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FASTTRAK - Promise Technology, Inc.

1. 13 Security Logical Disk Array with an Existing Data Drive 14 Security Logical Disk Array with Quick Initialization 17 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility 19 Viewing the FastTrak BIOS Screen 19 Navigate the FastBuild Setup Menu 20 Create Logical Disks Automatically 21 Optimize Array Logical 15 21 Create Multiple Logical Disks 22 View Change Drive Assignments 22 Change Between Spare and JBOD 23 Create Logical Disks Manually 25 Logical Disk Specifications 25 Create a RAID 0 Logical Disk 27 Create a RAID 1 Logical Disk 29 Add Fault Tolerance to Existing 30 Hot Spare Drive sce eI PII A Ge eS 33 Delete a Logical Disk tee 34 Rebuild a Mirrored Logical Disk 36 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Chapter 4 Install 39 Make an Installation Floppy Diskette
2. Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system See page 71 Security Logical Disk Array with an Existing Data Drive Use this setting to create a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk with a new disk drive and an existing drive with data and or the bootable drive in your system Use a new drive of identical or larger storage capacity as the existing drive Under the Security setting in Auto Setup FastTrak assigns two drives for a single Mirrored logical disk The Create and Duplicate function does not work with a four drive Striped Mirrored logical disk RAID 10 Chapter 2 Installation Choose this method if you wish to use a drive that already contains data and or is the bootable drive from your system Obtain a second disk drive of equal or larger storage capacity Warning If you plan to create a Security logical disk using an existing disk drive backup any important data Failure to do so could result in data loss Important If you wish to include your current bootable drive using the Windows 2000 XP or Server 2003 operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk do NOT connect the disk drive to the FastTrak yet You MUST install the FastTrak driver to this disk drive while it is still attached to your existing disk drive controller See Chapter 4 on page 39 Follow these steps 1 2 3
3. 40 Windows Server 2003 New Installation liliis 41 Existing Installation 42 Confirm Installation si a hena eee 42 Windows New Installation zera dee ace eru 43 Existing Installation 44 Confirm Installation 44 Windows 2000 New Installation RII 45 Existing Installation 46 Confirm Installation 46 Chapter 5 RAID Concepts 47 FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller Card 47 Logical Disk Terms eed n He ae 48 RAID Eevelss s ii bake ee oe ice etc PUER eee a 51 Chapter 6 Troubleshooting amp Tips 55 Motherboard Issues 55 System CMOS Issues 56 Drive Related Issues 57 Operating System Related Issues 59 Performance Tips 24 44 edie Rr S EAE 60 Chapter 7 Support 55 eee eee 2 eee 61 Frequently Asked Question
4. Warning A The FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller cards like other parts of your system are subject to AN damage by static electricity Be sure that you re properly grounded Promise recommends that you wear an anti static strap or touch a grounded object and that you unplug your system before installing FastTrak Install the FastTrak Card The FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID card fits into any available PCI slot on your PC s motherboard below e 32 bit PCI slot must be PCI 2 2 2 3 compliant The 32 bit portion of a 64 bit PCI or PCI X slot Attaching screw System frame Bracket FastTrak card Motherboard PCI slots Chapter 2 Installation 1 Remove the cover of your system 2 Remove the inside slot cover of an available 32 bit PCI slot on the motherboard Install the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID card into the open PCI slot Secure the bracket to the system s frame 3 Attach your system case s 2 or 4 pin LED cable to the LED connector on the FastTrak card see nstall the Disk Drives below 4 Fasten the controller card bracket to the system case Install the Disk Drives Important If you wish to include your current bootable Serial ATA drive using the Windows 2000 XP or Server 2003 operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk on your Fa
5. Network Drives Sp Adapt on ConnectStorTI 192 168 1 178 Y 74
6. To remove the reserve sector follow these steps 1 Backup any important data from the logical disk 2 Note the logical disk information including which drives are used the number of drives RAID Level etc 3 Delete the logical disk 4 Create a new logical disk using the specifications from the previous logical disk 5 During the creation process select the Create and Quick Initialize option 6 Partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system See page 71 Logical disk constantly goes critical or offline during reboot See Unable to Partition or Format logical disk above Cannot rebuild mirrored RAID 1 logical disk See Unable to Partition or Format logical disk above Fatal errors or data corruption are constantly reported when reading or writing to the logical disk See Unable to Partition or Format logical disk above Chapter 6 Troubleshooting amp Tips Operating System Related Issues The Operating System no longer boots after creating a Mirrored Logical Disk using your existing boot drive using Windows This is due to Drive Geometry issues You can verify this if you move the original drive back to the onboard controller and it boots successfully Each controller can view a drive differently This can be an issue for a new controller that loads the original Master Boot Record MBR and then has a problem translating it or the Operating System boot record Promise recommends
7. e Confirm page 46 Following are driver installation procedures for the Windows operating systems that support the FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card The FastTrak drivers for Windows are included on the CD Drivers and installation instructions for Linux are downloadable from the Promise website at www promise com Important If you wish to include your current bootable drive using the Windows 2000 XP or Server 2003 operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk you MUST install the FastTrak driver to this drive while it is still attached to your existing disk drive controller 39 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Make an Installation Floppy Diskette This procedure requires one write enabled blank 3 5 inch diskette Place your blank diskette in the appropriate drive 2 Insert the Promise CD into your CD ROM drive The display screen should open automatically If the display screen does not open click on MyComputer CD Drive D and double click on the Launch exe icon 3 Click on the Windows Driver button The Disk Copy Utility opens 4 Click the Create button in the Utility A confirmation box appears 5 Click the Yes button in the confirmation box The utility prepares your driver installation diskette When the utility is finished it displays a message 6 Inthe message click the OK button T Click the Exit button to close the Promise C
8. Boot sequence to SCSI A C since the Promise card is identified as a SCSI card Motherboard CMOS displays C or D drive failure during startup See the Drive Related Errors section Using an onboard IDE card with FastTrak Controller If an onboard IDE controller is installed with hard disks enable support in the Motherboard Standard CMOS Setup for the drives Note that the onboard IDE hard drives will then be the bootable hard disk unless the system BIOS has a boot sequence setting with the option to specify booting to a different device 56 Chapter 6 Troubleshooting amp Tips Drive Related Issues Critical logical disk array status error reported during boot ID MODE SIZE STATUS Exp Converting 1x2 Mirror 120000M Critical Problem is detected with Array 1 A disk member of a mirrored array has failed or is not responding The array is still functional but fault tolerance is disabled Before continuing power off the system and confirm that the drives and cables are properly attached before replacing the failed drive and rebuilding the array 1 Identify which drive has failed with the lt 3 gt Define array menu option 2 Power off the system replace the failed drive 3 Restart the system and enter the FastBuild tm setup menu 4 Choose the lt 5 gt Rebuild Array menu optionto rebuild the array Press lt Ctrl F gt to enter FastBuild tm Utility Press lt ESC gt to continue booting If a cri
9. Management Connector on the FastTrak card to the Management Connector on the first enclosure These actions are described in Chapter 2 of the SuperSwap User Manual Note The FastTrak TX Series RAID Controllers are PCI Plug n Play PnP devices No changes are necessary in the Motherboard CMOS Setup for resources or drive types in most applications Create Your Logical Disk You will now use the onboard FastBuild BIOS utility to create your logical disk using the attached drives There are four different ways to create this logical disk You can create a logical disk for e Performance page 13 e Security using new disk drives recommended page 13 11 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual e Security using an existing disk drive and a new one page 14 e Security using Quick Initialization page 17 The first three steps are the same for all four choices After that follow the steps for the logical disk you want to create 1 Boot your system If this is the first time you have booted with the FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller card and drives installed the Promise onboard BIOS will display the following screen FastTrak TX4300 tm BIOS Version 2 00 0 xx Copyright c 2003 Promise Technology Inc Updated in 2004 No Array is defined Press lt Ctrl F gt to enter FastBuild tm Utility Press lt ESC gt to continue booting 2 Press the Ctrl F keys to display the Fas
10. Manual Resetthe configuration data in your CMOS This is usually an option in the PnP section of your CMOS Otherwise switch the FastTrak card to a different PCI slot How does the FastTrak Controller provide storage and or data protection with their logical disks The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card implements three different RAID levels as follows RAID 0 Stripe For capacity The FastTrak logical disk will be as big as the smallest drive in the logical disk times however many drives are in the logical disk Any larger HDDs will simply be truncated The truncated space on the bigger drives is unusable For sustained data transfers Using FastTrak a RAID 0 logical disk consisting of two drives will transfer at about twice the speed of the slowest drive in the logical disk A RAID 0 logical disk consisting of four drives TX4200 4300 will transfer at about three times the speed of the slowest drive in the logical disk RAID 1 Mirror For capacity The FastTrak logical disk will be as big as the smallest drive in the logical disk The larger drive will simply be truncated The truncated space on the bigger drive is unusable For sustained data transfers The FastTrak logical disk will write data at the rate of the slowest drive in the logical disk The FastTrak logical disk will read data at twice the rate of the slowest drive in the logical disk RAID 10 Mirror Stripe TX4200 4300 only For
11. The Define Array Menu displays 2 Press the arrow keys to highlight the logical disk number you wish to define and press Enter to select The Define Array Definition Menu displays Mirror 29 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual 3 Under the Define Array Menu section press the arrow keys to highlight the RAID Mode 4 Press the Spacebar to select the Mirror RAID Mode 5 If you want to disable Gigabyte Rounding press the arrow keys again to highlight it 6 Press the Spacebar to toggle Gigabyte Rounding on or off 7 Under the Drive Assignments section press the arrow keys to highlight a disk drive 8 Press the Spacebar to change the Assignment option to Y to add the drive to the logical disk 9 Press Ctrl Y to save the logical disk information The window below will appear Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only Y N I Do you want to do quick initialize or create only Yes No Create and Quick Initialize Y Create and Duplicate N Create Only N Create Only I Create and Quick Initialize 2 drive RAID 1 logical disk 4 drive RAID 10 logical disk 10 Press N for the Create Only option 11 Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system Add Fault Tolerance t
