User manual

Chapter 2: Installation
5
Installing the Disk Drives
The FastTrak SX-Series RAID Controller card supports only 1.5 Gb/s Serial ATA
disk drives. For optimal performance, install disk drives of the same model and
capacity. The drives’ matched performance allows the logical drive to function
better as a single drive.
The table above shows the number of drives required for each RAID level. If you
plan to create a mirror (RAID 1) for protection, you can use two new drives OR
use an existing drive and a new drive. The new drive must be the same size or
larger than the existing drive.
1. Install the disk drives into the disk drive bays of your system.
If you are using SuperSwap Enclosures, the SMBus ID of each disk drive
must match the Channel number.
Important
If you wish to include your current bootable Serial ATA drive using
the Windows operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored
(RAID 1) logical drive on your FastTrak card, do NOT connect the
disk drive to the FastTrak yet. You MUST install the Windows
driver software first onto this drive while it is still attached to your
existing disk drive controller.
Level Number of Drives
RAID 0 2 or more
RAID 1 2 only
RAID 5 3 or more
RAID 10 4 only
JBOD 1 or more
Caution
Use of removable disk drive enclosures other than Promise
Technology’s SuperSwap is not supported and may result in
performance loss or other undesired results.