Raid Configurations; Raid Definitions; Installing Serial Ata Hard Disks - Asus P6T SE - Motherboard - ATX User Manual

4.4

RAID configurations

The motherboard comes with the Intel
RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5 for six independent Serial ATA channels.
4.4.1

RAID definitions

RAID 0 (Data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write data in
parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a single drive but at a
sustained data transfer rate, double that of a single disk alone, thus improving data access
and storage. Use of two new identical hard disk drives is required for this setup.
RAID 1 (Data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of data from one drive to
a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array management software directs all applications
to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of the data in the other drive. This RAID
configuration provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use
two new drives or use an existing drive and a new drive for this setup. The new drive must be
of the same size or larger than the existing drive.
RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more hard disk drives. Among
the advantages of RAID 5 configuration include better HDD performance, fault tolerance, and
higher storage capacity. The RAID 5 configuration is best suited 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.
RAID 10 is data striping and data mirroring combined without parity (redundancy data) having
to be calculated and written. With the RAID 10* configuration you get all the benefits of both
RAID 0 and RAID 1 configurations. Use four new hard disk drives or use an existing drive
and three new drives for this setup.
Intel Matrix Storage. The Intel
®
allows you to create a RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10* function to improve both
system performance and data safety. You can also combine two RAID sets to get higher
performance, capacity, or fault tolerance provided by the difference RAID function. For
example, RAID 0 and RAID 1 set can be created by using only two identical hard disk drives.
For Windows XP, If you want to install the system to a hard disk drive included in a RAID
set, first copy the RAID driver from the support DVD to a USB floppy disk before installing
the operating system. Refer to section 4.5 Creating a RAID driver disk for details.
4.4.2

Installing Serial ATA hard disks

The motherboard supports Serial ATA hard disk drives. For optimal performance, install
identical drives of the same model and capacity when creating a disk array.
To install the SATA hard disks for a RAID configuration:
1. Install the SATA hard disks into the drive bays.
2. Connect the SATA signal cables.
3. Connect a SATA power cable to the power connector on each drive.
4-10
ICH10R Southbridge controller that supports RAID 0,
®
Matrix Storage technology supported by the ICH10R chip
®
Chapter 4: Software support