Intel Application Accelerator User's Manual

Intel Application Accelerator
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8 Intel Application Accelerator
8.1 Description
The Intel Application Accelerator software package provides high-performance Serial ATA and
Serial SATA RAID capabilities in Windows* XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003.
Intel Application Accelerator contains the following key features:
Serial ATA RAID driver for Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003,
providing RAID 0 for improved performance, RAID 1 for improved protection against hard
drive failures, and Matrix RAID for a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 benefits.
x
x
x
x
x
x
Advanced Host Controller Interface support for both RAID and non-RAID Serial ATA
drives, providing Native Command Queuing performance benefits, as well as Native Hot
Plug capability.
Intel® Storage Utility, which provides the Windows* user interface for managing Serial
ATA drives and RAID arrays
Migration Feature, allowing migration from a single-drive “RAID Ready” configuration to a
RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration, without the need to reinstall the operating system. Systems
can even be migrated from a “RAID Ready” configuration to a Matrix RAID configuration
by migrating to RAID 0 as selecting the minimum volume size. Once the migration is
complete, a RAID 1 volume can be created in the remaining free array space.
User Notification provides SMART notification and early warning of potential hard drive
failures through the use of balloon messages from a system tray icon.
8.2 Do You Need the Intel Application Accelerator?
The Intel Application Accelerator is required if you have supported hardware and would like to
enable RAID performance or data protection features on two hard drives, or enable Native
Command Queuing performance on single drive RAID systems. The Intel Application
Accelerator is not required for stand-alone Serial ATA hard drive(s) to work properly (e.g. not
configured for RAID or AHCI).
To use the Intel Application Accelerator, your system must meet ALL of the following
requirements:
A
supported Intel chipset
http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/imst/sb/CS-012492.htm
A supported operating system
http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/sb/CS-009343.htm
x
To take advantage of increased storage subsystem performance and overall system performance,
your system must meet the following requirement:
A Serial ATA device (e.g. hard drive that supports Generation 1 transfers)x
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