User`s manual

FastTrak100 TX/LP™ Series User Manual

Introduction

The PC which you are using either already contains a Promise Technology



FastTrak100 TX4, TX2, or LP RAID card installed by a third-party or you have

acquired a FastTrak100 retail product for your existing PC and will be installing the

card yourself.

For PC owners wishing to install their Promise Technology



FastTrak100 TX4/TX2/LP

card, proceed to the Quick Start section (see page 5).

For PCs with a Promise Technology



FastTrak100 TX4/TX2/LP card already installed,

consult the Troubleshooting section of the manual (see page 76) if you are

experiencing any difficulties with the hard drive being recognized by the card. If your

operating system has crashed for some reason or you have downloaded updated

drivers from the Promise website (www.promise.com), you may wish to reinstall

software drivers for the FastTrak100 card. Use the Installing Drivers section (see

page 30).

In order to serve you better and provide information updates, please take a moment to

What is the FastTrak100 TX/LP Series RAID Card?

Promise originally designed the FastTrak100 card as a cost-effective, high

performance RAID card that adds performance and/or reliability to PC desktops and/or

servers using Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66, or EIDE drives. The FastTrak100 TX/LP

Series models offer some major performance differences as described below.

The FastTrak100 TX/LP Series models all support newer motherboards that offer a

66MHz PCI bus (versus the traditional 33MHz bus) and the capability of transferring

data across the PCI bus at speeds up to 266MB per second (versus the previous

133MB per second). As Ultra ATA/100 drive performance continues to improve, the

use of the Promise ATA RAID card in a 66 MHz PCI slot will allow data transfers to

exceed the older 133MB. Of course, the FastTrak100 TX/LP series cards are

backward compatible with standard 33MHz PCI slots.

The FastTrak100 TX4 model offers four independent data channels to support a

maximum of four Ultra ATA drives. This multiplies the sustained data transfer rate of

attached drives that are striped together under RAID 0 or RAID 0+1 (up to 200MB per

second). The FastTrak100 TX2 offers two independent data channels to support a

maximum of four Ultra ATA drives -- though Promise recommends using just one drive

per channel for maximum performance. The FastTrak100 LP offers the same features

as the TX2 but in a low profile form factor designed for low profile PCs.

FastTrak100 supports striping (RAID 0), mirroring (RAID 1), striping/mirroring (RAID

0+1), or spanning (JBOD) operation, respectively. With striping, identical drives can

read and write data in parallel to increase performance. Mirroring increases read