VIA VT8237 SATA RAID Host Controller
VIA VT8237 SATA RAID
Host Controller
Revision 1.1
July 25, 2003
VIA TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
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VT8237 SATA RAID User Manual
Document Release
1.00
Date
7/3/03
Revision History
Revision
Initial public release
Initials
AT
AT
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VT8237 SATA RAID User Manual
Table of Contents
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I
NTRODUCTION
This section gives a brief introduction on the RAID-related background knowledge and an outlined introduction on the VIA SATA
RAID Host Controller. For users wishing to install their VIA SATA RAID driver and RAID software, please refer to the Driver
and RAID Software Installation section.
RAID Basics
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a method of combining two or more hard disk drives into one logical unit. The advantage of an array is to provide better performance or data fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is achieved through data redundant operation where if one drives fails, a mirrored copy of the data can be found on another drive. This prohibits the occurrence of operating system failure or data lost. The individual disk drives in an array are called “members”. Configuration information of member is recorded in their “reserved sector” that identifies the drive as a member. All disk members in a formed disk array are recognized as a single physical drive to the operating system.
There are usually a few methods in which hard disk drives can be combined together. The different methods referred as different
RAID levels. Different RAID levels represent different performance level, security level and implementation cost. The RAID levels which VIA VT8237 SATA RAID Controller supported are RAID 0, 1, and JBOD. Here is a brief table of these RAID levels.
RAID Level No. of Drives
RAID 0 (Striping)
RAID 1 (Mirroring)
JBOD (Spanning)
2
2
2
Capacity
Number drives * Smallest size
Smallest size
Sum of All drives
Benefits
Highest performance without data protection
Data protection
No data protection and performance improving, but disk capacity fully used.
RAID 0 (Striping)
Reads and writes sectors of data interleaved between multiple drives. When any disk member fails, it affects the entire array. The disk array data capacity is equal to the umber of drive members times the smallest member capacity. The striping block size can be set 4KB to 64KB. RAID 0 does not support fault tolerance.
RAID 1 (Mirroring)
Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are preformed parallel. If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure or does not respond, the remaining drive will continue to function. Due to redundancy, the drive capacity of the array is the capacity of the smallest drive. Under a RAID 1 setup, an extra drive called “spare drive” can be attached. Such a drive will be activated to replace a failed drive that is part of a mirrored array. Due to the fault tolerance, any one drive of RAID 1 failing does not impact the data access.
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JBOD (Spanning)
A spanning disk array is equal to the sum of the all drives when the drives used are different capacities. Spanning stores data on to a drive until it is full then proceeds to store files onto the next drive in the array. When any disk member fails, the failure affects the entire array. JBOD is not a really RAID and does not support fault tolerance.
Key Features
VIA SATA RAID solution uses VT8237 south bridge as a RAID controller that is a 2-channel SATA. RAID software is a
Windows-based software utility with graphical user interface and provides user an easy-operation tool to configure and manage disk drives or disk arrays connected to VT8237 SATA controller. Below are the main features and benefits of VIA SATA RAID:
1. Supports two SATA hard disk drives.
2. Supports SATA Generation 1 hard disk drive.
3. Supports hard disk drive larger than 137 GB (48-bits LBA).
4. Dual independent ATA channels and maximum 2 hard disk drives allowed connection.
5. Supports SATA PIO and DMA mode transaction.
6. Supports PCI Plug and Play. PCI interrupt sharing and coexists with mainboard IDE controller.
7. Supports bus master operation.
8. Supports RAID 0, 1, and JBOD.
9. 4 KB to 64 KB striping block size support.
10. Bootable disk or disk array support.
11. Windows-based RAID configure and management software tool. (Compatible with BIOS)
12. Real-time monitoring of device status and error alarm with popup message box and beeping.
13. Supports hot-swap failed SATA disk drive in RAID 1 array.
14. Mirroring automatic background rebuilds support.
15. ATA SMART function support.
16. Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT4.0, 2000, XP operating systems support.
17. Event log for easy trouble shooting.
18. On-line help for easy operation for RAID software.
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BIOS C
ONFIGURATION
U
TILITY
Enter BIOS Configuration Utility
When the system powers on, the following information will appear on screen. Press the ‘Tab’ key to enter BIOS configuration utility.
