5-11
Chapter 5: FastTrak 100 RAID Controller
Q:
Can I use ATAPI devices on the FastTrak100 controller?
A:
No. There is no driver layer on the FastTrak100 controller which will support
ATAPI packet messages.
Q:
Will the FastTrak/100 work with a 37Mhz or 41Mhz PCI bus speed?
A:
:
The current PCI 2.1 specification is for a 33Mhz PCI bus speed. The FastTrak100
is designed around the specification. In most cases, a higher PCI bus speed will result
in a variety of different errors. While some people have been able to get these higher
speeds to work, since it is out of specification we cannot support it.
Q:
How can I change the resources that the FastTrak uses?
A:
The FastTrak100 is fully PnP. This means all the resources that it uses are given
to it by the PnP BIOS on the motherboard. The FastTrak100 does support IRQ sharing,
but this will not work unless ALL the concerned devices support the feature. If your
motherboard allows you to control the assignment of these resources, you may be
able to remedy the problem by “playing around” with them. You can also try resetting
the configuration data in your CMOS. This is usually an option in the PnP section of
your CMOS. Otherwise, the only way you might be able to affect these assignments
is to switch the PCI slot that the card is in.
Q:
How does the FastTrak100 RAID controller provide storage and/or
data protection with their arrays?
A:
FastTrak100 implements three different types of RAID levels as follows:
RAID 0 (stripe)
For capacity —
The FastTrak100 array will be as big as the smallest HDD in the array
times however many HDDs are in the array. Any larger HDDs will simply be truncated.
The truncated space on the bigger HDDs will then be unusable.
For sustained data transfers —
Using FastTrak100, a RAID 0 array consisting of
two HDDs will transfer at about twice the speed of the slowest HDD in the array. A
RAID 0 array consisting of four HDDs will transfer at about three times the speed of
the slowest HDD in the array.
RAID 1 (mirror)
For capacity —
The FastTrak100 array will be as big as the smallest HDD in the array.
The larger HDD will simply be truncated. The truncated space on the bigger HDD will
then be unusable.
For sustained data transfers —
The FastTrak100 array will write data at the rate
of the slowest HDD in the array. The FastTrak100 array will read data at twice the
rate of the slowest HDD in the array.
JBOD (spanning)
For capacity —
The FastTrak100 array will combine the sizes of the HDDs in the array.
As soon as one HDD is filled to capacity, the next HDD will automatically be used.
For sustained data transfers —
There is no performance increase with spanning
(reading or writing).
Summary of Contents for SUPER P3TDDE
Page 1: ...SUPER P3TDDE USER S MANUAL Revision 1 0c SUPER...
Page 9: ...Chapter 1 Introduction 1 3 Introduction SUPER P3TDDE Figure 1 1 SUPER P3TDDE Image...
Page 44: ...3 6 SUPER P3TDDE User s Manual Notes...
Page 70: ...4 26 SUPER P3TDDE User s Manual Notes...
