MSI K9a2 Cff Manual

							B-1 SATA RAIDSATA RAID Appendix B
The south bridge SB600 integrate SATA host controller
that supports four SATA ports and RAID function for
performance and reliability.
SATA RAID provides support for RAID 0 (Striping), RAID
1 (Mirroring), RAID 0+1 (Striping & Mirroring). RAID 0
greatly improves hard disk I/O performance by
concurrently striping data across multiple drives. RAID
1 makes sure data is not lost if a drive fails as data is
simultaneously written to two drives. Drives configured
for RAID Striping are said to form a RAID 0 set, while
drives configured for RAID Mirroring are said to form a
RAID 1 set. RAID 0+1 is implemented as a mirrored
array whose segments are RAID 0 arrays. RAID 0+1
has same fault tolerance as mirroring and reduces
overhead by striping. It needs at least four drives to
form a RAID 0+1. 
						

							MS-7388 Mainboard
B-2RAID Configuration
Creating and deleting RAID set and performing other RAID setting up operations are
done in the RAID BIOS. During bootup, a screen similar to the one below will appear
for about few seconds. Press  to enter the FastBuild utility.The Fast Build Utility menu screen will appear. The Main Menu is used to choose the
operation to be performed.Important
Be sure to set the SATA Mode to “RAID” in BIOS (the path is : Intergrated
Peripherals => On-Chip ATA Devices => OnChip SATA Controller) be-
fore configuting the RAID BIOS. 
						

							B-3 SATA RAID
View Drives Assignments
This window displays the model number, capacities and assignment of the drives
physically attached to the SATA host adapter. 
						

							MS-7388 Mainboard
B-4Define LD (Creating RAID)
The selection of the RAID configuration should be based upon factors including
performance, data security, and the number of drives available. It is best to carefully
consider the long-term role of the system and plan the data storage strategy. RAID
sets can be created either automatically, or to allow the greatest flexibility, manually.
1.Press 2 on the Main Menu screen to enter the Define LD Menu.
2.Press the arrow keys to highlight an logical drive number you want to define
and press Enter to select it.
and press Enter to select it.
3.On the next screen, use the space key to choose a RAID mode (RAID 0/ 1/
0+1) and use the arrow key to move to the Drives Assignments window.
• Initialize logical drive, zero the disk drives. RAID 1 or 10 only. 
						

							B-5 SATA RAID
• Stripe Block Size, the default 64KB is best for most applications. RAID 0 or
   10 only.
• Gigabyte Boundary, allows use of slightly smaller replacement drives.
• Cache Mode, WriteThru or WriteBack.
4.On the Drives Assignments window, use the arrow key to choose the hard
drives which you want to make part of the LD, use the space key to change
the assignment to “Y”. Then press [Ctrl+Y] to save the configuration.
5.A message will show up on the bottom, press any key to save the configura-
tion or press [Ctrl-Y] to allocate the RAID capacity manually.Important
1. The default capacity is the full capacity of the selected hard drives.
2. If you allocate the first LD capacity manually, you can create second LD
   with remaining capacity of the selected hard drives. 
						

							MS-7388 Mainboard
B-66.The LD creation is done, the screen shows the LD information as below.
Press ESC key to the main screen.
7.Press ESC key to exit the utility, a message “System is going to REBOOT! Are
You Sure?” will display, answer “Y” to exit it and the system will reboot. 
						

							B-7 SATA RAID
Delete LD (Deleting RAID)
1.Select “Delete LD” on the main screen.
2.Choose a LD No you want to delete and press “Del” or “Alt+D” delete the RAID
set.
3.On the next screen, a message will display to inform you, press “Ctrl+Y” to
delete the RAID set or other key to abort it. Press “Ctrl+Y” to complete the
deletion. 
						

							MS-7388 Mainboard
B-8Installing the RAID Driver (for bootable RAID Array)
1.After you complete the RAID BIOS setup, boot from the Windows CD, and the
Windows XP Setup program starts.
2.Press F6 and wait for the Windows Setup screen to appear.
3.Insert the floppy that contains the RAID driver,Press the “S” key to select “Specify
Additional Device”.
4.For Windows Vista:
During the Operating system installation, after selecting the location to install
Vista click on “Load Driver” button to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver.
5.When prompted, insert the floppy disk or media (Floppy, CD/DVD Or USB) and
press Enter.
6.You should be shown a list of available SCSI Adapters.
7.Select “ATI AHCI Compatible RAID Controller -x86 platform” when the
system is 32-bit version or “ATI AHCI Compatible RAID Controller -x64
platform” when the system is 64-bit version and then press ENTER.
8.The next screen should confirm that you have selected the ATI RAID controller.
Press ENTER again to continue.
9.You have successfully installed the ATI RAID driver, and Windows setup should
continue.
10.Leave the disk in the floppy drive until the system reboots itself. Windows setup
will need to copy the files from the floppy again after the RAID volume is formatted,
and Windows setup starts copying files.Important
Please follow the instruction below to make a SATA RAID driver for yourself.
1.Insert the MSI CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2.Click the “Browse CD” on the Setup screen.
3.Copy all the contents in the :
for Windows XP driver CD
     \ATI\ATIDrv\SBDrv\RAID
for Windows Vista driver CD
\ChipSet\ATI\Packages\Drivers\SBDrv\RAID\x86 and
\ChipSet\ATI\Packages\Drivers\SBDrv\RAID\x64 to a formatted floppy
disk.
4.The driver disk for RAID controller is done. 
						

							B-9 SATA RAID
Installing the RAID Driver Under Windows
(for Non-bootable RAID Array)
1.Insert the MSI CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2.The CD will auto-run and the setup screen will appear.
3.Under the Driver tab, click on ATI System Driver. The ATI System Driver
includes RAID Driver.
4.The driver will be automatically installed.Important
You must install the RAID driver to enable RAID.