User manual AOPEN AX4SPEMAX

[. . . ] Overview Hardware Installation Troubleshooting & Technical Support Drivers & Utilities AWARD BIOS Setup Glossary Online Manual DOC. NO. : AX4SPEMAX-OL-E0306B AX4SPE Max AX4SPE Max 1 AX4SPE Max What's in this manual Online Manual AX4SPE MaxU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 TU T What's in this manualU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 TU T You Must NoticeU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 TU T Before You StartU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [. . . ] Moreover, AOConfig allows users to save information in *. BMP or *. TXT format which users may collect the system information in detail and send them to AOpen directly for technical support or for further diagnose of system problems. 1. The system page shows the detailed information of the motherboard, operating system, processor, and BIOS version. 2. The PCI device page shows the configurations of all PCI devices installed in your motherboard. 79 AX4SPE Max Online Manual 3. This page presents the IDE device information, such as serial number, manufacturer, firmware version, and capacity. 4. From this page, users can obtain the technical support information of AOpen. Moreover, detailed information could be saved in . bmp or . txt format. NOTE: AOConfig can be used under Windows 98SE/ME, NT4. 0/2000, or Windows XP. Please also note that AOConfig can only be operated in a system equipped with an AOpen motherboard. Before running AOConfig, all applications must be closed. 80 AX4SPE Max Online Manual RAID Introduction What's RAID? Two major challenges facing the storage industry today are keeping pace with the increasing performance demands of computer systems by improving disk I/O throughput and providing data accessibility in the face of hard disk failures. The idea of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) was first introduced by David A. Katz at the University California at Berkeley in 1988. RAID is a purpose of storing the same data in different places on multiple hard diskHs and H improves storage subsystem performance. The advantage of RAID is to provide better throughput performance and/or data fault tolerance. Better performance is accomplished by sharing the workload in parallel among multiple physical hard drives. Fault-tolerance is achieved through data redundant operation where if one (or more) drive fails or has a sector failure, a mirrored copy of the data can be found on another drive(s). A RAID appears to the operating system to be a single logical hard disk. The RAID controller manages how the data is stored and accessed across the physical and logical arrays. The RAID controller help users to ensure that the operating system only sees the logical drives and users do not need to worry about managing the complicated schema. For optimal performance results, select identical hard drives to install in disk arrays. The drives' matched performance allows the array to function better as a single drive. Warning: The Serial ATA RAID function can be supported under Windows XP and Windows . Net environments. 81 AX4SPE Max What are the RAID levels? Striping / Span (RAID 0) Online Manual RAID level 0, which is the fastest drive array you can have, is a performance-oriented disk mapping method. The data in this array gets written across a stripe or different disks for a faster transfer. This technique has striping but no redundancy of data. It offers the best performance but no fault-tolerance. Reads and writes sector of data interleaved between multiple drives. When any disk member fails, it affects the entire array. Performance is better than a single drive since the workload is balanced between the array members. [. . . ] For example: Part No. Serial No. P/N: 91. 88110. 201 is part number, S/N: 91949378KN73 is serial number. 140 AX4SPE Max Model name and BIOS version Online Manual Model name and BIOS version can be found on upper left corner of first boot screen (HPOSTU screen). For example: TU TH AX4SPE Max R1. 00 Mar. 2003 AOpen Inc. Phoenix-Award Plug and Play BIOS Extension v1. 0A Copyright © 2003, Award Software, Inc. AX4SPE Max is model name of motherboard, R1. 00 is BIOS version. 141 AX4SPE Max Online Manual Product Registration Thank you for choosing AOpen product. AOpen encourages you to spend few minutes in completing the following product registration. [. . . ]