12. but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose The published information in the manual is subject to change without notice Promise Technology reserves the right to make changes in the product design layout and driver revisions without notification to its users This version of the User Manual supersedes all previous versions Recommendations The appearance in this manual of products made by other companies including but not limited to software servers and disk drives is for the purpose of illustration and explanation only Promise Technology does not recommend endorse prefer or support any product made by another manufacturer Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 0 0 ccc nnn 1 About This Manual 22 5 cette 1 Overview Aves et Pc 2 Promise Array Management PAM Software 3 Key Features and Benefits cc ee eel pere 3 Specifications oa eae vere ene a ERR NIE EG ct 6 Chapter 2 Installation eec E ee te n 7 Unpack Your FastTrak 7 Install the FastTrak Card e 8 Install the Disk 5 III 9 Create Your Logical Disk 11 Performance Logical Disk Array 13 Security Logical Disk Array with New Drives
13. capacity The FastTrak logical disk will be twice the size as the smallest drive in the logical disk Larger drive will simply be truncated The truncated space on the bigger drives is unusable For sustained data transfers The FastTrak logical disk will read and write data at the rate of the slowest drive in the logical disk Drive Issues Can add a drive to a FastTrak logical disk via hot swap and dynamically adjust the logical disk size Yes The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card supports dynamically adjustable RAID size and RAID level RAID level changes depend on the original RAID level and the number of drives available 62 Chapter 7 Support Do the disk drives on the FastTrak Controller have to be the same size The disk drives connected to the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card do not have to be the same size If the sizes differ the FastTrak Controller will truncate the bigger drive so the drives match The resulting difference in drive space is unusable so avoid using disk drives of significantly different capacities already have a logical disk on an older FastTrak controller Can move that logical disk to my new FastTrak Serial ATA RAID controller Yes provided your logical disk was build using Serial ATA disk drives All FastTrak controllers read the logical disks the same way so you can move them from one controller to another take a drive used in a FastTrak logical disk an
14. damages Promise is not an insurer If you desire insurance against such damage you must obtain insurance from another party Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages for consumer products so the above limitation may not apply to you This warranty gives specific legal rights and you may also have other rights that vary from state to state This limited warranty is governed by the State of California Your Responsibilities You are responsible for determining whether the product is appropriate for your use and will interface with your equipment without malfunction or damage You are also responsible for backing up your data before installing any product and for regularly backing up your data after installing the product Promise is not liable for any damage to equipment or data loss resulting from the use of any product Return Product For Repair If you suspect a product is not working properly or if you have any questions about your product contact our Technical Support Staff through one of our Technical Services making sure to provide the following information e Product model and serial number required Return shipping address Daytime phone number Description of the problem e Copy of the original purchase invoice 68 Chapter 7 Support The technician will assist you in determining whether the product requires repair If the product needs repair the Techn
15. digitally signed by Microsoft you will be asked if you want to continue the installation Click Continue anyway When the New Hardware Wizard has finished installing the FastTrak driver click Finish Confirm Installation 1 Right click on the My Computer icon and select Manage from the popup menu From the left panel select Device Manager Click the in front of SCSI and RAID controllers Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller should appear 44 Chapter 4 Install Drivers Windows 2000 New Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller drivers while installing Windows 2000 1 Start the installation e Floppy Install Boot the computer with the Windows 2000 installation diskettes e CD ROM Install Boot from the CD ROM Press F6 after the message Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver appears When the Windows 2000 Setup window is generated press S to specify an Additional Device s Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into drive A and press Enter Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen then press Enter The Windows 2000 Setup screen will appear again saying Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices The list will include Windows Promise FastTrak 2200 2300 4200 4300 tm Controller N
16. the Spare drive s capacity is equal to or larger than the smallest drive in the logical disk The menu also displays the data transfer mode that relates to speed used by each drive U refers to Serial ATA 22 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Change Between Spare and JBOD By default unassigned disk drives are designated as Spares You can designate them as JBOD in order for your PC s operating system to recognize them Spare JBOD Use as a Hot Spare if capacity is sufficient Yes No Assignable to a Logical Disk Array Yes No Recognized as a drive by the PC s operating system No Yes JBOD disks function the same any other disk drive that is part of your PC To change a Spare disk to JBOD 1 From the FastBuild Main Menu select View Change Drive Assignments 2 2 Inthe View Drive Assignments menu use the arrow keys to highlight a Spare drive you want to redisignate 3 Press the spacebar to change the disk to JBOD FastBuild asks for verification 23 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual 4 Press Ctrl Y to confirm The disk is re designated as JBOD Note Before you can use your JBOD disk you must partition and format it using your PC s operating system Caution When you re designate a JBOD disk as a Spare you lose all data on the disk Spare disks are not recognized by your PC until they become part of a logical disk T
17. you create a mirrored logical disk RAID 1 from an existing drive versus using two brand new drives This protects the existing drive s partition table in order to maintain data integrity 49 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual How FastTrak Orders Logical Disks During startup the logical disks on the FastTrak Serial ATA Controller card are recognized in this order 1 The logical disk set to bootable in the FastBuild Setup 2 The logical disk number i e logical disk 0 logical disk 1 This would be involved in determining which drive letters will be assigned to each logical disk How FastTrak Saves Logical Disk Information All logical disk data is saved into the reserve sector on each disk drive in the logical disk The FastTrak controller can recognize disk drive members even if they are moved between different FastTrak card connectors or they belong to a logical disk created with a different Promise RAID controller 50 Chapter 5 RAID Concepts RAID Levels Stripe RAID 0 Reads and writes sectors of data interleaved between multiple drives When any disk member fails it affects the entire logical disk Performance is better than a single drive since the workload is balanced between the logical disk members This logical disk type is for high performance systems Identical drives are recommended for performance as well as data storage efficiency The logical disk data capacity is equa
18. 0 2300 4200 4300 User Manual 70 Appendix A Partition and Format In order for your operating system to recognize and work with the disk drives attached to your FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card the drives must be partitioned and formatted e fyour drives were previously partitioned and formatted they are ready to use and you can skip this procedure e f your drives have not been partitioned and formatted you must do that job before you can use them The actions of partitioning and formatting create a file structure on the disk drives with which your operating system can work In the example below we show how this is done in Windows A similar procedure is required for Linux PC s However partitioning and formatting in Linux is unautomated therefore please refer to your system documentation for the exact procedure Note If you plan to boot your computer from this logical disk go to Windows and Device Driver Installation under the Installation section for instructions The instructions here are for data logical disks only Open Explore Search Map Network Drive Disconnect Network Drive Create Shortcut Delete Rename Properties 1 From the desktop right click on the My Computer icon and select Manage from the popup menu The Computer Management window opens 2 From the left menu click on Disk Management The Disk Management window opens with your
19. 1 P R China 66 Chapter 7 Support Limited Warranty Promise Technology Inc Promise warrants that for three 3 years from the time of the delivery of the product to the original end user a the product will conform to Promise s specifications b the product will be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and service This warranty a applies only to products which are new and in cartons on the date of purchase b is not transferable C is valid only when accompanied by a copy of the original purchase invoice d Is not valid on spare parts fans and power supplies This warranty shall not apply to defects resulting from a improper or inadequate maintenance or unauthorized modification s performed by the end user b operation outside the environmental specifications for the product C accident misuse negligence misapplication abuse natural or personal disaster or maintenance by anyone other than a Promise or a Promise authorized service center Disclaimer of other warranties This warranty covers only parts and labor and excludes coverage on software items as expressly set above Except as expressly set forth above Promise DISCLAIMS any warranties expressed or implied by statute or otherwise regarding the product including without limitation any warranties for fitness for any purpose quality merchantability non infringement or otherwise Promise ma
20. 300 User Manual Rebuild a Mirrored Logical Disk When a mirrored RAID 1 or 10 logical disk suffers a disk drive failure it goes Critical This means you can still access the logical disk but it has lost fault tolerance To restore the logical disk to Functional status you must Replace the failed drive e Rebuild the logical disk to the replacement drive If you have a FastTrak TX4200 4300 with a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk you can have a hot spare disk drive With the hot spare rebuilding of the logical disk to the spare drive will happen automatically See page 33 For all other Mirrored RAID 1 or 10 logical disk configurations you must rebuild the Critical logical disk manually as described below ID MODE 512 STATUS Exp Converting H 1x2 Mirror 120000M Critical Problem is detected with Array 1 A disk member of a mirrored array has failed or is not responding The array is still functional but fault tolerance is disabled Before continuing power off the system and confirm that the drives and cables are properly attached before replacing the failed drive and rebuilding the array 1 Identify which drive has failed with the lt 3 gt Define array menu option 2 Power off the system replace the failed drive 3 Restart the system and enter the FastBuild tm setup menu 4 Choose the lt 5 gt Rebuild Array menu optionto rebuild the array Press lt Ctrl F gt to enter FastBuild tm Utility Press
