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Chapter 9 - RAID
Settings
To enable the RAID function, the following settings are required.
1. Connect the Serial ATA drives.
2. Enable Serial ATA in the Insyde BIOS.
3. Create a RAID volume.
3-1. Create a RAID volume if the boot type is UEFI.
4. Install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Utility.
Step 1: Connect the Serial ATA Drives
Refer to Chapter 3 for details on connecting the Serial ATA drives.
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 damaged
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.
Step 2: Enable RAID in the Insyde BIOS
1. Power-on the system then press <Del> to enter the main menu of the BIOS setup utility.
2. Go to “Advanced” menu, and select the “SATA Configuration” menu.
3. Change the “SATA Mode Selection” to “RAID” mode.
4. Save the changes in the “Save & Exit” menu.
5. Reboot the system.
The system board allows configuring RAID on Serial ATA drives. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1,
and RAID 5.
RAID Levels
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 (Mirrored 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 (Striped Disk Array with Distributed Parity)
RAID 5 stripes data and parity information across hard drives. It is fault tolerant and provides
better hard drive performance and higher disk utilization than RAID 1.
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
Note:
The Intel
®
RST is only available for the Intel
®
Q170 Chipset.
