Introduction - Foxconn SiS964 User Manual

Serial ATA RAID Quick User's Guide

Introduction

The SiS180 SATA controller is a hybrid solution that combines two
independent SATA ports and one Ultra ATA port for support of up to two
Serial ATA (Serial ATA RAID) and two Ultra ATA (Ultra ATA RAID) drives.
However the South Bridge SiS964 SATA controller only support two Serial
ATA on two independent ports. Specifications are as follows:
Serial ATA Interface
Serial ATA (SATA) is the latest generation of the ATA interface. SATA hard
drives deliver blistering transfer speeds of up to 150MB/sec. Serial ATA
uses long, thin cables, making it easier to connect your drive and
improving the airflow inside your PC.
Supports 150 MB/s transfers with CRC error checking
Large LBA support for drives over 137 GB
Data handling optimizations including tagged command queuing, elevator seek
and packet chain command
Ultra ATA Interface
Standard ATA/IDE interface
Supports Ultra ATA/133, Ultra ATA/100, and Ultra ATA/66 drives
Supports CRC error checking for Ultra ATA drives
Separate timing control for two devices attached to one ATA channel
Serial/Ultra ATA RAID Interfaces
The Serial/Ultra ATA RAID is designed to provide a cost-effective, high
performance RAID solution that adds performance and/or reliability to PC
desktops and/or servers using Serial ATA/150, Ultra ATA/133, Ultra
ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66 hard disks.
Serial/Ultra ATA RAID function supports striping (RAID 0), mirroring (RAID
1), striping + mirroring (RAID 0+1) and span (JBOD). Please note that the
function supports hard disk drives only and the South Bridge SiS964
SATA controller don't support Striping + mirroring (Raid 0+1).
With striping, identical drives can read and write data in parallel to increase
performance. Mirroring increases read performance through load
balancing and elevator sorting while creating a complete backup of your
files. Span would increase the logic hard disk space.
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