Gigabyte GA-H97M-DS3P User Manual - Page 32

Chapter 3 Appendix 3-1 Configuring SATA Hard Drive(s) Before you begin, please prepare the following items: •• At least two SATA hard drives (to ensure optimal performance, it is recommended that you use two hard drives with identical model and capacity). If you do not want to create RAID, you may prepare only one hard drive. •• Windows setup disk. •• Motherboard driver disk. •• A USB flash drive. Configuring the Onboard SATA Controller A. Installing SATA hard drive(s) in your computer Attach one end of the SATA signal cable to the rear of the SATA hard drive and the other end to available SATA port on the motherboard. Then connect the power connector from your power supply to the hard drive. B. Configuring SATA controller mode in BIOS Setup Make sure to configure the SATA controller mode correctly in system BIOS Setup. For the BIOS Setup menus, refer to Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Integrated Peripherals." Steps: 1. Turn on your computer and press to enter BIOS Setup during the POST (Power-On Self-Test). Go to Peripherals\SATA Configuration, make sure Integrated SATA Controller is enabled. To create RAID, set SATA Mode Selection to RAID (Figure 1). If you do not want to create RAID, set this item to IDE or AHCI. 2. If you want to configure UEFI RAID, follow the steps in "C-1." To enter the legacy RAID ROM, save the settings and exit BIOS Setup. Refer to "C-2" for more information. The BIOS Setup menus described in this section may differ from the exact settings for your motherboard. The actual BIOS Setup menu options you will see shall depend on the motherboard you have and the BIOS version. C-1. UEFI RAID Configuration Only Windows 8.1/8 64-bit supports UEFI RAID configuration. Steps: 1. After you set the SATA controller to RAID mode, go to BIOS Features and set Windows 8 Features to Windows 8 and CSM Support to Never. Save the changes and exit BIOS Setup. 2. After the system reboot, enter BIOS Setup again. Then enter the Peripherals\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology sub-menu. 3. On the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology menu, press on Create RAID Volume to enter the Create RAID Volume screen. Enter a volume name with 1~16 letters (letters cannot be special characters) under the Name item and press . Then, select a RAID level. RAID levels supported include RAID 0, RAID 1, Recovery, RAID 10, and RAID 5 (the selections available depend on the number of the hard drives being installed). Next, use the down arrow key to move to Select Disks. 4. Under Select Disks item, select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array. Press the key on the hard drives to be selected (selected hard drives are marked with "X"). Then set the stripe block size. The stripe block size can be set from 4 KB to 128 KB. Once you have selected the stripe block size, set the volume capacity. 5. After setting the capacity, move to Create Volume and press to begin 6. After completing, you'll be brought back to the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology screen. Under RAID Volumes you can see the new RAID volume. To see more detailed information, press on the volume to check for information on RAID level, stripe block size, array name, and array capacity, etc. - 32 -