MSI MS-9638 series - Manual (Page 56)

A-2
MS-9638 Server Board
Introduction
Important
1. The least number of hard drives for RAID 0, RAID 1 or Matrix mode is 2.
The least number of hard drives for RAID 10 mode is 4. And the maximum
number of hard drives for RAID 5 mode is 3.
2. All the information/volumes listed in your system might differ from the
illustrations in this appendix.
3. RAID support on Linux OS will be changed by vendors. Please contact
MSI Sales if you need SATA RAID support on Linux OS.
The Southbridge provides a hybrid solution that combines six independent SATAII
ports for support of up to six SATAII (or four SATAII RAID 10) drives.
Serial ATAII (SATAII) is the latest generation of the ATA interface. SATA hard drives
deliver blistering transfer speeds up to 300MB/sec. Serial ATA uses long, thin cables,
making it easier to connect your drive and improving the airflow inside your PC. The
most outstanding features are:
1. Supports 300MB/s transfers with CRC error checking.
2. Supports Hot-plug-n-play feature.
3. Data handling optimizations including tagged command queuing, elevator
seek and packet chain command.
The Intel ® Southbridge offers RAID level 0 (Striping), RAID level 1 (Mirroring and
Duplexing), RAID level 5 (Block Interleaved Distributed Parity), RAID level 10 (A Stripe
of Mirrors) and Intel
® Martix Storage Technology.
RAID 0 breaks the data into blocks which are written to separate hard drives. Spreading
the hard drive I/O load across independent channels greatly improves I/O performance.
RAID 1 provides data redundancy by mirroring data between the hard drives and
provides enhanced read performance. RAID 5 Provides data striping at the byte level
and also stripe error correction information. This results in excellent performance
and good fault tolerance. Level 5 is one of the most popular implementations of RAID.
RAID 10 Not one of the original RAID levels, multiple RAID 1 mirrors are created, and
a RAID 0 stripe is created over these. Intel Matrix RAID Technology is the advanced
ability for two RAID volumes to share the combined space of two hard drives being
used in unison.