Asus P5VD2-VM SE User Manual - Page 94

RAID configurations - motherboard drivers

Page 94 highlights

3.3 RAID configurations The motherboard comes with the VIA® VT8237S RAID controller that allows you to configure Serial ATA hard disk drives as RAID sets. 3.3.1 RAID definitions RAID 0 (Data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate, double that of a single disk alone, thus improving data access and storage. Use of two new identical hard disk drives is required for this setup. RAID 1 (Data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of data from one drive to a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array management software directs all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of the data in the other drive. This RAID configuration provides data protection and increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use two new drives or use an existing drive and a new drive for this setup. The new drive must be of the same size or larger than the existing drive. JBOD (Spanning) stands for Just a Bunch of Disks and refers to hard disk drives that are not yet configured as a RAID set. This configuration stores the same data redundantly on multiple disks that appear as a single disk on the operating system. Spanning does not deliver any advantage over using separate disks independently and does not provide fault tolerance or other RAID performance benefits. If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a RAID set, copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk before you install an operating system to a selected hard disk drive. Refer to section "3.4 Creating a RAID driver disk" for details. 3-10 Chapter 3: Software support

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3-10
Chapter 3: Software support
3.3
RAID configurations
The motherboard comes with the VIA
®
VT8237S RAID controller that allows you to
configure Serial ATA hard disk drives as RAID sets.
3.3.1
RAID definitions
RAID 0 (Data striping) optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write
data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a
single drive but at a sustained data transfer rate, double that of a single disk alone,
thus improving data access and storage. Use of two new identical hard disk drives
is required for this setup.
RAID 1 (Data mirroring) copies and maintains an identical image of data from one
drive to a second drive. If one drive fails, the disk array management software
directs all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of
the data in the other drive. This RAID configuration provides data protection and
increases fault tolerance to the entire system. Use two new drives or use an
existing drive and a new drive for this setup. The new drive must be of the same
size or larger than the existing drive.
JBOD (Spanning) stands for Just a Bunch of Disks and refers to hard disk drives
that are not yet configured as a RAID set. This configuration stores the same data
redundantly on multiple disks that appear as a single disk on the operating system.
Spanning does not deliver any advantage over using separate disks independently
and does not provide fault tolerance or other RAID performance benefits.
If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a RAID set,
copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk before you install
an operating system to a selected hard disk drive. Refer to section “3.4 Creating
a RAID driver disk” for details.