21. ATA 150 L ITI g TITULI FastTrak 2200 FastTrak TX2200 2300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card Individual LED Aggregate LED Port 1 Port 3 Connectors Connectors Channel 1 Channel 3 Management Port 2 Port 4 Connector Channel 2 Channel 4 DDBODnnnn n 0000 OOOO Tott E FastTrak Tx4200 PROMISE TECHNOLOG Y INC SATALS0 TT VOU FastTrak TX4200 Serial ATA RAID Controller card 10 Chapter 2 Installation Port 1 1 Individual LED Aggregate LED Connectors Connectors Port 2 Management Channel 2 Connector LL LL EL Port 3 H Channel 3 Port 4 00 Channel 4 ROM FE FastTrak 4300 ITI FastTrak TX4300 Serial RAID Controller 4 Attach the Y cable power splitters to your Serial ATA disk drives If you are using a Promise SuperSwap 1100 or 4100 enclosure in your PC Connect the power cables to the SuperSwap enclosure Attach a SMBus cable from the
22. D 40 Chapter 4 Install Drivers Windows Server 2003 New Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller drivers while installing Windows Server 2003 1 Start the installation Floppy Install Boot the computer with the Windows Server 2003 installation diskettes e CD ROM Install Boot from the CD ROM Press F6 after the message Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver appears When the Windows Server 2003 Setup window is generated press S to specify an Additional Device s Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into drive A and press Enter Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen and then press the Enter Press S to use the driver on the floppy disk and then press Enter to continue with installation The Windows Server 2003 Setup screen will appear again saying Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices The list will include Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller NOTE If there are any additional devices to be installed specify them now When all devices are specified continue to the next step From the Windows Server 2003 Setup screen press the Enter Setup will now load all device files and then continue the Windows Server 2003 installation 41 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Existing Insta
23. ID 10 on 4200 4300 only TX 2300 and TX4300 support Burst data transfer rates up to 300 MB s from Serial ATA Specification II Serial ATA drives to boost overall system performance FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Advanced Hardware Design Features Benefits TX 2200 and TX4200 support Serial ATA Specification 1 0a Burst data transfer rates up to 150 MB s from Serial ATA drives to boost overall system performance Independent data channels for Serial ATA drives Drives can multiply their data transfer performance when striped together and each drive uses a separate data channel PCI Plug n Play PCI Interrupt sharing and coexists with motherboard IDE and SCSI controllers Easy to install supports up to 4 Serial ATA drives on the FastTrak RAID Controller card while still supporting 4 devices on motherboard ATA controller Supports multiple logical disks TX2200 2300 supports up to 2 logical disks TX4200 4300 supports up to 4 logical disks Supports online logical disk expansion Add disk drives to the logical disk without affecting data availability Supports online logical disk migration Change RAID level without affecting data availability Supports Hot Spare drive Uses any free disk to replace a failing disk in a logical disk automatically Utilizes FastBuild automenu from the FastTrak onboard BIOS Has Auto Setup option for qu
24. OTE If there are any additional devices to be installed specify them now When all devices are specified continue to the next step From the Windows 2000 Setup screen press Enter Setup will now load all device files and then continue the Windows 2000 installation 45 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Existing Installation After installing the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card and rebooting your system Windows 2000 setup will show a New Hardware Found dialog box Under Windows 2000 PCI Mass Storage Controller will be displayed 1 2 Choose Add New Hardware Wizard from the list and then press Enter Choose Add Troubleshoot a device and click Next The new hardware wizard will show device list Choose Mass Storage controller and click Next At the following screen click Finish Choose Display a list the known drivers for this device so that can choose a specific driver then click Next When the Windows 2000 supported SCSI adapter drivers list appears click Have disk Insert the FastTrak driver diskette in drive AA Type A Win2000 in the text box Click OK Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen then click Next Click Yes to confirm continue the installation and copy the driver to system Remove the diskette and click Finish to restart the system Windows 2000 will then restart for the driver installation to
25. PROMISE TECHNOLOGY INC FASTTRAK 712200 TH2300 714200 144300 User MANUAL FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Copyright 2005 Promise Technology Inc All Rights Reserved Copyright by Promise Technology Inc Promise Technology No part of this manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the expressed written permission of Promise Technology Trademarks Promise and the Promise logo are registered in U S Patent and Trademark Office All other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies Important data protection information You should back up all data before installing any drive controller or storage peripheral Promise Technology is not responsible for any loss of data resulting from the use disuse or misuse of this or any other Promise Technology product Notice Although Promise Technology has attempted to ensure the accuracy of the content of this manual it is possible that this document may contain technical inaccuracies typographical or other errors Promise Technology assumes no liability for any error in this publication and for damages whether direct indirect incidental consequential or otherwise that may result from such error including but not limited to loss of data or profits Promise Technology provides this publication is without warranty of any kind either express or implied including
26. Press the Spacebar to choose Security under the Optimize Array section Press Ctrl Y to Save your selection The window below will appear Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only Y N I Create and Duplicate N Create Only I Create and Quick Initialize Press Y for the Create and Duplicate option 15 FastTrak 2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual The window below will appear asking you to select the Source drive to use 1 SATA 573160023 5 160041 4 Usethe arrow keys to choose which drive contains the existing data to be copied 5 Press Enter to Save selection the source disk Fast Build asks for verification 6 Press Y to continue FastBuild will copy all data from the Source drive to the Target drive and report its progress in percent completed 7 Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer 16 Chapter 2 Installation Proceed to Chapter 4 on page 39 and install the FastTrak driver Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system See page 71 Security Logical Disk Array with Quick Initialization Use this setting to create a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk with one or two existing disk drives containing data that you do not want to keep This method creates a mirrored logical disk and erases the first data block from y
27. Sharing is not supported with onboard IDE controllers If the onboard IDE controller s are not used you may disable the controllers to free IRQ 14 and or 15 Configuring PCI IRQ resources Setting the IRQ for a particular PCI slot will be different depending on the motherboard BIOS This setting is usually made in the PCI Configuration and or Plug and Play PnP section of the motherboard BIOS setup There are three common methods that motherboard BIOS s handle assignment of IRQs to PCI slots e Specifically assigning an IRQ to a particular slot You can tell the motherboard to use IRQ 10 for PCI slot 1 IRQ 11 for PCI slot 2 etc Listing which IRQs are available to be assigned to the PCI slots This BIOS has an option where you specify 1st Available IRQ 2nd Available IRQ etc The BIOS then scans the PCI slots for PCI cards and assigns these IRQs in the order that it finds the PCI cards Consult your motherboard manual for information that is specific to your motherboard 55 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Intermittent data problems Overclocking the PCI bus may cause the system to hang or data corruption If you experience either of these problems and you are overclocking the PCI bus set the PCI bus back to its normal setting to see if this is causing the errors System CMOS Issues Set motherboard CMOS Boot sequence to boot to FastTrak Controller On some Motherboard BIOS it is necessary to set the
28. a clean install of the Operating System This action restores the MBR and OS boot record This requires repartitioning and formatting the drive Promise Windows driver does not appear in Device Manager Windows may already be listing the controller under Other Devices instead of the Hard disk controllers section In Device Manager under Other Devices to see if it lists a PCI Card or RAID Controller If so highlight this listing and click on the Properties button then click on the Driver tab Depending on your version of Windows choose either Change Driver or Update Driver Follow the on screen prompts to complete installation of the driver If Windows asks if you want to test if the device can be removed safely click on CANCEL Reboot the system to complete installation of the driver Inaccessible Boot Device message appears during floppyless installation of Windows The F6 key was not pressed at the appropriate time Reboot the system and press the F6 key when the message Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver appears in Windows Hard Drives Found message appears during CD ROM installation of Windows The F6 key was not pressed at the appropriate time Reboot the system and press the F6 key when the message Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver appears in Windows 59 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Performance Tips Here are some tips that m
29. al disk from the mirrored pair over two more disk drives The data capacity is similar to a standard RAID 1 logical disk with half of the capacity used for redundancy Data Stripe Data Mirror Disk Drives Stripe Size For RAID 10 logical disks you can manually select the stripe block size of 32 64 or 128 MB The default is 64 KB The size selected affects how FastTrak sends data blocks to and receives them from the drives You must perform your own testing to determine how the data block size affects your particular use of the logical disk In general a larger block size is better when handling large data transfers such as in A V editing or graphics while a smaller block size is better when handling e mail and other common server data RAID 10 logical disks on FastTrak consist of four disk drives only 53 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Dual Data Redundancy One unique though rarely used feature of RAID 10 is dual fault tolerance In Some cases two drives can fail simultaneously yet the logical disk still maintains the integrity of data There are six combinations in which two of the four drives can fail The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller protects the data on a logical disk in four of those cases depending on each drive s assignment in the logical disk Assume the drives are configured as follows CHindicates channels ports on the FastTrak card e indicates which mirrored
30. and other common server data The default is 64 KB Gigabyte Rounding The Gigabyte Rounding feature is designed for mirrored logical disks RAID 1 or RAID 10 that makes replacing a disk drive easier When a logical disk goes Critical becamse a disk drive has failed you must replace the failed drive with one that is the same size or larger However the Gigabyte Rounding feature permits the installation of a replacement drive that is slightly smaller within 1 gigabyte than the remaining working drive This can be helpful in the event that a drive fails and an exact replacement model is no longer available Without this feature enabled FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 will NOT permit the use of a replacement drive that is slightly smaller than the remaining working drive For the Gigabyte Rounding feature to work the Gigabyte Rounding feature must be set to ON when the original mirrored logical disk is created When enabled the Gigabyte Rounding feature rounds the drive capacity of both drives to the common whole GB drive size For example with the Gigabyte Rounding feature enabled the remaining working drive can be 80 5 GB and the replacement drive can be 80 3 since both are rounded down to 80GB This permits the smaller drive to be used Please note that users will lose a small amount of available storage capacity from both drives in order to arrive at a common drive size Note Gigabyte Rounding is automatically disabled when
