PCI-to-IDE ATA-133 RAID Adapter AEC-6897/6897LP User’s Manual Version:1.0 Copyright © 2004 ACARD Technology Corp.
Copyright and Trademarks The information in this manual is subject to change without prior notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of the vendor, who assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors that may appear in this manual. ACARD and SCSIDE are the trademarks of ACARD Technology Corp. Microsoft and the Windows Logo are the registered trademarks, and Windows is the trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All brands and trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................... 5 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Overview ................................................................ Features ................................................................. Specifications ........................................................ Package.................................................................. 5 5 6 6 Chapter 2 Hardware Installation........................ 7 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Quick Installation .............
5.2.3 Set Spare ....................................................................... 37 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Two AEC-6897s ................................................... Mail Notification .................................................. Event Log ............................................................. Icon List ............................................................... 39 39 41 41 Chapter 6 Troubleshooting .............................. 43 Appendix A About RAID...........................
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview ACARD AEC-6897 and AEC-6897LP are 4-channel PCI-to-IDE RAID adapters, and are compatible with PCI-X interfaces on motherboards. They support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD. Among the two, AEC-6897LP is a low profile edition, that supports the standard 1U server. When used with ACARD ACS-4600 Tray, both AEC6897 and AEC-6897LP can support hot swap, and become more convenient for system maintenance.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 1.3 Specifications n Power requirement --- n Environment --- n n Humidity --Dimension --- n IDE Connector --- Voltage: 3.3V +/– 2% 5V +/– 2% Current: 0.5A Max. Operating temperature: 0oC to 70oC Storage temperature: –20oC to 85oC 15% to 90% Width: 17.46cm Height: 8.26cm (for 6897) Width: 17.40cm Height: 6.44cm (for 6897LP) Four 40-pin IDE internal connectors 1.4 Package The retail package of AEC-6897 or AEC-6897LP contains the following items.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 2 Hardware Installation 2.1 Quick Installation From this chapter on we simply take AEC-6897 as an example to explain. (1). Be sure that the system power is off. (2). Open the chassis of PC. (3). Insert AEC-6897 into an available PCI slot firmly. (4). Screw AEC-6897 onto the chassis. (5). Connect AEC-6897 to the hard drives with an ATA 133 cable. (6). Connect 4-pin power cords to the hard drives. (7). Close the chassis, and power on the system. 2.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 2.3 Hard Drive Connection (1). Find out a color line of the ATA 133 cable indicating pin 1 of the connector. (2). Find out pin 1 of the IDE connector on the IDE hard drive(see HDD’s manual). (3). Connect the ATA 133 cable to the IDE hard drive by pin 1 to pin 1. (4). Connect the 4-pin power cord to the IDE hard drive. Power Cord Slave Master Slave IDE hard drive Master Figure 2-2 Please pay attention to the following important things: 1.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 3. Refer to the following table for the number of hard drives and the Master/Slave setting according to figure 2-1. IDE 1 IDE 2 IDE 3 IDE 4 2 Hard Drives Master Master X X 4 Hard Drives Master Master Master Master 6 Hard Drives Master & Slave Master & Slave Master Master 8 Hard Drives Master & Slave Master & Slave Master & Slave Master & Slave Table 2-1 2.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 3 BIOS Setup After installing AEC-6897 and booting the system, once the detection of motherboard comes to an end, a screen as figure 3-1 will appear. The figure indicates your BIOS version, hard drive information, RAID status, etc. Figure 3-1 Press or to enter BIOS Setup Utility. If there are more than one AEC6897 adapters, choose one to configure by pressing .
