Appendix Ii: Sata Raid 0/1 Setup; Introduction To Raid - Albatron PM800 Series User Manual

PM800 Series

Appendix II: SATA RAID 0/1 Setup

Introduction to RAID

(Redundant Array of Independent Disks)
RAID technology is a sophisticated disk management system that manages multiple disk drives,
enhancing I/O performance and providing redundancy in order to prevent the loss of data in case any
of the individual disks fail. The SATA RAID facility on this board provides RAID 0 (striped), RAID 1
(mirrored) and RAID SPAN.
Disk Striping (RAID 0)
Striping is a performance-oriented, non-redundant disk storage technology. With RAID striping,
multiple disks are used to form a larger virtual disk. Data is then striped or mapped across all the
physical disks. In this way modern SATA and ATA bus mastering technology can be used to perform
multiple I/O operations in parallel, enhancing performance. While Striping is discussed as a RAID Set
type, it actually does not provide fault tolerance.
Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)
With Disk Mirroring there is a redundant disk that mirrors the main disk. Data that is written to the
main disk is also written to the redundant disk. This redundancy provides fault tolerant protection
from a single disk failure. If a read/write failure occurs on one drive, the system can still read and
write data using the other drive.
RAID SPAN
RAID SPAN is not one of the standard RAID levels. It is however considered a JBOD (Just Bundle Of Disks)
configuration which simply uses multiple disks to form a larger virtual disk without any other
specialized disk management functionality.
RAID BIOS Configuration
When the system boots up during the POST (Power-On Self Test), the user will be given an opportunity
to enter the "VIA RAID BIOS Configuration" utility. Wait for the following prompt:
Press <Tab> Key into User Window
Then press the "Tab" key to enter the VIA RAID BIOS Configuration utility. The VIA RAID BIOS screen
will display as shown below.
Array
Create
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