User`s guide

Intel HostRAID Setup Guidelines C-1
Appendix C Intel HostRAID Setup Guidelines
After all the hardware has been installed, you must fi rst confi gure Intel's ESB2 SATA RAID
before you install the Windows Operating System and other software drivers.
Important Note for the User
This chapter describes RAID Confi guration Instructions for the Intel ESB2 RAID
Controller designed for the Windows OS.
C-1 Introduction to Serial ATA and Parallel ATA
To confi gure the SATA RAID functions, you must fi rst use the Intel ESB2 SATA RAID Utility
program to confi gure the RAID Level that you desire before installing the Windows
XP/2000/2003 operating system and other software drivers.
Serial ATA (SATA)
Serial ATA (SATA) is a physical storage interface that uses a single cable with a minimum
of four wires to create a point-to-point connection between devices. It is a serial link, which
supports transfer rates up to 3.0 Gbps. Because the serial cables used in SATA are thinner
than the traditional cables used in Parallel ATA (PATA), SATA systems have better airfl ow
and can be installed in smaller chassis than Parallel ATA. In addition, the cables used in
PATA are limited to a length of 40cm, while Serial ATA cables can be up to one meter in
length. Overall, SATA provides better functionality than PATA.
Introduction to the Intel ESB2 Serial RAID
Located in the South Bridge of the 5000P chipset, the I/O Controller Hub (ESB2)
provides the I/O subsystem with access to the rest of the system. It supports an 1-channel
UltraATA/100 Bus Master IDE controller (PATA) and six Serial ATA (SATA) ports. The ESB2
supports the following PATA and SATA device confi gurations: Legacy mode and Native
mode.
The Intel HostRAID Confi gurations
The following RAID levels are supported:
RAID 0 (Data Striping): this writes data in parallel, interleaved ("striped") sections of two
hard drives. Data transfer rate is doubled over using a single disk.
RAID1 (Data Mirroring): an identical data image from one drive is copied to another drive.
The second drive must be the same size or larger than the fi rst drive.
RAID 10 (Striping & Mirroring): RAID 0 and 1 schemes are combined (without parity
information) to get the benefi ts of both.
RAID 5: both data and parity information are striped and mirrored across three or more
hard drives.
1.
NOTE: The current version of the ESB2 SATA RAID Utility can only support Windows
XP/2000/2003 Operating Systems.