID is data redundancy. With RAID 1 (mirroring) an identical image of your data is placed on another drive or set of drives. Should your main drive fail your data is secure and available from the mirrored second drive. For performance and data redundancy, use RAID 0+1 (mirror + stripping).

2-1.1 RAID 0 (striping)

Striping is a performance oriented, non-redundant data mapping technique. It does not provide fault tolerance so it will not protect your data. Data is spread accross all disks in the stripe set allowing multiple I/O operations enhancing performance by taking advantage of today bus mastering technology. The drawback is when one disk fails the whole group fails. Two to four disks are required for striping.

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User's Manual

2-1.2 RAID 1 (mirroring)

Mirroring provides fault tolerance by making an exact duplicate of existing disks. The mirrored disk can then take over if the source disk fails. While the mirror approach provides excellent fault tolerance it is expensive to implement because only 50% of your disk space is available for disk storage. Two disks are required for RAID 1.

2-1.3 RAID 0+1 (mirror-striping)

RAID 0+1 combines mirroring with striping. This RAID array provides fault tolerance and increases disk I/O performance. Four disks are required for RAID 0+1. Like RAID 1 only 50% the total disk space is utilized for disk storage, as the other half is used to create the mirror.

2-2 BIOS Overview

Creating and dissolving RAID sets is currently a function found in the BIOS. During bootup, the following message will appear, pausing for a few moments to allow the user to choose what to do:

Press F3 to enter RAID utility

In order to properly prepare and maintain a storage system, the user needs to be aware of which drive was installed as the Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master and Secondary Slave. Identifying these drives will not only be useful because they are reported in order in the BIOS as well in the CMD Medley GUI, but when optimizing RAID sets, it is best to use drives from different channels. It is also helpful to know which drive is which if the disk drives are not all of equal size.

Disk Drive and Set Reporting (Numbering)

Before creating or dissolving Raid Sets, it is also important to understand how each different piece of software reports both the physical disk drives and “Sets,” which could be either an independent drive or an actual RAID set consisting of two to four drives.

For example, the BIOS and CMD Medley GUI will report the four physical disk drives as 0-3 while reporting each Set as 1-4.

2-2

RAID

“Set” numbers are assigned in the RAID utility based on the assigned disk number of the physical drives, with the lowest numbered drives being part of the lowest numbered sets. Therefore, Drive 0 will ALWAYS be part of Set 1, no matter if it is a single disk or part of a RAID set. Drive 1 could be part of Set 1 if it is part of a RAID set with Drive 0. If not, it will be part of Set 2.

For example, if a striped set were created with drives 1 and 2, the sets would be (the physical drive number is in the brackets):

Set: 1 <0> Manufacturer Model <PM> 19541 MB Set: 2 <1,2> CMD Stripe set <PS> 39081 MB Set: 3 <3> Manufacturer Model <SS> 19541 MB

If another striped set were created with drives 0 and 3, it would be: Set: 1 <0,3> CMD Stripe set <PM> 39081 MB

Set: 2 <1,2> CMD Stripe set <PS> 39081 MB Windows, on the other hand, does not report the physical disk

drives, but only the Sets (even if they are representing single, independent disk drives). However, Windows calls the sets “drives.” In other words, it sees a RAID Set as a single drive of whatever size the RAID Set reports. In Windows, the numbering of each set (drive) will differ depending on which operating system is being used as well as other devices currently installed on the computer. It will almost always be different than that reported in the BIOS or CMD Medley GUI. However, THE ORDER of the sets reported in the BIOS and CMD Medley GUI will be maintained in Windows such that Set 1 in the BIOS will be the first drive reported in any of the Windows operating systems. Set 2 will always be the second drive, and so forth.

