RAIDExpress 133 RAID
USER MANUAL
Preliminary Specification 0.2
Notice
Reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the information in this manual is accurate. We assume no liability for technical inaccuracies, typographical, or other errors contain herein.
Backup your important data before using the IDE RAID product, and use at your own risk. In no event shall we be liable for any loss of profile, or for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages arising from any defect or error in our products or manuals.
Contents
Introduction 1
Features 2
What is the RAIDExpress 133 card 3
Quick Start 5
Unpack your RAIDExpress 133 Card package 5
Install the RAIDExpress 133 Card 6
Create Your Disk Array 8
Setup Utility 14
Using the RAIDExpress 133 Card Setup Utility 14
RAIDExpress 133 Card Setup Utility Main Menu 15
Auto Configuration 16
Define RAID 21
Delete RAID 27
Rebuild RAID 30
RAID Card Configuration 35
Driver Installation 37
Windows XP 38
Windows 2000 44
Windows 98SE/ME 52
Windows NT 60
Linux 68
Application 76
Installation 76
Functions Description 79
How to Create Disk Array? 91
Q&A 93
Technology Support 94
RAIDExpress 133 RAID USER MANUAL
This manual is mainly to help users setup the RAIDExpress 133 card and solve problems when they use it.
If it is your first time to use the RAIDExpress 133 card and you are about to install it, please refer to the “Quick Start” section on page 5. After finishing installing it, you can get the advantages of enhancing the performance and raising the system’s reliability.
When you face any difficulties and find anything you don’t understand while using the RAIDExpress 133 card, please refer to the “Q&A” section on page 93. In this section, you can refer to the problems users may face and find the correct solutions. You can follow the instructions to solve your problems and then you will get satisfactory results.
If there are still any questions you don’t understand, please refer to the “Technology Support” section on page 94 to look for technical support.
l Compatible with the ATA/ATAPI-6 specification and supports two IDE channels with 4 drives.
l Supports ANSI ATA proposal PIO modes 0,1,2,3,4 with flow control, DMA Modes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6.
l 512 bytes FIFO for auto transfer per IDE channel to get a high performance
l Supports the RAID 0/1/0+1 function.
l Supports the JBOD function.
l Supports the Scatter/Gather function for the DMA/UDMA function.
l Includes one embedded CPU and firmware on the system to handle the RAID function. It can reduce the driver’s loading of system CPU and improve the system’s ability.
l Supports Hot Swap function and doesn’t need any special HD removable box.
l Low CPU utilization based on local processor architecture.
l Compatible with PCI Local bus specification v2.2. Our systems can be easily installed to PCs.
l Supports PCI power Management v1.0 to reduce the power consumption.
l Supports the drivers for Windows 98SE/ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000/XP and Linux v2.4.1.0.
This RAIDExpress 133 card is an excellent product resulting from Soc concept. It includes one RAID Chip combining the CPU, firmware, advanced PCI controller and IDE controller. Its architecture can provide users a RAID system with low CPU utilization. When a PC is in the high CPU operation or PCI traffic, users won’t have any penalties for installing the RAID system. This is because this system embeds a local CPU to deal with the RAID function and it’s unnecessary to share CPU’s performance. It is entirely different from the traditional software RAID system. Similarly, it also provides users more system stability. It provides users high speed and integration and a low price PC RAID system. Additionally, it also provides PCI 33MHz interface and is compatible with PCI spec. v2.2. It can be easily installed into the PC system nowadays. Besides, we provide each OS a corresponding driver so that users don’t have to worry that their systems and the IDE RAID system have any compatibility issue.
This RAIDExpress 133 card can support IDE drivers ranging from the lowest speed of PIO mode drive to the highest speed of ATA/133 drive. Thus, users can use this characteristic to combine RAID system without any limitations. Users can use ATA/133 drive and RAID function to achieve the best performance and get the merit of system’s stability.
The RAIDExpress 133 card can support the RAID0 (striping), RAID1 (mirroring), RAID0+1 (striping and mirroring) or JBOD (spanning) mode. When a system is programmed to the RAID0 mode, it can read or write two drivers at the same time to enhance the performance. When a system is programmed to the RAID1 mode, two drivers have the same data and it will prevent data from being damaged. Once data are damaged, the system will start the rebuild function automatically and save data back to another new drive. Similarly, this system can use this data-copying characteristic to let two drivers transmit at the same time and balance the performance to raise the throughput. The RAID0+1 mode uses four drivers to get the merits of RAID0 and RAID1. As for the JBOD mode, it combines more than two drives into a drive with a large capacity. This mode does not have the RAID function and its merits.
This section leads you to quickly establish your RAID system with default settings. The default settings can meet most people’s requirements. If you need more advanced optimal, please refer to Setup Utility on page 14 to achieve your goal.
When you unpack your RAIDExpress 133 card package, you can see the following items.
l RAIDExpress 133 card.
l RAIDExpress 133 manual.
l RAIDExpress 133 card software CD.
l Two 80-wire/40-pin Ultra ATA/133 hard drive cables.
I f you lack anything mentioned above, please contact your distributor to ask for remedy.
Warning: In order to prevent any data loss resulting from inappropriate operation, please backup data before you start to install your system.
This RAIDExpress 133 card meets the PCI v2.2 standard and can be easily installed under 32-bit PCI slots of different PC systems. Please follow the following procedures to install it.
4. Attach Ultra ATA/133 hard drives to the RAIDExpress 133 card.
The hard drives which are required for the installation
The hard drives, which are connected on the RAIDExpress 133 card, can support Ultra ATA/133, Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66, Ultra ATA/33, EIDE or Fast ATA-2 drives. Nevertheless, for the best performance, it is suggested that you had better use the hard drives of the same type and capacity to establish your own RAID system. After getting ready for the hard drives, you can follow the procedures below to install the system.
1. Exactly set up every hard drive’s master and slave setting to assure that the hard drives can surely action and unnecessarily incorrect action of data access won’t occur.
2. Exactly insert the hard drive’s cables into the connectors on the hard drive and check if it’s really firmly inserted.
3. Insert every power cable connector into the corresponding hard drive and check if it’s firmly inserted in a correct direction.
Warning: Because this system can support the hard drives of Ultra ATA/133, it is suggested that you can use the 80-wire, 40-pin cable included in the package to connect the RAIDExpress 133 card and hard drives in order to assure the system’s ability and efficiency. If the cable is damaged after a period of time, it is also suggested to buy the cable with the same specification.
You can create your own array using the onboard BIOS utility of the RAIDExpress 133 card with the attached hard drives. Please follow the steps below to setup your disk array.
Warning: Please backup data in your hard drives to prevent data damage resulting from the unfamiliarity with the operation.
1. Boot your systemPlease attach your hard drives to the RAIDExpress 133 card, boot your system and then you will see the following message shown by the RAIDExpress 133 card onboard BIOS on the screen.
Please press “Ctrl-F” or “Ctrl-E” keys to enter the BIOS utility Main Menu. The screen below will appear.
Please click ”1” to enter the Auto Configuration window. It will guide you to set an array and this is the simplest and fastest way to create your first array. Under the Setup Array Type as option, you can use arrow keys → and ← and the “space” bar key to change your option to setup your array type. Totally, there are five configurations supported:
RAID level/Type
Configurations
Drzewo_gen