KM400A Series
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Appendix II: SATA RAID 0/1 Setup
Introduction to RAID
(Redundant Array of Independent Disks)
RAID technology is a sophisticated disk management system that manages multiple disk drives,
enhancing I/O performance and providing redundancy in order to prevent the loss of data in case any
of the individual disks fail. The SATA RAID facility on this board provides RAID 0 (striped), RAID
1 (mirrored) and RAID SPAN.
Disk Striping (RAID 0)
triping is a performance-oriented, non-redundant disk storage technology. With RAID striping,
ultiple disks are used to form a larger virtual disk. Data is then striped or mapped across all the
hysical disks. In this way modern SATA and ATA bus mastering technology can be used to perform
ultiple I/O operations in parallel, enhancing performance. While Striping is discussed as a RAID
et type, it actually does not provide fault tolerance.
isk Mirroring (RAID 1)
ith Disk Mirroring there is a redundant disk that mirrors the main disk. Data that is written to the
ain disk is also
ult tolerant protection
a single disk failure. If a read/write failure occurs on one drive, the system can still read and
rite data using the other drive.
AID SPAN is not one of the standard RAID levels. It is however considered a JBOD (Just Bundle
f Disks) configuration which simply uses multiple disks to form a larger virtual disk without any
ther specialized disk management functionality.
AID BIOS Configuration
hen the system boots up during the POST (Power-On Self Test), the user will be given an
pportunity to enter the “VIA RAID BIOS Configuration” utility. Wait for the following prompt:
ress <Tab> Key into User Window
hen press the “Tab” key to enter the VIA RAID BIOS Configuration utility. The VIA RAID BIOS
reen will display as shown below.
S
m
p
m
S
D
W
m
written to the redundant disk. This redundancy provides fa
from
w
RAID SPAN
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O
o
R
W
o
P
T
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