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 3.1 Create Disk Array 3.1.1 RAID 0 RAID 0 is striping mode. It needs two hard drives at least, and accelerates the read/ write speed, but hasn’t any fault tolerance. First, move the highlight bar to “Create”, and choose RAID 0 from the pull-down menu by pressing as figure 3-3 shows. Figure 3-3 Second, determine the hard drives’ block size. 128K is recommended to get optimum performance under most circumstances.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Then, the system will ask if the following information is correct. Please press to confirm as figure 3-6 shows. Figure 3-6 3.1.2 RAID 1 RAID 1 is mirroring mode with fault tolerance. Data are written into two hard drives at the same time, but one of the hard drives is used as backup, therefore the total capacity is only one hard drive’s capacity. It is recommended to use two hard drives of the same size.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Create All New RAIDSET This method lets you create an empty storage space. It means that the original data in the hard drives will be erased. Choose two hard drives by moving the highlight bar and press the space bar to mark as figure 3-9 shows. An asterisk (*) will appear before the chosen hard drive. Figure 3-9 The system will ask if the following information is correct. Please press to confirm as figure 3-10 shows.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Choose the source drive. Figure 3-12 Choose the hard drive to which you intend to copy the data of the source drive. Figure 3-13 The system will ask again if the information below is correct. Press to confirm. Figure 3-14 3.1.3 RAID 5 RAID 5 is striping with rotating parity mode. It requires three hard drives at least. RAID 5 uses one hard drive to store parity data as fault tolerance.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Second, choose three hard drives at least by moving the highlight bar, and press the space bar to mark as figure 3-16 shows. An asterisk (*) will appear before the chosen hard drive. Figure 3-16 Third, the system will ask if the following information is correct. Please press to confirm as figure 3-17 shows. Figure 3-17 3.1.4 RAID 0+1 RAID 0+1 is striping+mirroring mode. It needs at least four hard dirves, and has the advantages of quick read/write and fault tolerance.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Now determine the hard drives’ block size. 128K is recommended to get optimum performance under most circumstances. Figure 3-19 Choose four hard drives, and press the space bar to mark as figure 3-20 shows. An asterisk (*) will appear before the chosen hard drive. Figure 3-20 The system will ask if the following information is correct. Please press to confirm as figure 3-21 shows. Figure 3-21 3.1.5 JBOD JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) is not a RAID mode.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual First, move the hgihlight bar to “Create”, and choose JBOD from the pull-down menu by pressing as figure 3-22 shows. Figure 3-22 Choose the needed hard drives, and press the space bar to mark as figure 3-23 shows. An asterisk (*) will appear before the chosen hard drive. Figure 3-23 The system will ask if the following information is correct. Please press to confirm as figure 3-24 shows.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual D i sk 1 D i sk 2 D i sk 3 D i sk 4 Total Capacity RAID 0 10G 20G * * 20G RAID 1 10G 20G * * 10G RAID 5 10G 20G 30G * 20G RAID 0+1 10G 20G 30G 40G 20G JBOD 10G 20G 30G 40G 100G Table 3-1 The total capacity of different disk array 3.2 Verify RAID Configuration Move the highlight bar to “Information”, and choose RAID Device from the pulldown menu by pressing . Verify the RAID configuration as figure 3-25 shows. Figure 3-25 3.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Upon booting, the BIOS of AEC-6897 will inspect the related information of hard drives. If there is an array error, the screen will display the following two modes for choice: (1) Take it into degrade mode; (2) Stopping it. (1) Take it into degrade mode means that you can set spare to rebuild the array. (2) Stopping it means that you cannot rebuild the array.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 3-28 Choose the array you want to rebuild. Figure 3-29 Start the rebuilding. Figure 3-30 If you choose (2) Stopping it, the array status will be in red as figure 3-31 shows. Please enter OS directly. Figure 3-31 3.4 Remove If you want to remove a Disk Array, move the highlight bar to “Remove”, and choose an array to delete as figure 3-32 shows. The data of the hard drives will be totally deleted.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 3-32 WARNING ! Do not remove a Disk Array unless you are 100% sure that the data in that array has been successfully backed up or the data is no longer needed. 3.5 SetBoot If you have set more than one disk arrays, SetBoot lets you choose from which one to boot. Suppose you want to boot from AEC-6897 on which you have installed OS, you can move the highlight bar to “SetBoot”, press and set as figure 3-33 shows.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 4 System & Driver Installation Driver installation varies in different operating systems. You can install the driver of AEC-6897 in existing OS, or install OS to the hard drives connected to AEC-6897, and boot from the adapter. The driver is on the support CD. Its path is \Drivers\IDE\AEC6897. It only supports Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003. Here we merely demonstrate in Windows XP. 4.1 Install the Driver Please follow the steps below to install the driver of AEC-6897. (1).
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (4). Select “Browse” to find the driver’s directory such as E:\Documents... (5). After the wizard finds the driver, click “Next” to install it. Figure 4-2 (6). Click “Continue Anyway” to continue the installation. (7). Follow the directions. The system will complete the setup automatically. Figure 4-3 Repeat the above 7 steps to complete the installation.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 4.2 Verify the Driver Installation After installing the driver, please follow the steps below to verify. (1). Boot the system again, and click “My Computer”. Figure 4-4 (2). Find “View system information”, and click it. Figure 4-5 (3). In “System Properties” click “Hardware”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (4). Then click “Device Manager”. Figure 4-7 (5). Double click “SCSI and RAID Controllers” to see if the card was installed successfully. Figure 4-8 4.3 Install OS to Disk Array Please follow the steps below to install OS to the hard drives connected to AEC6897. Thus you can boot the system from AEC-6897. (1). Find the support CD containing the driver of AEC-6897 from the package. Copy the driver into a formatted floppy disk, and label it. Refer to Appendix B.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (2). Enter the BIOS to create an Array and set boot in order to boot from the Array. Refer to 3.1 and 3.5. (3). Place the original CD of Win 2000, XP or Server 2003 into CD-ROM, and boot the computer. (4). On seeing the first blue screen, press . Then press and put the driver disk into floppy drive. The installation program will load the driver of AEC-6897. (5). Choose the hard drives or array into which you prepare to install the OS. Then follow the wizard to complete. (6).