Creating Striped Sets (RAID 0):

1. As the BIOS boots, the following message will appear,

pausing for a few moments to allow the user to choose what to do:

Press F3 to enter RAID utility

2. Press F3.

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User's Manual

3. If this is the first time opening the BIOS utility, or if no RAID sets

exist, something similar to the following screen will appear (note that in this example FOUR disk drives have been installed to be used as RAID sets):

Drive Number: 0 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 1 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Secondary Channel: Drive Number: 2 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 3 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB

Set: 1 <0> Manufacturer Model <PM> 19541 MB Set: 2 <1> Manufacturer Model <PS> 19541 MB Set: 3 <2> Manufacturer Model <SM> 19541 MB Set: 4 <3> Manufacturer Model <SS> 19541 MB

Press F1 to delete RAID set Press F2 to create RAID set Press F3 to create spare drive Press F4 to resolve conflicts Press <ESC> to exit RAID configuration utility

The name of the manufacturer and model number should actually appear. Also the size of each drive/set appears (in this example, these are 20GB drives with 19541MB space available).

4. Press F2 to create a RAID set. The following screen appears:

Drive Number: 0 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 1 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Secondary Channel: Drive Number: 2 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 3 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB

Set: 1 <0> Manufacturer Model <PM> 19541 MB Set: 2 <1> Manufacturer Model <PS> 19541 MB Set: 3 <2> Manufacturer Model <SM> 19541 MB Set: 4 <3> Manufacturer Model <SS> 19541 MB

Press F1 to create Striped set Press F2 to create Mirrored set Press F3 to create Mirrored-Striped set Press <ESC> to exit

Your selection?

2-4

RAID

5. Choose which type of RAID set to create.

For a Striped Set, press F1. The following screen appears:

Select the chunk size to be used in RAID 0 set:

A=Auto Configure; 0=1k 1=2k 2=4k 3=8k 4=16k 5=32k 6=64k 7=128k 8=256k 9=.5M

Your selection? What is Auto Configure? Auto Configure allows the CMD

RAID utility to choose the chunk size and drives to be used in the desired RAID set. It will always choose a 64k chunk size as the default, and will always use drives from different channels if possible. Like the rest of the utility, if Auto Configure is selected, simply follow the prompts given.

6. Choose the chunk size desired (for example, press 6 for 64K

chunk size). Once done, the following line appears:

Enter the total number of drives in Striped set:

7. A Striped set must have between 2 and 4 drives as members.

Choose the number of drives and the following line appears (for example, choose 2):

Enter the first drive number in Striped set:

Note: The TOTAL size of a Striped set is the size

of the smallest drive multiplied by the number of drives included in the set.

8. Choose which drives to be used in Striped set. For optimal

throughput, choose drives from both channels (Primary and Secondary). After entering the first drive (for example, choose

0), the following line appears:

Enter the second drive number in Striped set:

9. Enter the second disk drive number (for example, press 2). After

all drives for the Striped set are entered, the following line appears:

Are you sure? (Y/N)

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User's Manual

10. Enter Y to create the Striped set. The following screen appears:

Drive Number: 0 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 1 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Secondary Channel: Drive Number: 2 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB Drive Number: 3 Manufacturer Model 19541 MB

Set: 1 <0,2> CMD Striped set <PM> 19081 MB Set: 2 <1> Manufacturer Model <PS> 19541 MB Set: 3 <3> Manufacturer Model <SS> 19541 MB

Press F1 to delete RAID set Press F2 to create RAID set Press F3 to create spare drive Press F4 to resolve conflicts Press <ESC> to exit RAID configuration utility

Creating Mirrored Sets (RAID 1):

1. To create a Mirrored RAID set, at the opening screen press F2.

The following screen appears: Press F1 to create Striped set

Press F2 to create Mirrored set Press F3 to create Mirrored-Striped set Press <ESC> to exit

Your selection?

2. A Mirrored set uses 2 disk drives. To create a Mirrored set, press

F2. The following line appears:

Set up Mirrored set Do you want automatic set up (No copy operation)? (Y/N)

3. If you want the Mirrored set created automatically

(recommended), press Y and follow directions. If you wish to enter each drive and all pertinent information, press N, and the following line appears:

Enter the first drive number (source drive) in Mirrored set:

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SIIG CN2483 User guide

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Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual