Promise RAID MBFastTrak133TM “Lite” User’s Manual
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................1 WHAT IS THE MBFASTTRAK133 LITE RAID CONTROLLER? ...............................................................................1 KEYS FEATURES AND BENEFITS ......................................................................................................................2 GETTING STARTED ...............................................
Introduction What is the MBFastTrak133 Lite RAID controller? Promise designed its MBFastTrak133 Lite to provide a cost-effective, high performance RAID solution that adds performance and/or reliability to PC desktops and/or servers using Ultra ATA/133, Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66. MBFastTrak133 Lite supports striping (RAID 0) or mirroring (RAID 1) for master only. With striping, identical drives can read and write data in parallel to increase performance.
Keys Features and Benefits The following information offers an overview of the major features of your new Promise MBFastTrak133 Lite. It is divided into two areas: Advanced Hardware Design, and Compatibility.
Compatibility Features Complies with PCI v2.2 Local Bus standard Compliant with PCI IDE Bus Master standard. PCI IDE Bus Master support for Windows XP/2000/98/95, Windows NT 3.5x, 4.0 Tested compatibility to coexist with motherboards that have integrated IDE controllers Compatible with Ultra ATA/133, Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66, Ultra ATA/33 Features 48-bit LBA and Extended Interrupt13 drive translation in controller onboard BIOS 3 Benefits Provides highest level of hardware compatibility.
Getting Started This section is designed to get you started for installation of your MBFastTrak133 Lite. WARNING: Before installing the driver into an existing system, backup any necessary data. Failure to follow this accepted PC practice could result in data loss. Installing The Hard Drives WARNING: If you wish to include your current bootable drive using the Windows NT 4.
Checking CMOS Settings No changes are necessary in the Mainboard CMOS Setup for resources or drive types. Since MBFastTrak133 Lite is a PCI Plug-n-Play (PnP) device, the Interrupt and Port address resources are automatically assigned by the Mainboard’s PCI PnP BIOS. The MBFastTrak133 Lite system resources including port address, interrupt, and BIOS address are automatically determined by the system PnP BIOS.
3. Press “1” to display the Auto Setup Menu below. This is the fastest and easiest method to creating your first array. FastBuild (tm) Utility 1.xx (c) 1995-2000 Promise Technology, Inc. [Auto Setup Options Menu] Optimize Array for: Performance Typical Application usage: A/V Editing [ Auto Setup Configuration ] Mode ......................................... Stripe Drives used in Array ..........................2 Array Disk Capacity...................
Creating a Security Array With An Existing Data Drive NOTE: MBFastTrak133 Lite permits only two drives to be used for a single Mirrored array in Auto Setup. You would use this method if you wish to use a drive that already contains data and/or is the bootable system drive in your system. You will need another drive of identical or larger storage capacity. WARNING: Backup any necessary data before proceeding. Failure to follow this accepted PC practice could result in data loss.
Using FastBuild™ Configuration Utility The FastBuildTM Configuration Utility offers several menu choices to create and manage the drive array on the Promise MBFastTrak133 Lite. For purposes of this manual, it is assumed you have already created an array in the previous chapter and now wish to make a change to the array or view other options.
Navigating the FastBuild™ Setup Menu When using the menus, these are some of the basic navigation tips: Arrow keys highlights through choices; [Space] bar key allows to cycle through options; [Enter] key selects an option; [ESC] key is used to abort or exit the current menu. Using the Main Menu This is the first option screen when entering the FastBuildTM Setup. FastBuild (tm) Utility 1.xx (c) 1995-2000 Promise Technology, Inc. [ Main Menu ] Auto Setup ..............................................
Creating Arrays Automatically The Auto Setup <1> selection from the Main Menu can intuitively help create your disk array. It will assign all available drives appropriate for the disk array you are creating. After making all selections, use Ctrl-Y to Save selections. FastBuild will automatically build the array. FastBuild (tm) Utility 1.xx (c) 1995-2000 Promise Technology, Inc.
Viewing Drive Assignments The View Drive Assignments <2> option in the Main Menu displays whether drives are assigned to a disk arrays or are unassigned. The menu also displays the data transfer mode that relates to speed used by each drive (U6 refers to 133MB/sec transfers, U5 refers to 100MB/sec transfers, U4 refers to 66MB/sec transfers, etc...) FastBuild (tm) Utility 1.xx (c) 1995-2000 Promise Technology, Inc.
Deleting An Array The Delete Array <4> Menu option allows for deletion of disk array assignments. This is not the same as deleting data from the drives themselves. If you delete an array by accident (and before it has been used again), the array can normally be recovered by defining the array identically as the deleted array. WARNING: Deleting an existing disk array could result in its data loss.
Rebuilding A Mirrored Array The Rebuild Array <5> Menu option is necessary to recover from an error in a mirrored disk array. You will receive an error message when booting your system from the FastTrak BIOS. NOTE: Drives MUST be replaced if they contain any physical errors. Follow these steps BEFORE using the Rebuild Array menu option: 1. On bootup, the MBFastTrak133 Lite Startup BIOS will display an error message identifying which drive has failed. 2. Press keys to enter FastBuild Main Menu.
