User manual SATA RAID 5

[. . . ] SATA RAID (RAID 5) Function (Only for chipset Sil3114 used) User's Manual 12ME-SI3114R-002 Table of Contents 1 WELCOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. 1 SATARAID5 FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. 2 FOR SATARAID USERS UPGRADING TO SATARAID5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. 2. 1 RAID FUNCTION LIST FOR DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF BIOS AND RAID DRIVER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [. . . ] When the autorun window appears, click the s SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS button at the left of the window. Move the scroll bar to the bottom and you should see Silicon Image SATA RAID5 Utility. Click the Next button when the Welcome window appears. Click the Next button to install the SATARAID5 program in the default directory (recommended). An alternate directory may be selected if desired. After installation is done, click the Finish button to complete the installation. SATARAID5 User' Manual s 11 6 Creating and Deleting Legacy RAID Groups with BIOS Utility Legacy RAID sets and JBOD can be created and managed by either the BIOS utility or the SATARAID5 GUI. See section 8 SATARAID5 GUI Overview for information on configuring RAID Groups using the SATARAID5 GUI. During boot up, a screen similar to that below will appear for about 5 seconds. Press CTRL+S or the F4 key to enter the BIOS RAID utility. The RAID Utility menu screen will be displayed. A brief description of each section is presented on the next page. SATARAID5 User' Manual s 12 Main Menu The Main Menu in the upper left corner is used to choose the operation to be performed. The selections are: Create RAID Group Delete RAID Group Rebuild RAID 1 Set Resolve Conflicts Low Level Format Logical Drive Info Create RAID Group is used to create a new legacy RAID Set or for allocating legacy spare drives. Delete RAID Group is used to delete a legacy RAID Set or to deallocate a legacy spare drive. Rebuild RAID 1 Set is used to initiate the rebuild of a RAID 1 set after, for example, a drive in the Group has been replaced. Resolve Conflicts is used to automatically find the member drives of a RAID set which has been disrupted (physical drives swapped around, for example) and restore the Set to proper operation. Low Level Format allows a single drive to have its data completely wiped out. Drives assigned to Sets or allocated as spares cannot be low level formatted. Logical Drive Info shows the current configuration of each RAID set, allocated spare, and unallocated physical drive attached to the SATA host adapter. These operations are detailed in the pages that follow. Help Window This window displays context-sensitive help and status messages. Physical Drive Information This window displays the model number and capacities of the drives physically attached to the SATA host adapter. Logical Drive Information This window displays all logical drives connected to the controller. The upper part lists RAID sets and JBOD drives reported to the system BIOS. The lower part lists spare drives, reserved drives, conflict drives, and invalid drives not reported to the system BIOS. Command Line The bottom line of the display lists the currently active command keys: Up and Down arrows select the menu item or action ESC takes the user to the previous menu Enter selects the highlighted choice Ctrl-E exits the utility Other keys may be active depending upon the currently selected action. SATARAID5 User' Manual s 13 6. 1 Creating RAID Groups As previously discussed, the Silicon Image SATA host adapter supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD configurations. The selection of the RAID level to be used should be based upon factors including performance, data security, and number of drives available. It is best to carefully consider the long-term role of the system and plan the data storage strategy appropriately. They can be created either automatically or to allow the greatest flexibility, manually. Select "Create RAID set" Choose a RAID 0 Striped, a RAID 1 Mirrored, a RAID 5 Parity, or a RAID 10 combination set. 3. Select Automatically or Manually configuration of the RAID Set. [. . . ] In contrast, selecting 1 will result in slower rebuild times but will take the least amount of CPU resources to complete a rebuild. Select RAID member devices from the available device segment list Devices: After parameters are set, click on the Create button on the bottom to create the RAID array. The array will appear in the Device Configuration Window of the SATARaid5 GUI. If no other RAID sets are to be created, then click Cancel to exit the RAID creation window. [. . . ]