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 5 The RAID Utility The ACARD RAID Utility provides a user-friendly GUI for you to manage efficiently. The settings you do here will affect those in BIOS immediately. In other words, the settings in the utility and BIOS are synchronized. 5.1 Install the Utility Please follow the steps below to install the utility. (1). Place the support CD into CD-ROM. (2). Double click “setup” under E:\Utility\AEC-6897. (3). Follow the wizard to complete. Figure 5-1 5.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 5-2 5.2.1 Create Disk Array The RAID Utility helps you create RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 0+1 and JBOD. You need to click “Create Array” under “Array Management” first. RAID 0 Please follow the steps below to create RAID 0. (1). Under “Array Management” choose RAID 0 from RAID Mode. (2). Choose the block size from Stripe Size. 128K is recommended. (3). Double click HD to choose needed hard drives. (4). Click “Confirm Create”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (5). Click “Save Changes”. Figure 5-4 The completion of RAID 0 is as the following figure shows. Figure 5-5 Figure 5-6 on the next page shows the completion of two sets of RAID 0. The creation methods are the same.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 5-6 RAID 1 A. Create All New RAIDSET This method lets you create an empty storage space. It means that the original data in the hard drives will be erased. Please follow the steps below to create RAID 1. (1). Under “Array Management” choose RAID 1 from RAID Mode. (2). Click “Erase Disk MBR” to update the existing master boot record. (3). Double click HD to choose two hard drives. (4). Click “Confirm Create”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (5). Click “Save Changes”. See figure 5-4. The completion of RAID 1 is as the following figure shows. Figure 5-8 B. Create Mirror for Exist Hard Disk This method lets you take a hard drive as source drive. The data in the source drive will be completely copied to the other drive to create RAID 1. Please follow the steps below to create RAID 1. (1). Under “Array Management” choose RAID 1 from RAID Mode. (2). Click “Rebuild an existed array”. (3).
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (1) (3) (4) (2) Figure 5-9 (5). Click “Save Changes”. See figure 5-4. (6). A new RAID set will appear. The status of target disk will show Bad. Boot again, and the system will rebuild the disk automatically.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual You can create antother set of RAID 1, too. Figure 5-11 shows the completion of two sets of RAID 1. The creation methods are the same. Figure 5-11 RAID 5 Please follow the steps below to create RAID 5. (1). Under “Array Management” choose RAID 5 from RAID Mode. (2). Double click HD to choose at least three hard drives. (3). Click “Confirm Create”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (4). Click “Save Changes”. Please see Figure 5-4. The completion of RAID 5 is as figure 5-13 shows. Figure 5-13 RAID 0+1 Please follow the steps below to create RAID 0+1. (1). Under “Array Management” choose RAID 0+1 from RAID Mode. (2). Choose the block size from Stripe Size. 128K is recommended. (3). Double click HD to choose at least 4 hard drives. (4). Click “Confirm Create”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (5). Click “Save Changes”. Please see Figure 5-4. The completion of RAID 0+1 is as figure 5-15 shows. Figure 5-15 JBOD Please follow the steps below to create JBOD. (1). Under “Array Management” choose JBOD from RAID Mode. (2). Double click HD to choose needed hard drives. (3). Click “Confirm Create”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (4). Click “Save Changes”. Please see Figure 5-4. The completion of JBOD is as figure 5-17 shows. Figure 5-17 5.2.2 Delete Disk Array If you don’t need a set of Array, you can follow the steps below to delete it. (1). Under “Array Management” choose the RAID you want to delete. (2). Click “Delete Array” under “Array Management”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual (3). The system will ask again if you want to delete. Confrim yes. (4). Click “Save Changes”. The RAID and the hard drives’ data will be deleted. Figure 5-19 WARNING ! Make sure that you have made a valid backup of your existing data before deleting any set of Array. ACARD is not responsible for any data loss caused by the deletion. 5.2.3 Set Spare In order to protect your data further, it is recommended to set a spare disk.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 5-20 The completion of setting a spare disk is as figure 5-21 shows.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 5.3 Two AEC-6897s If you have two or more AEC-6897 adapters, and want to create a Disk Array on one of them, you can achieve by the utility, too. First, you need to click “System Info” in the utility, and then choose the desired adapter as figure 5-22 shows. Figure 5-22 The creation methods are the same as those described in 5.2.1. 