Promise Technology 150TX2 - Manual (Page 55)

51
Chapter 5: Disk Array Concepts
About FastTrak S150 TX2plus
FastTrak S150 TX2plus is a high performance Serial ATA/Ultra ATA RAID
controller card that features concurrent data channel operation and onboard
BIOS. The channels on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus support concurrent
operation that allows for overlapped I/O under multi-tasking operating systems
and sharing the workload between multiple drives.
About Adapter BIOS
The FastTrak S150 TX2plus card contains a BIOS code that extends the
standard disk service routine provided through Int13. The BIOS is bootable for
DOS and other operating systems that rely on the system BIOS for drive
operation. When the FastTrak S150 TX2plus BIOS appears during bootup,
press Ctrl-F to enter the FastBuild setup to select from menu settings.
FastBuild Auto Menu Setup
This setup utility is used to build and manage FastTrak S150 TX2plus disk
arrays. The utility is menu driven and features the Auto Setup (1) option that
uses a simple, interactive setup process. Once the array is built, all the array
members store the configuration information in the drive’s reserved area. See
Chapter 3, which provides descriptions of individual functions.
Reserve Sector
Array configuration data about the drive member and other members in the disk
array are saved on a special location on the disk drives called the reserve sector.
If any member of the array becomes corrupt or lost, the redundant configuration
data on the other members can be used for rebuilds.
Disk array members do not have a memory of their drive positions. This allows
drives to be placed on different FastTrak S150 TX2plus connectors or cards
within the system without reconfiguring or rebuilding.