The main interface of BIOS configuration utility is as below:
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Create Disk Array
1. Use the arrow keys to navigate the main menu. Use the up and down arrow keys to select the Create Array command and press <Enter> to call out the list of creation steps.
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2. Highlight the Array Mode and press <Enter>, then a list of array modes will appear. Just highlight the target array mode that you want to create, and press <Enter> to confirm the selection.
3. After selected array mode, there are two methods to create a disk array. One method is “Auto Setup” another is “Select Disk
Drives”. Auto Setup let BIOS select the disk drives and create array automatically. Select Disk Drives let user select the array drives by required. When using Select Disk Drives method, the channel column will be activated. Just highlight the target drives that you want to use and press <Enter> to select them respectively. After all drives have been selected, press <Esc> to go back to the creation steps menu.
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4. If user selected a RAID 0 array in step 2, user also can select a block size for the array. Use the arrow key to highlight the Block
Size and press <Enter>, then select a block size from will popup. The block size can be selected from 4K to 64K Bytes.
5. Use the arrow key to highlight Start Create Process and press <Enter>. A warning message will appear, press Y to finish the creation, or press N to cancel the creation.
6. Please note that all existing content in the hard drive will be destroyed after the array creation.
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Delete Disk Array
A specific RAID can be deleted after it has been created. To delete a created RAID, please use the following steps:
1. Select Delete Array in the main menu and press <Enter>. The channel column will be activated.
2. Select the member of an array that is to be deleted and press <Enter>. A warning message will show up, press Y to delete or press N to cancel.
Deleting a disk array will destroy all the data on the disk array except RAID 1 arrays. When a RAID 1 is deleted, the data on these two hard disk drives will be reserved and become two normal disk drives.
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Select Boot Array
User can select a disk array as boot device if user wants to boot operating system from an array. Boot disk array can be not selected if user does not boot operating system from disk array. Use the arrow key to highlight the Select Boot Disk item then press <Enter>. The channel column will be activated. Just use arrow key to highlight the target disk array then press <Enter>. If user select a disk array that has a boot mark and press <Enter>, then its boot setting will be canceled.
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View Serial Number of Hard Drive
Highlight Serial Number View and press <Enter>. Use arrow key to select a drive, the selected drive’s serial number can be viewed in the last column. The serial number is assigned by the disk drive manufacturer.
View Array Status
Press the F1 key to show the array status on the lower screen. If there are no disk arrays then nothing will be displayed on the screen.
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Duplicate Critical RAID 1 Array
When booting up the system, BIOS will detect if the RAID 1 array has any inconsistencies between user data and backup data. If
BIOS detects any inconsistencies, the status of the disk array will be marked as critical, and BIOS will prompt the user to duplicate the RAID 1 in order to ensure the backup data consistency with the user data.
If user selects Continue to boot, it will enable duplicating the array after booting into OS.
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Rebuild Broken RAID 1 Array
When booting up the system, BIOS will detect if any member disk drives of RAID has failed or is absent. If BIOS detects any disk drive failures or missing disk drives, the status of the array will be marked as broken.
If BIOS detects a broken RAID 1 array but there is a spare hard drive available for rebuilding the broken array, the spare hard drive will automatically become the mirroring drive. BIOS will show a main interface just like a duplicated RAID 1. Selecting
Continue to boot enables the user to duplicate the array after booting into operating system.
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1. Power off and Check the Failed Drive:
This item enables users to turn off the computer and replace the failed hard drive with a good one. If users’ computer does not support APM, the computer would need to be turned off manually. After the replacement, users can boot into BIOS and select 3
Choose replacement drive and rebuild to rebuild the broken array.
2. Destroy the Mirroring Relationship:
This item enables users to cancel the data mirroring relationship of the broken array. For broken RAID 1 array, the data on the surviving disk will remain after the destroy operation. However, Destroy the Mirroring Relationship is not recommend because the data on the remaining disk will be lost when the hard drive is used to create another RAID 1 array.
3. Choose Replacement Drive and Rebuild:
This item enables users to select an already-connected hard drive to rebuild the broken array and replace the data to that particular hard drive. After choosing the item, the channel column will be activated.
