AKiTiO Taurus Mini Super-S3 LCM - Manual (Page 5)

Taurus Mini Super-S3 Introduction
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1.6 RAID Modes
Hard drives of identical capacities are recommended. If the capacities are different, the total
amount of the space that can be used will depend on the drive with the smallest capacity. The
difference in performance is only visible for fast interfaces like eSATA.
1.6.1 RAID 0 - Disk Striping
The drives are shown as one large single volume but the total size will depend on the drive with the
smallest capacity. This setting is used where speed is the primary objective but RAID Level 0 (also
called striping) is not redundant. This form of array splits each piece of data across the drives in
segments; since data is written without any form of parity data-checking, it allows for the fastest
data transfer. On the downside, if one drive becomes damaged, the whole array can become
corrupted.
 2 drives
1.6.2 RAID 1 - Disk Mirroring
Two drives show up as one volume but only 50% of the total capacity, depending on the drive with
the smallest capacity, can be used. RAID 1 creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on the
second drive. This is useful when reliability and backup take precedence over storage capacity.
Should one hard drive fail, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically.
 2 drives
1.6.3 Changing the RAID Mode
The RAID mode should be set after installing the drives and before first formatting the drives.
1. Make sure the power is off and then install the drives.
2. Connect the interface cable to your computer and turn on the computer.
3. If bus power is insufficient (e.g. for USB or eSATA), connect the power supply to the device
and then plug it into the power outlet.
4. Enter the setup menu and set your preferred RAID mode. The system will restart and ask
for confirmation.
5. Initialize the disk, create a partition and format the drives.
Note
Changing the RAID mode requires you to re-format the drives. This will erase all data on the
hard drives that are being formatted. Make sure to backup all existing data first!
Important
In order for the computer to access volumes larger than 2TB, both the hardware and
Operating System need to have the capacity to support large volumes (e.g.: Windows 7 or
Mac OS 10.4 and above).