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1.6.2
SATA Interfaces
The board provides eight internal SATA connectors. Six connectors (black) are through
the PCH, which support one device per connector, and two additional connectors
(blue) from a discrete controller.
The PCH provides independent SATA ports with a theoretical maximum transfer rate of
3 Gb/s per port. One device can be installed on each port for a maximum of eight
SATA devices. A point-to-point interface is used for host to device connections, unlike
Parallel ATA (PATA) IDE which supports a master/slave configuration and two devices
per channel.
For compatibility, the underlying SATA functionality is transparent to the operating
system. The SATA controller can operate in both legacy and native modes. In legacy
mode, standard IDE I/O and IRQ resources are assigned (IRQ 14 and 15). In Native
mode, standard PCI Conventional bus resource steering is used. Native mode is the
preferred mode for configurations using the Windows* XP, Windows Vista*, and
Windows 7* operating systems.
NOTE
Many SATA drives use new low-voltage power connectors and require adapters or
power supplies equipped with low-voltage power connectors.
For more information, see: http://www.serialata.org/.
For information about
The location of the SATA connectors
1.6.2.1
SATA RAID
The board supports the following RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Drives)
levels via the PCH:
•
RAID 0 - data striping
•
RAID 1 - data mirroring
•
RAID 0+1 (or RAID 10) - data striping and mirroring
•
RAID 5 - distributed parity
RAID functionality is only supported when using drives connected to the six SATA
connectors (black) from the PCH.
NOTE
In order to use supported RAID features, you must first enable RAID in the BIOS.
Also, during Microsoft Windows XP installation, you must press F6 to install the RAID
drivers. See your Microsoft Windows XP documentation for more information about
installing drivers during installation. Both Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft
Windows 7 include the necessary RAID drivers for both AHCI and RAID without the
need to install separate RAID drivers using the F6 switch in the operating system
installation process.
Product Description
Refer to
Figure 11, page 43
19
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