31. annels on your FastTrak card and the type of logical disk you want to create This chart shows your FastTrak Controller the number of drives and the RAID Levels it supports FastTrak No Drives RAID Levels TX2200 2300 2 0 1 TX4200 4300 4 0 1 10 This chart below shows the correlation between RAID Levels and the other features and options RAID Level No Drives Stripe Block Size Gigabyte Rounding 0 Stripe 1104 32 64 default 128 Not available 1 Mirror 2 Not available ON default or OFF 10 Mirror Stripe 4 32 64 default 128 ON default of OFF New Drives versus Drives with Data When you build a logical disk using new disk drives you do not need to copy data or perform quick initiation When you build a logical disk with disk drives that have been used before but you do not want to keep the data they contain choose the quick initialization option In some cases you will have a disk drive full of data and want to make a mirror RAID 1 logical disk in order to have a full copy See Add Fault Tolerance to Existing Drive on page 30 26 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Create a RAID 0 Logical Disk 1 From the FastBuild Main Menu press 3 to choose Define Array The Define Array Menu displays 2 Press the arrow keys to highlight the logical disk number you wish to define and press Enter to select The Define Array Defi
32. astTrak BIOS and or OS drivers not by your system BIOS 63 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual How do partition format my FastTrak logical disk The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller represents the logical disk as a single disk drive to your system Therefore anything that you can do to a single disk drive you can do to a FastTrak logical disk You can partition the logical disk as you see fit using any file system you want Installation Issues Capacity Booting How can I change the system boot sequence in order to boot from the FastTrak logical disk The boot sequence is controlled by the system BIOS As far as the system BIOS is concerned the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller and its defined logical disks are categorized as a SCSI device This allows you to set the boot sequence in your BIOS setup utility to boot from SCSI first rather than IDE If there are multiple SCSI add in controllers in the system then the boot sequence among is determined by their PCI slot priority PCI slot 1 will be first slot 2 second etc If you want to boot from the logical disk put the FastTrak Controller in the PCI slot where it will be accessed before the other SCSI controllers How can I change the boot sequence between a PCI SCSI card and the FastTrak logical disk Since all PCI devices are PnP it is difficult to determine which device is addressed first Some newer motherboard BlOSes have advanced options th
33. at identify devices and allow you to select which device will be assigned resources first Otherwise you may have to physically switch the device cards on the PCI slots so that the boot device is in the highest priority slot number as described in the previous answer Post Installation Why can t I see the drives on the FastTrak Controller card under FDISK You have not created a logical disk yet If no logical disk has been created the system will not recognize drive s attached to the FastTrak card 64 Chapter 7 Support Contact Technical Support Promise Technical Support provides several support options for Promise users to access information and updates We encourage you to use one of our electronic services which provide product information updates for the most efficient service and support If you decide to contact us please have the following information available e Product model and serial number BIOS and driver version numbers Adescription of the problem situation e System configuration information including motherboard and CPU type hard drive model s SATA ATA ATAPI drives amp devices and other controllers Technical Support Services Promise Online Web http www promise com Site technical documents drivers utilities etc North and South America E mail Support support promise com Fax Technical Support 408 228 1097 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical S
34. ay optimize performance in a RAID 0 striped logical disk If you are using an audio video editing card we also recommend reviewing your card s documentation for additional information Use FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 as D or other non bootable drive in a striped logical disk For Audio Video editing keep the original system boot drive on the standard IDE controller as C drive Partitioning software will see the logical disk as one physical drive D or later This will prevent file fragmentation and provide better accessibility to the logical disk Optimize logical disk for performance The Promise FastBuild BIOS Utility Auto Setup Menu allows optimizing the logical disk for Performance applications such as A V Editing The default Performance setting Stripe selects a Stripe Block size of 64 This larger block size is recommended for the data streaming requirements of A V editing You may select an even larger block size in manual mode see page 25 FastBuild tm Utility 2 03 c 2002 2005 Promise Technology Inc Auto Setup Options Menu Optimize Array for Array Setup Configuration Spare Drive Drive s Used in Array Array Disk Capacity size in MB 60 Chapter 7 Support e Frequently Asked Questions below e Contact Technical Support page 65 Limited Warranty page 67 Return Product for Repair page 68 Frequently Asked Questions This section lists frequently asked questions involv
35. borts or exits the current menu Using the Main Menu This is the first option screen when entering the FastBuild Setup 20 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility To create a new logical disk automatically press 1 and see Create Logical Disks Automatically on page 21 Promise recommends this option for most users To manually create a logical disk press 3 and see Create Logical Disks Manually on page 25 If you wish to modify block size you must create the logical disk manually To view drives assigned to logical disks press 2 and see View Drive Assignments on page 22 To delete a logical disk but not delete the data contained on the logical disk press 4 and see Delete a Logical Disk on page 34 To rebuild a mirrored RAID 1 or 10 logical disk press 5 and see Rebuild a Mirrored Logical Disk on page 36 Create Logical Disks Automatically The Auto Setup 1 selection from the Main Menu can intuitively help create your logical disk It will assign all available drives appropriate for the logical disk you are creating After making all selections press Ctrl Y to Save the selections FastBuild will automatically build the logical disk Performance Optimize Array Logical Disk for Select whether you want Performance RAID 0 Security RAID 1 or RAID 10 under the Optimize Array for setting 21 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Performance RAID 0 Stripe supports the high perfo
36. d access it directly with a different controller such as the one integrated on the motherboard Only Single drive striped RAID 0 and mirrored RAID 1 logical disk configurations allow the drive s to be accessed individually on another controller Multiple drive striped RAID 0 or mirrored striped RAID 10 drives will not work If have a problem with one of the drives on the FastTrak Controller how can low level format it to correct the problem Do NOT do this Low level formatting is unnecessary and generally does not correct problems commonly experienced If you think the disk drive is faulty run the drive manufacturer s diagnostic utility on it Errors such as bad sectors or ECC CRC failure are best remedied by completely replacing the drive For this reason do NOT low level format the drives attached to the FastTrak controller Do I have to install disk management software on my logical disk in order to access the full storage capacity of drives No Disk management software will only complicate things The logical disk should be fully addressable by your OS as it is Remember that some operating systems have varying limits on the sizes of partitions and logical drives that can be defined Consult your OS documentation about partitioning larger drives What system BIOS setup settings do I use for the drives on the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card None The drives on the FastTrak Controller are supported by the F
37. ears but no drive appears in Channel 2 This means the disk drive connected to Channel 2 is the failed drive Power down your system Replace the failed drive with an identical or larger disk drive Reboot the system and enter the FastBuild Main Menu Select the Rebuild Array 5 option Press the arrow keys to select the Critical logical disk then press Enter to select it 37 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual The Rebuild Array Assign Spare Drive menu appears below FastBuild tm Utility 2 03 c 2003 2005 Promise Technology Inc Rebuild Array Assign Spare Drive Logical Disk No RAID Mode Total Drv Status Logical Disk 1 Mirror 2 Critical Stripe Block Not Available Select Drive for Rebuild Channel ID Drive Model Capacity MB 2 5 51380023 5 80630 9 Press the arrow keys to highlight the replacement disk drive 10 Press Enter to select the drive 11 FastBuild will to copy the data from the remaining original drive to the replacement drive and reports its progress in percent completed 12 When rebuilding is done press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your system 38 Chapter 4 Install Drivers Make a Driver Installation Diskette page 40 Windows Server 2003 page 41 Exsting page 42 Confirm page 42 Windows XP New page 43 Exsting page 44 Confirm page 44 Windows 2000 e page 45 Exsting page 46
38. ed drive You can continue using your PC however Promise recommends replacing the failed drive as soon as possible Due to redundancy the drive capacity of the logical disk is half the total drive capacity For example two 100 GB drives that have a combined capacity of 200 GB would have 100 GB of usable storage With drives of different capacities there may be unused capacity on the larger drive RAID 1 logical disks on FastTrak consist of two disk drives only Hot Spare Drive For a RAID 1 logical disk you can attach a third disk drive to the FastTrak card without assigning it to the logical disk FastTrak will activate the drive and use it to replace a failed drive that was part of the mirrored logical disk A rebuild operation copies the good drive data to the spare automatically and in the background At a later time power off the system and replace the failed drive Spare drives must be the same or larger capacity than the smallest logical disk member For more information on how to set up a hot spare drive see page 33 52 Chapter 5 RAID Concepts Mirror Stripe RAID 10 A combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 logical disks It can increase performance by reading and writing data in parallel while protecting data with duplication Four drives are required for this logical disk A RAID 10 logical disk starts with a mirrored pair of disk drives like a RAID 1 logical disk Then it stripes the data like a RAID O logic
39. erform a quick format or Enable file and folder compression Review your selections and click Finish The New Partition Wizard will disappear while partitioning and formatting begin This process will take some time The Disk Management window displays the progress 73 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Computer Management el File Action Window Ame A 15 Computer Management Local p status Capacity Free Space ci D System Tools 3 C Partition Basic NTFS Healthy System 37 26 GB 25 92 GB amp Event viewer New Volume E Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 37 25 GB 37 18 GB Shared Folders 8 Local Users and Groups Performance Logs and Alerts a Device Manager B 5 Storage Removable Storage Disk Defragmenter Disk Management 8 Services and Applications isk 0 Basic C 37 26 GB 37 26 GB NTFS Online Healthy System Disk 1 Basic New Volume E 37 25 GB 37 25 GB NTFS Online Healthy Primary partition When formatting is complete your logical disk will appear as a hard drive in the Disk Management window above and the My Computer window below f My Computer File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Q Ba o Search 27 Folders 1 Address E My Computer Hard Disk Drives Y System Tasks Y Y Details 2 Devices with Removable Storage A 31 Floppy fo DVD Drive D eS
