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4 raid configurations – Asus M2V-X User Manual

Page 106

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5-10

Chapter 5: Software support

5.4 RAID configurations

The motherboard comes with the VIA VT8237A controller integrated in the

SouthBridge to support Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

configurations. Using two Serial ATA hard disks, you can set up RAID 0,

RAID 1, and JBOD configurations. The following defines the different RAID

set configurations:
RAID 0 (called 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.
RAID 1 (called 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.
JBOD stands for Just a Bunch of Disks or also called spanning, refers

to hard disks that are not yet configured according to RAID. The JBOD

configuration stores the same data redundantly on multiple disks that

appear as a single disk on the operating system. Spanning does not

deliver any advantage over using separate disks independently and does

not provide fault tolerance or performance benefits of RAID.

If you use either Windows

®

XP or Windows

®

2000 operating system

(OS), copy first the RAID driver from the support CD to a floppy disk

before creating RAID configurations. Refer to section “5.5 Creating a

RAID driver disk” for details.