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CS170-Q370/C246/H310
Chapter 4
- RAID
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Chapter 4 - RAID
The system board allows configuring RAID on Serial ATA drives. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1,
and RAID 5.
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RAID Levels Introduction
RAID 0 (Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance)
RAID 0 uses two new identical hard disk drives to read and write data in parallel, interleaved
stacks. Data is divided into stripes and each stripe is written alternately between two disk
drives. This improves the I/O performance of the drives at different channel; however it is not
fault tolerant. A failed disk will result in data loss in the disk array.
RAID 1 (Mirroring Disk Array with Fault Tolerance)
RAID 1 copies and maintains an identical image of the data from one drive to the other drive.
If a drive fails to function, the disk array management software directs all applications to the
other drive since it contains a complete copy of the drive’s data. This enhances data protection
and increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use two new drives or an existing drive and
a new drive but the size of the new drive must be the same or larger than the existing drive.
RAID 5
RAID 5 stripes data and parity information across hard drives. It is fault tolerant and provides
better hard drive performance and more storage capacity.
RAID 10 (Mirroring and Striping)
RAID 10 is a combination of data striping and data mirroring providing the benefits of both
RAID 0 and RAID 1. Use four new drives or an existing drive and three new drives for this
configuration.
RAID Level Min. Drives Protection
Description
RAID 0
2
None
Data striping without redundancy
RAID 1
2
Single Drive Failure
Disk mirroring
RAID 5
3
Single Drive Failure
Block-level data striping with
distributed parity
RAID 10
4
1 Disk Per Mirrored Stripe
(not same mirror)
Combination of RAID 0 (data striping)
and RAID 1 (mirroring)
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Settings
To enable the RAID function, the steps below are required and elaborated in following sec-
tions.
1. Connect the Serial ATA drives.
2. Enable RAID in the AMI BIOS.
3. Create a RAID volume.
4. Install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Utility.
Step 1: Connect the Serial ATA Drives
Refer to chapter 2 for details on connecting the Serial ATA drives.
Step 2: Enable RAID in the AMI BIOS
1. Power-on the system then press <Del> to enter the main menu of the AMI BIOS.
2. Go to “Chipset” menu and select the “PCH-IO Configuration” menu then “SATA And
RST Configuration” menu.
3. Change the “SATA Mode Selection” to “Intel RST Premium With Intel Optane System
Acceleration” mode.
4. Press F10 to save the changes.
5. Reboot the system.
Important:
1. Make sure you have installed the Serial ATA drives and connected the data
cables otherwise you won’t be able to enter the RAID BIOS utility.
2. Treat the cables with extreme caution especially while creating RAID. A dam-
aged cable will ruin the entire installation process and operating system. The
system will not boot and you will lost all data in the hard drives. Please give
special attention to this warning because there is no way of recovering back the
data.
