Promise Technology FastTrak TX4000 - Manual (Page 54)

FastTrak TX4000 User Manual
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Mirroring (RAID 1)
Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are performed in parallel.
ATA RAID 1 is fault tolerant because each drive of a mirrored pair is installed on
separate IDE channels. If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure
(for example, spindle failure) or does not respond, the remaining drive will
continue to function. This is called Fault Tolerance. If one drive has a physical
sector error, the mirrored drive will continue to function.
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Disk Drives
Data Mirror
On the next reboot, the FastBuild™ Utility will display an error in the array and
recommend replacing the failed drive. Users may choose to continue using their
PC, however Promise recommends replacing the failed drive as soon as
possible.
Due to redundancy, the drive capacity of the array is half the total drive capacity.
For example, two 100 GB drives that have a combined capacity of 200 GB
would have 100 GB of usable storage. With drives of different capacities, there
may be unused capacity on the larger drive.
Using a Spare Drive – Under a RAID 1, you can attach a third drive to the
FastTrak TX4000 as a hot spare without assigning it to the array. Such a drive
will be activated to replace a failed drive in the array. A rebuild takes place
automatically in the background to mirror the good drive data onto the spare.
At a later time, the system can be powered off and the failed drive can be
physically removed and replaced. Spare drives must be the same or larger
capacity than the smallest array member.