5.4 Mail Notification In the RAID Utility click “Option” to find “Mail Notification Setup”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 5-23 On figure 5-23 be sure that “Enable mail notification” is selected, and input the sender’s data in “SMTP server” and “User account”. Figure 5-24 On figure 5-24 input the recipient’s e-mail address, and click “Add”.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual NOTICE : Mail Notification and Event Log take effective only when the RAID Utility is running. You may minimize the utility into taskbar. 5.5 Event Log Click “Event Log” to find all important things about RAID such as the change of RAID mode, the damage, removal, adding and rebuilding of hard drive, etc. Figure 5-25 5.6 Icon List Click “Icon List” to see icons of RAID modes, Spare, Rebuilding, etc. You can check this list to understand the status of Array. See figure 5-26.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Figure 5-26 42
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Chapter 6 Troubleshooting After installing AEC-6897, if it cannot work normally, follow the checklist below for problem solving. (1). Inspect if the power cord’s connectors are loose, or if the wattage of power supply is sufficient. (2). Inspect if the jumper settings on the hard drives are set as table 2-1. (3). Inspect if AEC-6897 is firmly inserted into the PCI slot. (4). Inspect if the connectors of ATA 133 cable are loose or damaged. (5).
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Appendix A About RAID RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a system composed of many hard drives; that is, multiple physical drives form a single virtual drive to be recognized by the system. The advantages of RAID technology are increasing the read/write speed of a hard drive, achieving better data protection, and enlarging the capacity of a single drive like Drive C, Drive D, etc. Different classes of RAID have different composition modes and different functions.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual It is suggested to compose RAID 1 with hard drives of the same capacity. Because the capacity of mirrored disk array is that of the smallest hard drive. For example, a 100GB hard drive and a 120GB one unite into RAID 1. The total capacity is 100GB. A-3 RAID 5 (Striping with Rotating Parity) RAID 5 must be composed of three hard drives at least. The parity data of RAID 5 are not fixed in the same hard drive, but stored in every hard drive in turn.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual A-5 JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) JBOD, formal word spanning, is not a real RAID setting. It simply links a bunch of disks into a big hard drive. It doesn’t have the functions of quick read/write speed and error tolerance. However, compared with RAID 0, JBOD doesn’t waste the hard drive capacity. Its capacity is the total of all hard drive capacities. For example, set a 100GB hard drive and a 120GB one as JBOD. The total capacity is 220GB.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Appendix B Make A Driver Disk For installing an OS like Windows XP into a hard drive with ACARD adapter, you need a floppy disk containing the adapter’s driver to boot the hard drive. Please follow the steps below to make an ACARD adapter’s driver disk. 1. Insert ACARD Support CD into CD-ROM. 2. Click “Explore This CD” and then get the CD file window.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 3. Under the “Driver” folder find your adapter’s model number. For example, AEC68x5’s driver is Driver>IDE>AEC68x5.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual 4. Choose the driver folder, and right-click “Send to 3.5” floppy”. Meanwhile insert an empty disk into floppy drive. 5. Now use the driver disk to boot the hard drive and install the OS.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Appendix C ASPITool32 Manager The ASPITool32 Manager program has many functions aimed at making the hard drives work properly under the Windows OS while they are connected with the ACARD SCSI or IDE adapter. The ASPITool32 Manager program is proudly developed by ACARD. You may get the setup program from the ACARD Driver CD. ASPITool32 Manager Functions 1.FDsik: Create a partition on the hard drive. 2.Disk QErase: Quickly erase the contents of the hard drive.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual Appendix D About ACS-4600 The ACS-4600 tray contains a front panel, a rear panel and a key lock. The Front Panel The front panel of ACS-4600 contains six parts. 1. Power & active LED 4. Active handle 2. Rebuilding & error LED 5. Hot Swap housing 3. Handle 6. Key lock 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. On the front panel of ACS-4600 there are two bicolor LEDs. Their meanings are as the following table shows.
AEC-6897/6897LP Manual The Rear Panel On the rear panel ACS-4600 contains three parts. 1. Fan 2. 40-pin IDE connector 3. 4-pin power cord connector 1. 2. 3. The Key Lock The key lock of ACS-4600 is divided into three positions. A: lock for normal use B: power off HDD C: Unlock to separate the internal and external cases The Troubleshooting Symptom Solutions 2 LEDs don't light 1. Inspect if the key lock has been turned to Position A. 2. Inspect if the power cord behind the tray is loose.
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