40. es can read and write data in parallel to increase performance Mirror RAID 1 Mirror increases read performance through load balancing and elevator sorting while creating a complete backup of your files FastTrak TX4200 4300 have four independent data channels to support a maximum of four Serial ATA drives and supports Stripe RAID 0 Identical drives can read and write data in parallel to increase performance Mirror RAID 1 Mirror increases read performance through load balancing and elevator sorting while creating a complete backup of your files e Mirror Stripe RAID 10 Combining mirror with stripe offers both high read write performance and fault tolerance A FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 striped logical disk can double the sustained data transfer rate of Serial ATA drives Chapter 1 Introduction FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 offer fault tolerant data redundancy for entry level network file servers or simply for desktop PC users wanting to continually protect valuable data on their PC Should a drive that is part of a mirrored logical disk fail FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 use the mirrored drive which contains identical data to assume all data handling When a new replacement drive is later installed FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 rebuild data to the new drive from the mirrored drive to restore fault tolerance FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 bootable BIOS s
41. ical Support Department will issue an RMA Return Merchandise Authorization number Return ONLY the specific product covered by the warranty do not ship cables manuals diskettes etc with a copy of your proof of purchase to USA and Canada Promise Technology Inc Customer Service Dept Attn RMA 1745 McCandless Drive Milpitas CA 95035 Other Countries Return the product to your dealer or retailer Contact them for instructions before shipping the product You must follow the packaging guidelines for returning products e Use the original shipping carton and packaging e nclude a summary of the product s problem s e Write an attention line on the box with the RMA number e Include a copy of proof of purchase You are responsible for the cost of insurance and shipment of the product to Promise Note that damage incurred due to improper transport or packaging is not covered under the Limited Warranty When repairing returned product s Promise may replace defective parts with new or reconditioned parts or replace the entire unit with a new or reconditioned unit In the event of a replacement the replacement unit will be under warranty for the remainder of the original warranty term from purchase date or 30 days whichever is longer Promise will pay for standard return shipping charges only You will be required to pay for any additional shipping options such as express shipping 69 FastTrak TX220
42. ick and easy logical disk builds Displays status and error checking messages during bootup Notifies user of possible errors and allows for recovery of mirrored drive logical disks directly from FastBuild Supports S M A R T monitoring and reporting Polls status every 15 minutes reports through PAM and Linux CLI Employs the latest Promise PCI Serial ATA ASIC technology Fully supports Serial ATA specifications with 150 and 300 MB sec timing and CRC error checking at high speeds Mirror supports automatic background rebuilds Fault tolerance can be restored automatically without rebooting DOS based flash upgrade of BIOS and Firmware Verifies proper file option to backup existing file Download files from Promise website Gigabyte Rounding Allows easier interchangeability among disk drive vendors Chapter 1 Introduction Advanced Hardware Design Features Benefits System reboot not required after create delete migrate or expand logical disk System boot process continues without restarting Compatibility Features Benefits Complies with PCI v2 3 Local Bus standard Provides highest level of hardware compatibility Complies with SATA Specification 1 0a Provides full compatibility with first generation Serial ATA hard drives Complies with Serial ATA II Extensions to Serial ATA 1 0a Specification Provides encl
43. ill display the following above screen showing the card s BIOS version and status of the logical disk The logical disk status consists of five possible conditions Functional Synchronizing Rebuilding Critical and Offline Functional The logical disk is operational Synchronizing The process of verifying data integrity by recalculating redundant data and matching the data on the disk drives 19 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Rebuilding The process of reconstructing a logical disk in Critical mode by placing redundant data on a replacement disk drive Critical Degraded logical disk condition due to a failed or removed disk drive Applies to mirrored logical disks RAID 1 and 10 only Fault tolerance is lost but the data is still accessible Triggers automatic rebuilding Offline Striped logical disks RAID 0 Degraded logical disk condition due to one failed or removed disk drive The data is not accessible Mirrored logical disks RAID 1 and 10 Degraded logical disk condition due to two failed or removed disk drives Fault tolerance is lost The data is not accessible If your logical disk goes Offline contact Promise Technical Support for assistance See Appendix B Navigate the FastBuild Setup Menu When using the menus these are some of the basic navigation tips Arrow keys highlights through choices the Space bar allows to cycle through options Enter selects an option Esc a
44. ing pre installation drive issues installation and post installation Pre Installation Speed Device Types Capacity Cabling What kind of hard drives can I use for a FastTrak Serial ATA RAID logical disk You can use any Serial ATA disk drive s to create logical disks on the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card Use matching drives for multiple logical disks to maximize capacity usage as well as performance Will ACPI work with disk drives on the FastTrak Controller card Yes Can I use ATAPI devices on the FastTrak Controller card No The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card does not support ATAPI devices Will the FastTrak Controller card work with 66MHz PCI bus speed Yes the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card is designed to accommodate the newer PCI bus speed and is backward compatible with 33MHz speeds How can change the resources that the FastTrak uses The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card is fully PnP This means all the resources that it uses are given to it by the PnP BIOS on the motherboard The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller does support IRQ sharing but this will not work unless ALL the concerned devices support the feature If your motherboard allows you to control the assignment of these resources you may be able to remedy the problem by Changing the IRQ assignments to the PCI slots in the motherboard BIOS during boot up 61 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User
45. ition table in order to maintain data integrity Under the Drive Assignments section press the arrow keys to highlight a disk drive Press the Spacebar to change the Assignment option to Y to add the drive to the logical disk Press Ctrl Y to save the logical disk information The window below will appear Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only Y N I Create and Duplicate N Create Only I Create and Quick Initialize Press Y for the Create and Duplicate option The window below will appear asking you to select the Source drive to use 31 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual 1 SATA 573160023 5 160041 10 Press the arrow keys to choose which drive contains existing data to be copied Warning All target drive data will be erased Make sure you choose the correct drive 11 Press Ctrl Y to Save selection and start duplication The following confirmation screen will appear 12 Press Y to continue FastBuild will copy all data from the Source drive to the Target drive and report its progress in percent completed Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility 13 Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system Hot Spare Drive This arrangement applies t
46. k Computer Management el File Action Window 2 bee 128 Computer Management Local Volume ype File System Status BG System Tools CJ C Partition Basic NTFS Event Viewer 97 41 Shared Folders z Local Users and Groups Performance Logs and Alerts 12 Device Manager B Storage Removable Storage Disk Defragmenter Disk Management Services and Applications c 37 26 GB NTFS Healthy System 137 25 GB Unallocated 5 from the popup menu Right click on the Unallocated portion of Disk 1 and select New Partition The New Partition Wizard appears 72 Appendix A Partition and Format New Partition Wizard Welcome to the New Partition Wizard This wizard helps you create a partition on a basic disk basic disk is a physical disk that contains primary partitions extended partitions and logical drives You can use any version of Windows or MS DOS to gain access to partitions on basic disks To continue click Next Click the Next button to start the wizard In the following windows do the following actions Click Next to move to the next window Select Primary Partition Specify the maximum available partition size in MB e Assign the available drive letter of your choice e Choose Format this partition with the following settings File system NTFS Allocation unit size Default Volume label Enter your choice of name Donot check P
47. kes no warranty or representation concerning the suitability of any product for use with any other item You assume full responsibility for selecting products and for ensuring that the products selected are compatible and appropriate for use with other goods with which they will be used Promise DOES NOT WARRANT that any product is free from errors or that it will interface without problems with your computer system It is your responsibility to back up or otherwise save important data before installing any product and continue to back up your important data regularly 67 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual No other document statement or representation may be relied on to vary the terms of this limited warranty Promise s sole responsibility with respect to any product is to do one of the following a replace the product with a conforming unit of the same or superior product b repair the product Promise shall not be liable for the cost of procuring substitute goods services lost profits unrealized savings equipment damage costs of recovering reprogramming or reproducing of programs or data stored in or used with the products or for any other general special consequential indirect incidental or punitive damages whether in contract tort or otherwise notwithstanding the failure of the essential purpose of the foregoing remedy and regardless of whether Promise has been advised of the possibility of such
48. l to the number of drive members times the smallest member capacity For example one 100 GB and three 120 GB drives will form a 400 GB 4 x 100 GB logical disk Stripe Size For RAID 0 logical disks you can manually select the stripe block size of 32 64 128 MB The default is 64 KB The size selected affects how FastTrak sends data blocks to and receives them from the drives You must perform your own testing to determine how the data block size affects your particular use of the logical disk In general a larger block size is better when handling large data transfers such as in A V editing or graphics while a smaller block size is better when handling e mail and other common server data Data Stripe Disk Drives RAID 0 logical disks on FastTrak can have from one to four disk drives 51 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Mirror RAID 1 Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are performed in parallel RAID 1 is fault tolerant because each drive of a mirrored pair is installed on separate channels If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure or does not respond to the controller the remaining drive will continue to function Or if one drive has a physical sector error the mirrored drive will continue to function Data Mirror pm Disk Drives On the next reboot the FastBuild Utility will display an error in the logical disk and recommend replacing the fail
