Mainboard K8X250
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Appendix II: RAID Setup
Introduction to RAID
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology is a sophisticated disk management
system that manages multiple disk drives. It enhances I/O performance and provides
redundancy in order to prevent the loss of data in case of individual disk failure. The RAID
facility on this board provides RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 and RAID SPAN. The total number of
drives you can apply depends on the number of connectors on your board. A board with 2 PATA
connectors and 4 SATA connectors can connect up to 8 drives (4 PATA drives and 4 SATA
drives). However one of the PATA drives may be used for the CD-ROM drive, in which case the
maximum number of drives will be 5. The descriptions below are based on 2 PATA connectors
and 4 SATA connectors.
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, multiple I/O operations can be executed in parallel, enhancing
performance. Striping does not provide fault tolerance. The minimum number of hard drives for
RAID 0 is 2.
Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)
With Disk Mirroring there are redundant disks that mirror the primary disks. Data that is written
to the primary disks are also written to the redundant disks. 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. The minimum number of drives for a
RAID 1 configuration is 2. You are required to use an even number of drives.
Disk Striped Mirroring (RAID 0+1)
This mode combines both the performance benefits of RAID 0 with the fault tolerance of RAID 1.
The minimum number of drives for RAID 0+1 configuration is 4 drives. This configuration also
requires an even number of drives.
Note:
All mirrored configurations or striped/mirrored
configurations should use drives of the same size.
RAID SPAN
RAID SPAN allows JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) configurations which simply uses multiple
disks to form a larger virtual disk without any other specialized disk management functionality.
RAID SPAN is not considered a standard RAID implementation.
Before Create RAID Array
Before you configure your RAID Array, you have to enable the “IDE RAID” option in the BIOS
Setup Utility. (BIOS setup path: Integrated Peripherals>>IDE Function Setup>>IDE
RAID>>Enable)
1. After you boot your system, press the “Del” key when prompted to enter the BIOS Setup
Utility.
2. The “IDE RAID” option for enabling RAID will be found on the “Integrated Peripherals” screen
as part of the “IDE Function Setup” section. Arrow down to the IDE RAID item and press enter.
3. On the “IDE RAID” screen, enable the disks that you want to use as RAID disks.
The following will take two SATA hard drives to configure as the RAID disks for an example.