Highlight the target hard drive and press <Enter>, a warning message will appear. Press Y to use that hard drive to rebuild, or press N to cancel. Please note by selecting option Y, all the data on the selected hard drive will be destroyed.
4. Continue to boot:
This item enables BIOS to skip the problem and continue booting into OS.
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D
RIVER AND
RAID S
OFTWARE
I
NSTALLATION
Microsoft Windows Driver Installation
1. After Windows has finished booting up, the system will automatically find the newly installed adapter and prompt the Found
New Hardware Wizard window. Click Cancel to skip it.
2. Insert the RAID driver and software installation CD or diskettes. Browse the CD or diskettes and double click on setup.exe to begin the driver and software installation.
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3. Confirm the follow-up dialogue windows to finish the installation.
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4. When installation is completed, click Finish to restart the system.
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Verify Installation
After the driver installation is completed and the system has restarted:
1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties from the popup menu.
2. From the popup window, click on Hardware and then click on Device Manager.
3. Expand the SCSI and RAID controllers tree as shown below. If the VIA IDE RAID Host Controller does not exist or there is a “?” or “!” marking on the device icon, it means the driver has not been installed correctly and needs to be reinstalled.
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RAID S
OFTWARE
Getting Start
After installed GUI software, it will be automatically started every time when your Windows OS is started. An icon appear in the system tray of the tool bar to indicate that GUI software is currently running.
Just double click on the small icon to call out the main interface of the software.
will
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The main interface is divided into two windows and the toolbar contain the main functions. Click on these toolbar buttons to execute their specific functions. The left windowpane displays the controller and disk drives and the right windowpane displays the details of the controller or disk drives.
View by Controller
Create Span Array (JBOD)
Add/Remove Spare disk
Create Mirror Array (RAID 1)
Create Stripe Array (RAID 0)
Remove Array
View Event log
View by Devices
Check All Disks
Help Topics
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View Online Help
Click on to launch the Help Topics. It is recommended to read through the help articles before using RAID utility.
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View Controller and Device Status
Click on or button to determine the viewing types of left windowpane. There are two viewing types: By controllers and by device. Click on the object in the left windowpane to display the status of the object in the right windowpane.
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Create Disk Array
1. Depending on users’ preferences, there are three buttons that could be used to create a disk array: and
RAID 1,
RAID 0. Click on the RAID button you want to create, the Select Array Creating Method will be displayed.
Span
Auto: The utility will arrange the available hard disk drives to be the disk arrays. The hard disk drives can still be modified later.
This method is strongly recommended.
Custom: The utility will provide an interface for arranging the disk array manually.
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2. Click on Auto to launch the creating array window. If Custom is selected, the available disks window lists the available disk drives that can be used to create the array. Select a disk drive and click on the right arrow button to add the specified disk drive to the array. Disk drives can be removed from the array by selecting an array disk and clicking on the left arrow button to remove the drive from the array.
Click on “Create” to create or “Cancel” to exit. Click on “Help” to launch the Help Topics window.
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3. A warning message will pop up after clicking on the Create button. Click Yes to finish the creation of disk array, or No to cancel it.
4. A message box will popup to prompt the user that disk array has been created successfully and ask the user whether to restart the computer. Click Yes to restart the computer or click No to skip restarting. The new disk array setting will take effect only after restarting.
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Delete Disk Array
1. Select the disk array wish to be deleted from the left windowpane, click on Remove Array popup.
and a warning message will
Yes to delete the specified disk array or click No to cancel.
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3. A message box will popup to prompt the user that disk array has been removed successfully and ask the user whether to restart the computer. Click Yes to restart the computer or click No to skip restarting. The new setting will take effect only after restarting.
Warning: Deleting a disk array will destroy all the data on the disk array except RAID 1 arrays. When a RAID is deleted, the data on these two hard disk drives will still remain and become two normal disk drives.
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Check All Disks
At any time, by clicking on the , the disk drives can be checked on whether they are working properly or not. After the disk check is completed, a dialog window will pop up to show the status of each disk. See picture below.
The hard disk drive must be compatible with the ATA/ATAPI-5 specification and support SMART commands, or the disk checking will fail.
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View Event Log
The RAID software records important events into a log file, such as disk array creation, disk array removal, disk failure, synchronization…etc.