49. level options e RAID 0 Stripe RAID 1 Mirror e 10 Mirror Stripe An alternative to creating a logical disk is to designate an unassigned drive as JBOD See page 23 JBOD drives act as single independent disk drives You can have some of your disk drives in a logical disk and the rest in JBOD See page 45 for more information about RAID levels Selecting Stripe Block The available sizes are 32 64 and128 KB A larger block size is better when handling large data transfers such as in A V editing or graphics while a smaller block size is better when handling e mail and other common server data The default is 64 KB When in doubt use the default Gigabyte Rounding When a logical disk goes Critical becamse a disk drive has failed you must replace the failed drive with one that is the same size or larger However the 25 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Gigabyte Rounding feature permits the installation of a replacement drive that is slightly smaller within 1 gigabyte than the remaining working drive This can be helpful in the event that a drive fails and an exact replacement model is no longer available For example with the Gigabyte Rounding feature enabled the remaining working drive can be 80 5 GB and the replacement drive can be 80 3 since both are rounded down to 80 GB Number of Disk Drives The number of disk drives you add to your logical disk depends on the number of available ch
50. llation After installing the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card and rebooting your system Windows Server 2003 setup will show a Found New Hardware dialog box Under Windows 2003 Mass Storage Controller will be displayed 1 2 3 Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into the A drive Choose nstall the software automatically and press the Enter key Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen and then press the Enter key If using a driver that has not been digitally signed by Microsoft you will be asked if you want to continue the installation Click Continue anyway When the New Hardware Wizard has finished installing the FastTrak driver click Finish Confirm Installation 15 Right click on the My Computer icon and select Manage from the popup menu From the left panel select Device Manager Click the in front of SCSI and RAID controllers Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller should appear 42 Chapter 4 Install Drivers Windows XP New Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller drivers while installing Windows XP 1 Start the installation Floppy Install Boot the computer with the Windows XP installation diskettes e CD ROM Install Boot from the CD ROM Press F6 after the message Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI
51. lt ESC gt to continue booting When you boot your system the FastTrak BIOS displays the Critical status and describes what to do above If your FastTrak s Halt on Error feature is enabled shown in the screen page 25 your system will stop booting at the FastTrak BIOS screen and wait for your input If Halt on Error is disabled your system will pause for a few moments then continue booting When you observe this condition when booting your system from the FastTrak BIOS your logical disk needs attention 36 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Important Drives MUST be replaced if they contain any physical errors before rebuilding the logical disk Follow these steps to use the Rebuild Array feature Press Ctrl F to enter FastBuild Main Menu Select Define Array 3 Press the arrow keys to select the Critical logical disk then press Enter to select it The View Array Definition Menu appears below FastBuild tm Utility 2 03 c 2002 2005 Promise Technology Inc View Array Definition Menu Logical Disk No RAID Mode Total Drv Status Logical Disk 1 Mirror 2 Critical Stripe Block Not Available Gigabyte Rounding ON Drive Assignments Channel ID Drive Model Capacity MB 1 SATA 57380023 5 80630 my Failed or disconnected In the example above there is a two drive Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk Under Drive Assignments the drive in Channel 1 app
52. new logical disk identified as Disk 1 The Initialize Wizard appears automatically 71 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Computer Management 128 Computer Management Local System Tools Event Viewer z Shared Folders Local Users and Groups volume E Performance Logs and Alerts a Device Manager amp Storage E Removable Storage Disk Defragmenter Disk Management Services and Applications Layout_ Type File System status Capacity Free Space Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard Welcome to the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard This wizard helps you to initialize new disks and to convert empty basic disks to dynamic disks You can use dynamic disks to create software based RAID volumes that can be mirrored or they can be striped or spanned across multiple disks You can also expand single disk and spanned volumes without having to restart the computer After you convert a disk to dynamic you can only use Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows on any volume of that disk To continue click Next In the following windows select Disk 1 to Initialize Do not select any disks to 181 5 Healthy System 37 26 GB 25 92 GB New Partition Properties Help 3 Click the Next button to start the Wizard 4 Convert Click the Finish button to Initialize the logical dis
53. nfiguration information in the drive s reserved area See Chapter 3 which provides descriptions of individual functions Reserve Sector Logical disk configuration data about the drive member and other members in the logical disk are saved on a special location on the disk drives called the reserve sector If any member of the logical disk becomes corrupt or lost the redundant configuration data on the other members can be used for rebuilds Logical disk members do not have a memory of their drive positions This allows drives to be placed on different FastTrak connectors or FastTrak Controller cards within the system without reconfiguring or rebuilding 47 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Logical Disk Terms Logical disk A logical disk array is formed from a group of two or more disk drives that appear to the PC s operating system as a single drive The FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller provides the organization and management for your disk drives so they can work together in this way FastTrak allows you to create a single drive RAID 0 logical disk but such a logical disk has no advantage over any other single disk drive Member The individual disk drives in a logical disk are called members Each member of a specific logical disk has coded in its reserve sector the configuration information that identifies the drive as a member of a specific logical disk All disk members in a logical disk are recognized a
54. nition Menu displays Stripe 27 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual 10 11 Under the Define Array Menu section press the arrow keys to highlight the RAID Mode Press the Spacebar to select the Stripe RAID Mode Press the arrow keys again to highlight Stripe Block Press the Spacebar to select the Stripe Block Size you want 32 64 or 128 KB Under the Drive Assignments section press the arrow keys to highlight a disk drive Press the Spacebar to change the Assignment option to Y to add the drive to the logical disk Press Ctrl Y to save the logical disk information The window below will appear Do you want to do quick initialize or create only Yes No Y Create and Quick Initialize N Create Only If the drives in your logical disk have been used before press Y for the Create and Quick Initialize option Othewise press to Create only Choose Quick Initialize will delete any existing data on your hard disks Y Continue Others Cancel If you chose to initialize press Y to verify that you want your disks initialized Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Create a RAID 1 Logical Disk 1 From the FastBuild Main Menu press 3 to choose Define Array
55. o Existing Drive FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card will create a mirrored logical disk using an existing system drive with data You must assign the existing drive and another drive of same or larger capacity to the Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk The BIOS will copy the existing data to the new blank drive The Create and Duplicate function that builds the RAID 1 logical disk does not work with a four drive Striped Mirrored logical disk RAID 10 Warning Backup any necessary data before proceeding Failure to follow this accepted PC practice could result in data loss 30 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Important If you wish to include your current bootable drive using the Windows 2000 XP or Server 2003 operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk on your FastTrak you MUST install the FastTrak driver onto the bootable drive while it is still attached to your existing hard drive controller See Chapter 4 From the FastBuild Main Menu press 3 to choose Define Array Press the arrow keys to highlight the logical disk number you wish to define and press Enter to select Under the Define Array Menu section press the arrow keys to highlight the RAID Mode Press the Spacebar to select the Mirror RAID Mode Note Gigabyte Rounding is automatically disabled when creating a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk from an existing drive This protects the existing drive s part
56. o change a JBOD disk to a Spare 1 2 From the FastBuild Main Menu select View Drive Assignments 2 In the View Drive Assignments menu use the arrow keys to highlight a JBOD drive you want to redisignate Press the spacebar to change the disk to Spare FastBuild asks for verification Do you really want to change the JBOD disk to SPARE Data in JBOD might be lost after you change the assignment Press Ctrl Y to change others to abort Press Ctrl Y to confirm Fast Build again asks for verification Transfer JBOD disk to SPARE can and will result in a loss of data Proceed with changing of the JBOD disk Any Key Back Ctrl Y Yes Press Ctrl Y to confirm The disk is re designated as a Spare 24 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Create Logical Disks Manually Logical Disk Specifications below e Create a RAID 0 Logical Disk page 27 e Create a RAID 1 Logical Disk page 29 e Add Fault Tolerance to Existing Drive page 30 e Hot Spare Drive page 33 The FastBuild utility lets you create logical disks manually on your FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card Logical Disk Specifications There are several decisions you must make before you create a logical disk including Logical Disk type Stripe Block Size Gigabyte Rounding Number of disk drives e Use of new drives or drives with data Logical Disk Type The FastTrak offers three RAID
57. o the FastTrak TX4200 4300 For automatic rebuilds of a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk attach a spare drive to the TX4200 4300 card FastTrak will use the unassigned drive as a hot spare providing it s not assigned to a logical disk e sdesignated Spare not JBOD sthe same size or larger than the drives in the logical disk If the logical disk suffers a disk drive failure it goes Critical FastTrak will replace the failed drive with the hot spare rebuild the logical disk automatically This action is performed in the background under all supported operating systems At a later time you can power down the system and replace failed drive If the new drive meets the requirements it then becomes the hot spare FastTrak TX2200 2300 does not support a hot spare drive because has only two channels TX4200 4300 supports a hot spare drive only with a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk It cannot support a hot spare if you have a Mirror Stripe RAID 10 logical disk For more information on rebuilding logical disks see Rebuild a Mirrored Logical Disk on page 36 33 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Delete a Logical Disk Warning Deleting an existing logical disk could result in loss of data Record all logical disk information including the logical disk type the disk drives and stripe block size in case you wish to undo a deletion Important If you delete a logical disk by accident immediatel
