Asus K8V - Manual (Page 77)

ASUS K8V motherboard 3-7
3.4 VIA RAID configurations
The motherboard includes a high performance IDE RAID controller integrated in
the VIA VT8237 southbridge chipset. It supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 with two
independent Serial ATA channels.
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.
3.4.1 Installing the Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks
The VIA VT8237 southbridge chipset supports Serial ATA hard disk drives. For
optimal performance, install identical drives of the same model and capacity when
creating a RAID set.
If you are creating a RAID 0 (striping) array for perfomance, use two new drives.
If you are creating a RAID 1 (mirroring) array for protection, you can use two new
drives or use an existing drive and a new drive (the new drive must be of the same
size or larger than the existing drive). If you use two drives of different sizes, the
smaller capacity hard disk will be the base storage size. For example, one hard
disk has an 80GB storage capacity and the other hard disk has 60GB storage
capacity, the maximum storage capacity for the RAID 1 set is 60GB.
• Before setting up your new RAID array, verify the status of your hard disks.
Make sure the Master/Slave jumpers are configured properly.
• Both the data and power SATA cables are new cables. You cannot use
older 40-pin 80-conductor IDE or regular IDE power cables with Serial ATA
drives. Installing Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks require the use of new Serial
ATA cable (4-conductor) which supports the Serial ATA protocol and a
Serial ATA power cable.
• Either end of the Serial ATA data cable can be connected to the SATA hard
disk or the SATA connector on the motherboard.
Follow these steps to install the SATA hard disks for RAID configuration.
1. Install the Serial ATA hard disks into the drive bays.
2. Connect one end of the Serial ATA cable to the motherboard’s primary Serial
ATA connector.
3. Connect the other end of Serial ATA cable to the master Serial ATA hard disk.