1. Click to display the event log. There are three types of log items: Information , Warning , and Error .
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2. To view the details of a log item, double click on the row, select the row and press <Enter> to execute the menu item
Operation->View Detail. The following dialog will appear.
Click on or to browse the next or previous log item.
3. To clear all log items, click on Operation->Clear All in the menu bar.
Note: Only the operations in the RAID software can be recorded into the log file. The operations in BIOS will not be recorded.
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Verify Mirror Disk
The data on the mirror disk must be the same with its corresponding source disk to provide fault tolerance for RAID 1.
1. Select a RAID 1. Right-click on the selected RAID and a shortcut menu will be shown. Click on Verify Mirror to verify whether the source and mirror are identical.
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2. After executing the “verify mirror” command, a dialog box will show the verifying process. This action can paused or canceled at any time. It may take a long time to verify the source and mirror disk if the capacity of the RAID is large.
3. When mirror disk is not identical with the corresponding source disk, the mirror disk will be marked with a “need-sync” flag.
The icon used to indicate this status is . A “need-sync” mirror disk should be synchronized as soon as possible.
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Synchronize Mirror Disk
RAID 1 arrays must be synchronized when the data on the mirror disk is not identical with its corresponding source disk.
Sometimes the data on the mirror disk may be newer than the data on the source disk. For example, the source disk is absent and the mirror disk runs in the tolerance mode. So the exact meaning of “Synchronize Mirror” is to make a pair of source and mirror disks contain identical data. The RAID software always marks the mirror disk with a “need-sync” icon the mirror disk may have the correct data.
despite the fact that
1. Select a RAID 1 array, right-click the selected RAID and a shortcut menu will be shown. Click on Synchronize Mirror to synchronize the source and mirror disks.
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2. After synchronization has started, a dialog box will show the process. This action can be paused or canceled at any time.
3. An informing message will appear when the synchronization is finished.
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Disk Error Detection
The RAID software will pop up an error message if a disk drive fails or missing.
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Duplicate Critical RAID 1 Array
When booting up the system, the RAID utility will detect if there are any inconsistencies between the source and mirror disk drives of the RAID 1 arrays. If the software detects that a RAID 1 array containing inconsistencies, the status of the disk array will be marked as critical and the software will prompt the user to duplicate RAID 1 to make the mirror disk consistent with the corresponding source disk.
You can click Yes to synchronize now or click No to synchronize later.
After synchronization has started, a dialog box will show the process and this action can be paused or canceled at any time. If the synchronization process is cancelled, the RAID will be on the “need-sync” condition and synchronization should be proceeding again to guarantee the data consistency between sources and mirror disk drives.
A message will pop up when the synchronization process is finished.
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Rebuild Broken RAID 1 Array
After booting up the system, the RAID utility will detect if any member disk drives of RAID 1 array has failed or is absent. If the
RAID utility detects any disk drive failures or missing disk drives, the status of the array will be marked as broken.
If the RAID software detects a RAID 1 array being broken, the RAID software will indicate a series of steps to repair such problem.
1. A dialog box will be shown to indicate that the RAID is broken. Click Yes to repair the array.
2. Another dialog box will pop up. If the source or mirror disk drive is unplugged only, click Cancel to stop the rebuilding process and shut down the system. Plug in the absent disk drive and then reboot system. If the original disk drive is broken, plug in a new disk drive and then reboot the system. Click Next to proceed to the next step.
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3. Select a disk drive from Available Disks and click on
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to replace the broken drive and then click Next.
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4. A warning message will appear. If you want to rebuild the RAID using the disk driver that you selected in the previous step, click Next.
Warning: All the data on the selected disk drive will be lost.
5. Reboot the system
6. This RAID is marked as a critical RAID. The RAID software will duplicate this critical RAID 1 process.
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Icon View
All icon types and their corresponding meanings are listed below. The real status of an array or a disk drive is described on “Array status” or “Device status” in the right windowpane.
Normal Disk Array
Disk Array with Warning status
Broken Disk Array
Disk Drive with Normal status
Absent Disk Drive in a Array
Disk Drive with Error
Disk Drive with Warning status
The pair of Source and Mirror Disks should be synchronized
Disk Drive which needs system rebooting to enable its function.
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