58. or RAID driver appears When the Windows XP Setup window is generated press S to specify an Additional Device s Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into drive A and press Enter Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen and then press the Enter Press S to use the driver on the floppy disk and then press Enter to continue with installation The Windows XP Setup screen will appear again saying Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices The list will include Windows Promise FastTrak 2200 2300 4200 4300 tm Controller NOTE If there are any additional devices to be installed specify them now When all devices are specified continue to the next step From the Windows XP Setup screen press the Enter Setup will now load all device files and then continue the Windows XP installation 43 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Existing Installation After installing the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller card and rebooting your system Windows XP setup will show a Found New Hardware dialog box 1 2 3 Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into the A drive Choose Install the software automatically and press the Enter key Choose Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller from the list that appears on screen and then press the Enter key If using a driver that has not been
59. osure and drive monitoring compatibility Compliant with PCI Bus Master standard PCI Bus Master support Provides 32 bit I O and Bus Master and Serial ATA performance for optimal system performance Tested compatibility to coexist with motherboards that have integrated IDE controllers Improves system performance and minimizes system conflicts for new and existing installations Compatible with all major SATA generation 1 and SATA generation 2 phase 1 and phase 2 disk drives Promise performs verification testing with major drive manufacturers and development partners Features LBA support Supports drives greater than 137 GB capacity Supports BIOS Boot Specification All logical disks attached to the FastTrak card appear in the BBS compliant motherboards BIOS boot list Compatible with Promise SuperSwap enclosures Provides enclosure management including fan temperature and voltages FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Specifications Low profile printed circuit board PCI Slot 33 MHz or 66 MHz Controller card dimensions TX2200 2300 4300 HWD 2 25 x 4 75 x 0 33 inches 57 x 121 x 8 mm TX4200 HWD 2 00 x 4 69 x 0 33 inches 57 x 119 x 8 mm Operating temperatures 32 to 122 F 0 C to 50 C Operating humidity 5 to 95 non condensing Chapter 2 Installation Unpack Your FastTrak Card below Install the FastTrak Card page 8 Install the Di
60. our existing drives Under the Security setting in Auto Setup FastTrak assigns two drives for a single Mirrored logical disk or four drives TX4200 4300 for a Striped Mirrored logical disk RAID 10 Choose this method if you wish to create a mirrored logical disk with existing disk drives but you do not want to keep the data currently on those drives Warning Using the Quick Initialization option on existing drives will result in the loss of all data on those drives Follow these steps 1 Press the Spacebar to choose Security under the Optimize Array section 2 Press Ctrl Y to Save your selection The window below will appear Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only Y N I Do you want to do quick initialize or create only Yes No Create and Quick Initialize N Create Only Y Create and Duplicate N Create Only I Create and Quick Initialize 2 drive RAID 1 logical disk 4 drive RAID 10 logical disk 3 For the Create and Quick Initialize option e Press if you have a two drive RAID 1 logical disk above left 17 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual e Press Y if you have a four drive RAID 10 logical disk above right Choose Quick Initialize will delete any existing data on your hard disks Y Continue Others Cancel 4 Press Y to verify that you want your disks initialized 5 Press Esc twice to exit Fas
61. pair the drive belongs to 1 2indicates which part of stripe data CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 Drive A1 Drive A2 Drive B1 Drive B2 Under RAID 10 the logical disk maintains data integrity if any 1 2 combination survives oe why 1 1 2 Functional B1 B2 retain logical disk integrity 2 B1 B2 Functional A1 A2 retain logical disk integrity 3 A1 B2 Functional B1 A2 retain logical disk integrity 4 B1 A2 Functional A1 B2 retain logical disk integrity 5 A1 B1 Offline B2 A2 contain only half of the data 6 B2 A2 Offline A1 B1 contain only half of the data 54 Chapter 6 Troubleshooting amp Tips Motherboard Issues below e System CMOS Issues page 56 e Drive Related Issues page 57 e Operating System Related Issues page 59 e Performance Tips page 60 This section is used to assist with troubleshooting conflicts and FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 installation problems Also refer to the README TXT file on the FastTrak driver diskette for more recent information as well as the PromiseOnline services listed on page 65 The section is divided into the following categories Motherboard Issues System CMOS Issues Drive Errors Operating System Errors and Audio Video Editing Tips Motherboard Issues Freeing additional IRQ resources Since the Promise card supports PCI Interrupt sharing it is possible to use IRQs already assigned to another PCI card Interrupt
62. rmance The storage capacity equals the number of drives times the capacity of the smallest drive in the logical disk Under the Performance setting FastTrak assigns all available drives to a single Striped logical disk Security RAID 1 Mirror or RAID 10 Mirror Stripe creates a mirrored or fault tolerant logical disk for data security The storage capacity equals one half the number of drives times the capacity of the smallest drive in the logical disk Under the Security setting FastTrak assigns two drives to a single Mirrored logical disk or four drives TX4200 4300 to be used for a Mirror Stripe logical disk in Auto Setup Security and Performance TX4200 4300 only RAID 10 Mirror Stripe creates a logical disk with stripe for high performance plus mirror for fault tolerance and data security The storage capacity equals the number of drives times the capacity of the smallest drive in the logical disk This option requires four drives and a FastTrak TX4200 4300 Create Multiple Logical Disks If you plan to create multiple logical disks you must manually create logical disks with the Define Array 3 option from the Main Menu see page 25 View Change Drive Assignments The View Change Drive Assignments 2 option in the Main Menu displays whether each drive is Assigned to a Logical Disk e A spare unassigned drive e A JBOD an independent drive Spare drives can be used as hot spares for a mirrored logical disk
63. s 61 Contact Technical Support 65 Limited Warranty 67 Return Product For Repair 68 Appendix A Partition and Format 71 Chapter 1 Introduction About This Manual below Overview page 2 FastTrak TX Series page 2 Promise Array Management PAM page 3 Key Features and Benefits page 3 Specifications page 6 Thank you for purchasing Promise Technology s FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller card About This Manual This User Manual describes how to setup use and maintain the FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller cards In this manual the terms array logical drive and logical disk refer to the same thing one or more disk drives combined logically such that a PC s operating System sees them as one single disk drive Also included are four levels of notices gt gt KN A Note provides helpful information such as hints or alternative ways of doing a task Important An Important calls attention to an essential step or point required to complete a task Important items include things often missed Caution A Caution informs you of possible equipment damage or loss of data and how to avoid them Warning A Warning notifies you of probable equipment damage or los
64. s a single physical drive to the PC s operating system Types FastTrak logical disks conform to the Redundant Array of Independent Disks technology or RAID RAIDs are used to ncrease throughput performance Provide fault tolerance protection RAID 0 Stripe increases performance by working multiple disk drives in parallel or simultaneously RAID 1 Mirror provides fault tolerance by providing a full copy of the data on two separate disk drives RAID 10 Mirror Stripe TX4200 4300 only combines RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques to provide both increased performance and fault tolerance The chart below summarizes the features and advantages of each RAID level that you can achieve with the FastTrak Controller card RAID Level Performance Capacity Ne of Tolerance Drives RAID 0 No Drives x Stripe Highest No Smallest Size got RAID 1 Normal Yes Smallest Size 2 only Mirror Drive RAID 10 2X Smallest Mirror Stripe High Yen Size Drive 4 only 48 Chapter 5 RAID Concepts Stripe Block Size The size selected 32 64 128 KB affects how FastTrak sends data blocks to and receives them from the drives You must perform your own testing to determine how the data block size affects your particular use of the logical disk In general a larger block size is better when handling large data transfers such as in Audio Video editing or graphics while a smaller block size is better when handling e mail
65. s of data or the possibility of physical injury and how to avoid them FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Overview The PC which you are using either already contains FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller card installed by a third party or you have acquired a FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 retail product for your existing PC and plan to install the card yourself e For PC owners wishing to install their 2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller card go to Chapter 2 Installation on page 5 e For PCs with a FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID Controller card already installed and you are experiencing any difficulties with the disk drives being recognized by the card go to Chapter 6 Troubleshooting on page 51 e f your operating system has crashed for some reason or you have downloaded updated drivers from the Promise website www promise com you may wish to reinstall software drivers for the FastTrak TX2200 2300 or TX4200 4300 RAID controller card See Chapter 4 Installing Drivers on page 33 FastTrak TX Series Promise originally designed the FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 as a cost effective high performance RAID controller cards that add performance and or reliability to PC desktops and or servers using Serial ATA drives FastTrak TX2200 2300 have two independent data channels to support a maximum of two Serial ATA drives and supports e Stripe RAID 0 Identical driv
66. sk Drives page 9 Create Your Logical Disk page 11 e Performance page 13 e Security with New Drives page 13 e Security with Existing Drives page 14 e Security with Quick Initialization page 17 This Chapter is designed to quickly get your FastTrak TX2200 2300 or 4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card up and running using the default settings which will be optimal for most users If you wish to modify any of the default settings please refer to Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility on page 19 Unpack Your FastTrak Card When you receive the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID card the package should contain the items listed below FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID Controller card Quick Start Guide 0 65 m 26 inch Serial ATA data cables Two 1 5 Gb cables for TX2200 two 3 0 Gb cables for TX2300 four 1 5 Gb cables for TX4200 four 3 0 Gb cables for TX4300 Y power splitter cable one for TX2200 2300 two for TX4200 4300 CD with Promise Array Management PAM software Windows drivers PAM User Manual and FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual If ANY of the contents are missing or appear to be damaged please contact your dealer or distributor immediately Warning Before installing the adapter into an existing system backup any important or useful data Failure to follow this accepted PC practice could result in data loss FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual
