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NVIDIA BIOS RAID Installation Guide
NVIDIA BIOS RAID Installation Guide is an instruction for you to configure RAID
functions by using NVIDIA RAID Utility under BIOS environment. After you make a
SATA / SATAII driver diskette, press <F2> to enter BIOS setup to set the option to
RAID mode by following the detailed instruction of the “User Manual” in our support CD
or “Quick Installation Guide”, you can start to use NVIDIA RAID Utility to configure
RAID.
This section includes examples of using NVRAID RAID Utility for creating RAID arrays.
If your motherboard is equipped with six SATA / SATAII ports, you may choose to use
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, JBOD, or RAID 5 function with your motherboard
according to the SATA / SATAII HDDs amount you install. Please refer to the RAID
functions your motherboard provides in advance and follow the instruction in this
section to create RAID arrays.
1.1 Introduction to RAID
The term “RAID” stands for “Redundant Array of Independent Disks”, which is a
method combining two or more hard disk drives into one logical unit. For optimal
performance, please install identical drives of the same model and capacity when
creating a RAID set.
RAID 0 (Data Striping)
RAID 0 is called data striping that optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and
write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. It will improve data access and storage since
it will double the data transfer rate of a single disk alone while the two hard disks
perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate.
WARNING!!
Although RAID 0 function can improve the access performance, it does not provide any fault
tolerance. Hot-Plug any HDDs of the RAID 0 Disk will cause data damage or data loss.
RAID 1 (Data Mirroring)
RAID 1 is called data mirroring that copies and maintains an identical image of data
from one drive to a second drive. It provides data protection and increases fault
tolerance to the entire system since the disk array management software will direct
all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of the data in
the other drive if one drive fails.