12. Press [Enter] and confirm that the data will be copied on to the selected drive. All data on the replacement drive will be written over with mirrored information from the array drive. A progress bar will appear as below. Please Wait While Duplicating The Image 10% Complete 13. Once the rebuild process is complete, the user will be asked to reboot the system.
Installing Drivers This section details the MBFastTrak133 Lite driver installation when used with various operating systems. The software includes the driver necessary to identify MBFastTrak133 Lite to the operating system. In the following text, we assume that your CD-ROM Drive letter to be Drive d: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9a. 9b. 9c. 9d. 10. 11. 12. 13. Check in BIOS, the “Onboard RAID Device” in Peripherals option is “Enabled”. Put the driver CD in your CD-ROM drive.
Understanding Disk Array Concepts About MBFastTrak133 Lite Disk Array Adapter MBFastTrak133 Lite is a high performance Ultra ATA RAID controller that features parallel data channel operation and an onboard BIOS. The two channels on the MBFastTrak133 Lite support parallel operation that allows for overlapped I/O under multi-tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between multiple drives.
RAID Level RAID RAID 0 1 (Striping) (Mirroring) Performance Capacity # of Drives Highest Normal # Drives x Smallest Size 50% min 2 to 4 2 About RAID Levels Striping (RAID 0) Reads and writes sectors of data interleaved between multiple drives. When any disk member fails, it affects the entire array. Performance is better than a single drive since the workload is balanced between the array members. This array type is for high performance systems.
Mirroring (RAID 1) Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are performed in parallel. ATA RAID 1 is fault tolerant because each drive of a mirrored pair is installed on separate IDE channels. If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure (e.g. spindle failure) or does not respond, the remaining drive will continue to function. This is called Fault Tolerance. If one drive has a physical sector error, the mirrored drive will continue to function.
Troubleshooting & Tips This section is used to assist with troubleshooting conflicts and MBFastTrak133 Lite installation problems. Also refer to the “README.TXT” file on the MBFastTrak133 Lite driver and utility diskette for more recent information as well as the PromiseOnlineTM services. The section is divided into the following categories: Motherboard Issues, System CMOS Issues, Drive Errors, Operating System Errors, and Audio/Video Editing Tips.
failed drive by channel number and Master/Slave designation (if 2 drives exist on the same cable). The mirrored array has lost its fault tolerance, but will still perform normal drive reads and writes. Operation aborted because FastBuild follows: encountered an error as Location: Channel 2 - Master Drive Array Status: Critical Please retry using FastCheck utility to recover all data. Reboot the system by pressing the ENTER key. Try powering the system off and on to reset the drive.
8. For striped arrays, repeat this process for each member of the particular array that is having a problem. 9. When finished, hit the "ESC" key twice to reboot. 10. After rebooting, use FastBuild to re-create the array. For mirrored arrays, rebuild the mirrored array. For striped arrays, use FDISK and FORMAT after setting up the array.
Your choices are as follows: Abort: Halts the synchronization process. You may elect to retry at a later date. Fix the Error Block: MBFastTrak133 Lite will take a good data block from either drive and copy it to the drive where the error was detected. Skip the Error Block: MBFastTrak133 Lite will log the event error and continue the synchronization process. Use this setting if you want to detect the presence of errors, but do not want to fix these errors at the time.
Operating System-Related Errors Different drive lettering under Windows NT This may happen when using a SCSI card in addition to the Promise chip. Windows NT does not necessarily load the driver for the boot device controller first. This results in a drive that in MS-DOS is the C: drive being the D:, or E:, etc. in Windows NT. Use Windows NT’s Disk Administrator utility to reassign the letters which NT has assigned to the drives.
Performance Tips Here are some tips that may optimize performance in a RAID 0 striped array. If you are using an audio/video editing card, we also recommend to review your card’s documentation for additional information. Use MBFastTrak133 Lite as D: or other non-bootable drive in a Striped Array For A/V editing, keep the original system boot drive on the standard IDE controller as C: drive. Partitioning software such as FDISK will see the array as one physical drive, D: drive (or later).
Frequently Asked Questions This section lists frequently asked questions involving pre-installation, drive issues, installation, and postinstallation. Pre-Installation (Speed, Device Types, Capacity, Cabling) Q: What kind of hard drives can I use for a MBFastTrak133 Lite array? A: You can use any Ultra DMA IDE hard drive(s) to create arrays on the MBFastTrak133 Lite. You should use matching drives for multiple-drive arrays to maximize capacity usage as well as performance.
Drive Issues Q: Can I add a drive to a MBFastTrak133 Lite RAID array via hot-swap and dynamically adjust the array size/configuration? A: No. The MBFastTrak133 Lite system does not support dynamically adjustable RAID size/configurations. Q: Do the HDDs on the MBFastTrak133 Lite have to be the same size? A: The HDDs that you use with the MBFastTrak133 Lite do not have to be the same size. If the sizes differ, the MBFastTrak133 Lite will “adjust” the HDDs so that they are compatible.
Installation Issues (Capacity, Booting) Q: Why are some drives recognized by the MBFastTrak133 Lite Array Setup utilities with only partial capacity? A: Some hard drive models are shipped with a jumper that reduces the addressable capacity of the drive to prevent problems with older systems which won’t support larger drives. Consult the documentation accompanying the hard drive to set the jumper appropriately in order to utilize the full capacity of the drive.
