Disk Array Concepts; About The Wd Sata Raid Controller - Western Digital WD Serial ATA RAID Controller User Manual

WD SERIAL ATA RAID CONTROLLER
USER MANUAL

Disk Array Concepts

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About the WD SATA RAID Controller

The WD SATA RAID Controller is a high performance SATA RAID controller that features
concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS. The channels on the WD SATA
RAID Controller support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped I/O under multi-
tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between multiple drives.
About Adapter BIOS
The WD SATA RAID Controller card contains a BIOS code that extends the standard disk
service routine provided through Int13. The BIOS is bootable for DOS and other operating
systems that rely on the system BIOS for drive operation.
EasyBuild Auto Menu Setup
This setup utility is used to build and manage WD SATA RAID Controller disk arrays. The
utility is menu driven and features the Auto Setup (1) option that uses a simple, interactive
setup process. Once the array is built, all the array members store the configuration
information in the drive's reserved area. See "Creating a Disk Array" on page 10 which
provides descriptions of individual functions.
Reserve Sector
Array configuration data about the drive member and other members in the disk array are
saved on a special location on the hard drives called the reserve sector. If any member of the
array becomes corrupt or lost, the redundant configuration data on the other members can be
used for rebuilds.
Disk array members do not have a memory of their drive positions. This allows drives to be
placed on different WD SATA RAID Controller connectors or cards within the system
without reconfiguring or rebuilding.
DISK ARRAY CONCEPTS - 5