Asus TS300-E4 PX4 User Guide - Page 136

6.1 Setting up RAID For PA4 model, the Intel® ICH7R Southbridge chip comes with the LSI Logic Embedded SATA RAID Utility and the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager. These utilities support SATA hard disk drives and allow creation of RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, configuration. For PX4 model, the onboard LSI 1068 controller provides RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 1E configuration. 6.1.1 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. RAID 1-E (Enhanced RAID 1) has a striped layout with each stripe unit having a secondary (or alternate) copy stored on a different disk. You can use three or more hard disk drives for this configuration. RAID 10(0+1) is data striping and data mirroring combined without parity (redundancy data) having to be calculated and written. With the RAID 0+1 configuration you get all the benefits of both RAID 0 and RAID 1 configurations. Use four new hard disk drives or use an existing drive and three new drives for this setup. RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more hard disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5 configuration include better HDD performance, fault tolerance, and higher storage capacity. The RAID 5 configuration is best suited for transaction processing, relational database applications, enterprise resource planning, and other business systems. Use a minimum of three identical hard disk drives for this setup. If you want to boot the system from a hard disk drive included in a created RAID set, copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk before you install an operating system to the selected hard disk drive. 6- Chapter 6: RAID configuration