Asus Pedestal/5U Rackmount Server TS500-E4 Server, User Manual

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6-2 Chapter 6: RAID configuration
6.1 Setting up RAID
The Intel ® 6321ESB Southbridge chip comes with the LSI Logic Embedded
SATA RAID Utility and the Intel
®
Matrix Storage Manager. These utilities
support SATA hard disk drives and allow creation of RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID
0+1, or RAID 5 (Intel ® Matrix Storage Manager only) configuration.
If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a
created RAID set, copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a
floppy disk before you install an operating system to the selected hard
disk drive.
This chapter provides instructions for TS500-E4/PA4 model only. For
TS500-E4/PX4, refer to the SAS/RAID card user guide which may be
contained in its driver CD.
6.1.1 RAID definitions
RAID 0 (Data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and
write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same
work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate, double that
of a single disk alone, thus improving data access and storage. Use of two
new identical hard disk drives is required for this setup.
RAID 1 (Data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of
data from one drive to a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array
management software directs all applications to the surviving drive as
it contains a complete copy of the data in the other drive. This RAID
configuration provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the
entire system. Use two new drives or use an existing drive and a new drive
for this setup. The new drive must be of the same size or larger than the
existing drive.
RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more hard
disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5 configuration include better
HDD performance, fault tolerance, and higher storage capacity. The RAID 5
configuration is best suited for transaction processing, relational database
applications, enterprise resource planning, and other business systems.
Use a minimum of three identical hard disk drives for this setup.
RAID 0+1 is data striping and data mirroring combined without parity
(redundancy data) having to be calculated and written. With the RAID
0+1 configuration you get all the benefits of both RAID 0 and RAID 1
configurations. Use four new hard disk drives or use an existing drive and
three new drives for this setup.