67. stTrak card do NOT connect the disk drive to the FastTrak yet You MUST install the Windows 2000 XP or Server 2003 driver software first onto this drive while it is still attached to your existing disk drive controller The FastTrak TX2200 2300 card supports up to two Serial ATA drives while the TX4200 4300 card supports up to four For optimal performance install Serial ATA drives of the same model and capacity The drives matched performance allows the logical disk to function better as a single drive If you are using stripe RAID O for performance use up to four new drives If using mirror RAID 1 for protection you can use two new drives OR use an existing drive and a new drive the new drive must be the same size or larger than the existing drive 1 Install the disk drives into the drive bays of your system 2 Attach the power cables to the disk drives Caution Use of removable disk drive enclosures other than Promise Technology s SuperSwap is not supported and may result in performance loss or other undesired results FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual 3 Attach one Serial ATA data cable to each Serial ATA disk drive Then attach the other ends of the cables to the connectors on the FastTrak card below e Individual LED Connectors Aggregate LED Connectors PROMISE TECHNOLOGY INC Port 2 Channel 2 Port 1 Dnnnnnn AU Channel 1 S
68. tBuild Utility Main Menu 3 Press 1 to display the Auto Setup Menu below This is the fastest and easiest method to creating your first logical disk Performance This is the fastest and easiest method to creating your first logical disk 12 Chapter 2 Installation Performance Logical Disk Array Use this setting to create a Striped RAID 0 logical disk These logical disks have no fault tolerance but they do have better read write performance To create a logical disk for best performance follow these steps 1 Press the Spacebar to choose Performance under the Optimize Array for section 2 Press Ctrl Y to save the logical disk information The window below will appear Do you want to do quick initialize or create only Yes No Y Create and Quick Initialize N Create Only 3 If the drives in your logical disk have been used before press Y for the Create and Quick Initialize option Othewise press N to Create only Choose Quick Initialize will delete any existing data on your hard disks Y Continue Others Cancel 4 Ifyou chose to initialize press Y to verify that you want your disks initialized 5 Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer Proceed to Chapter 4 on page 39 and install the FastTrak driver Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system See page 71 Sec
69. tBuild and continue booting your computer Proceed to Chapter 4 on page 39 and install the FastTrak driver Note Before you can use your new logical disk you must partition and format the logical disk using your PC s operating system See page 71 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility Viewing the FastTrak BIOS Screen below Navigate the FastBuild Setup Menu page 20 e Create Logical Disks Automatically page 21 e View Drive Assignments page 22 e Create Logical Disks Manually page 25 e Delete a Logical Disk page 34 Rebuild a Mirrored Logical Disk page 36 The FastBuild Configuration Utility offers several menu choices to create and manage a logical disk on the FastTrak TX2200 2300 andTX4200 4300 RAID Controller cards For purposes of this manual it is assumed you have already created a logical disk in the previous chapter and now wish to make a change to the logical disk or view other options Viewing the FastTrak BIOS Screen When you boot your system with the FastTrak card and drives installed the Promise onboard BIOS will detect the drives attached and show the following Screen FastTrak TX4200 tm BIOS Version 2 00 0 22 Copyright c 2003 Promise Technology Inc Updated in 2004 ID MODE SIZE STATUS Exp Converting 1 1x2 Mirror 120000M Functional Press lt Ctrl F gt to enter FastBuild tm Utility Press lt ESC gt to continue booting If a logical disk exists already the BIOS w
70. take effect Confirm Installation f Right click on the My Computer icon and select Manage from the popup menu From the left panel select Device Manager Click the in front of SCSI controllers Windows Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 tm Controller should appear 46 Chapter 5 RAID Concepts FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller Card below Logical Disk Terms page 48 e RAID Levels page 51 FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller Card FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 Serial ATA RAID controller cards feature concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS The channels on the FastTrak Controller support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped 1 O under multi tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between multiple drives Adapter BIOS The FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 cards contain a BIOS code that extends the standard disk service routine provided through Int13 The BIOS is bootable for DOS and other operating systems that rely on the system BIOS for drive operation When the FastTrak BIOS appears during bootup press Ctrl F to enter the FastBuild setup to select from menu settings FastBuild Auto Menu Setup This setup utility is used to build and manage FastTrak logical disks The utility is menu driven and features the Auto Setup 1 option that uses a simple interactive setup process Once the logical disk is built all the logical disk members store the co
71. tical status error message appears on the FastTrak BIOS startup screen for a mirrored logical disk array there is a drive in the logical disk that has failed or is not responding The mirrored logical disk has lost its fault tolerance but will still perform normal drive reads and writes See page 36 for information on how to identify a failed disk drive and rebuild your logical disk Disk drives cannot be formed into a logical disk Disk drives must support Serial ATA and be free of media defects in order to be added to a logical disk Promise recommends using new identical drives for each logical disk Also re check the data and power cabling and connections System CMOS displays C or D drive failure during Startup Do not reference C or D in the Motherboard Standard CMOS for drives attached to the FastTrak Serial ATA RAID Controller Only enter drive information in the Motherboard CMOS for drives attached to the onboard IDE controller 57 FastTrak TX2200 2300 4200 4300 User Manual Unable to partition or format logical disk This condition may occur when the Reserve Sector of one of the drives has become corrupt or bad Removing erasing the reserve sector will remedy any issue related directly to a bad reserve sector Warning Before removing the reserve sector of the drive s backup any existing data Removal of the reserve sector of any disk drive permanently deletes all existing data on the drive
72. upport 408 228 1400 option 4 7 30 5 30pm M F Pacific Standard Time If you wish to write us for Promise Technology Inc support Attn Technical Support 580 Cottonwood Drive Milpitas CA 95035 USA FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Europe Africa and Middle East E mail Support support promise nl Fax Technical Support 31 0 40 256 9463 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical Support 31 0 40 235 2600 8 30 5 00pm The Netherlands Time If you wish to write us for support Pacific Rim E mail Support Promise Technology Europe B V Attn Technical Support Luchthavenweg 81 125 5657 EA Eindhoven The Netherlands support promise com tw Fax Technical Support 886 3 564 53 13 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical Support 886 3 578 23 95 ext 8873 9 00 5 30pm Taiwan Time If you wish to write us for Promise Technology Inc support Attn Technical Support 2F No 30 Industry E Rd IX Science based Industrial Park Hsinchu Taiwan R O C China E mail Support support china promise com Fax Technical Support 86 10 6872 3940 Attention Technical Support Phone Technical Support 86 10 6872 3941 9 00 6 00pm China Time If you wish to write us for support Promise Technology China Attn Technical Support Room 1205 Tower 3 Webok Time Center No 17 South Zhong Guan Cun Street Hai Dian District Beijing 10008
73. upports individual drives larger than 137 GB With FAT32 and NTFS partitioning the logical disk can be addressed as one large single volume Promise Array Management PAM Software The Promise Array Management PAM software offers local management and monitoring of FastTrak logical disks Windows based GUI provides email notification of all major events alarms memory cache management logging for Windows servers logical disk maintenance rebuild and access to all components in logical disk server controller data channels individual drives and enclosure For information on using PAM refer to the PAM User Manual which is included on the CD that came with your FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 Or download it from the Promise website Key Features and Benefits The following information offers an overview of the major features of your new Promise FastTrak TX2200 2300 and TX4200 4300 Advanced Hardware Design Features Benefits Supports 66 MHz PCI bus Allows maximum data transfers of up to 266MB motherboards automatically second 133 MB s in 33 MHz slot over the backward compatible with 33 bus to dramatically reduce the time to save and MHz PCI slots retrieve large files Supports Provides dramatic increase in drive performance data stripe RAID 0 mirror and or fault tolerant options Offers performance RAID 1 and mirror stripe customization and data rebuilds from the BIOS RAID 10 menu RA
74. urity Logical Disk Array with New Drives Use this setting to create a Mirrored RAID 1 logical disk with two new disk drives If one of the drives has data on it follow the Creating a Security logical disk with an Existing Data Drive procedure on the next page FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4300 User Manual Under the Security setting in Auto Setup FastTrak assigns two drives for a single Mirrored logical disk or four drives TX4200 4300 for a Striped Mirrored logical disk RAID 10 Note When creating a Security logical disk with new drives a feature called Gigabyte Boundary will automatically be set to ON For a description of this feature see page 23 To create a logical disk for data protection using new disk drives follow these steps 1 Press the Spacebar to choose Security under the Optimize Array section 2 Press Ctrl Y to Save your selection The window below will appear Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only Y N I Do you want to do quick initialize or create only Yes No Y Create and Duplicate N Create Only I Create and Quick Initialize Y Create and Quick Initialize N Create Only 2 drive RAID 1 logical disk 4 drive RAID 10 logical disk 3 Press N for the Create Only option 4 Press Esc twice to exit FastBuild and continue booting your computer Proceed to Chapter 4 on page 39 and install the FastTrak driver Note
75. y define a new logical disk identical to one you deleted This action normally recovers the deleted logical disk FastBuild tm Utility 2 03 c 2003 2005 Promise Technology Inc Delete Array Menu Logical Disk No RAID Mode Total Drv Capacity MB Status Logical Disk 1 Mirror 2 160000 Functional Logical Disk 2 Logical Disk 3 Logical Disk 4 1 From the FastBuild Main Menu press 4 to select Delete Array 2 Inthe Delete Array Menu press the arrow keys to highlight the logical disk you wish to delete 3 Press the Delete key 4 The View Array Definition menu will appear see below showing which drives are assigned to this logical disk 34 Chapter 3 FastBuild Configuration Utility JSPR SEI 5 Press Ctrl Y to confirm that you want to delete the logical disk The option appears to remove the Boot Sectors from the disk drives The Boot Sector contains information about where data is stored on the disk drive Clearing deleting the Boot Sector effective deletes all data from the drive If you choose this option FastTrak will clear the Boot Sector from each drive that belonged to the logical disk you just deleted 6 To clear the Boot Sector press Y Otherwise press N Press Ctrl Y to confirm Boot Sector clearing After deleting the logical disk FastBuild returns to the Delete Array Menu From here press Esc to reach the Main Menu 35 FastTrak TX2200 2300 TX4200 4

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