Promise Technology FastTRAK66, User Manual

Page 1: ...User s Manual Ultra ATA 66 RAID Card Ultra ATA 66 RAID Card Ultra ATA 66 RAID Card Ultra ATA 66 RAID Card Ultra ATA 66 RAID Card ...

Page 2: ...se Technology is not liable for any errors contained herein or incidental or consequential damages in connection with furnishing this material The published material in this manual is subject to change without notice Promise reserves the right to make changes in the product design layout and driver revisions without notification to its users Trademarks All trademarks are properties of their respec...

Page 3: ...er there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation betw...

Page 4: ... Connector 3 2 Installation Scenarios 3 2 FastBuildTM Configuration Setup 4 1 BIOS Startup Screen 4 1 FastBuildTM SetupMenu Navigation 4 1 Main Menu 4 2 Auto Setup 4 3 View DriveAssignments 4 4 Define Array 4 5 Delete Array Menu 4 9 Rebuild Array 4 10 Controller Configuration 4 12 FastCheckTM Win 95 98 NT Monitoring Utility 5 1 Installation 5 1 Running FastCheck 5 2 FastCheck Monitoring Utility Ma...

Page 5: ...emoving Driver FromWindows NT 3 5x 7 4 Installing in Existing Windows NT4 x System 7 4 Removing Driver FromWindows NT4 x 7 5 Troubleshooting Tips 8 1 Troubleshooting 8 1 Tips forAudio Video Editing 8 4 Appendices Frequently Asked Questions A 1 Pre Installation Speed Device Types Capacity Cabling A 1 Installation Issues NT I2 O Drivers Capacity Booting IRQ Settings A 4 Post Installation Power Up BI...

Page 6: ...capacity of all attached drives without requiring identical drive size but offers no other RAID functionality A FastTrak66 striped array can double the sustained data transfer rate of Ultra ATA 66 drives FastTrak66 fully supports Ultra ATA 66 specification of up to 66 MB sec per drive depending on individual drive specifications FastTrak66 also offers fault tolerant data redundancy for entry level...

Page 7: ...fer rates up to 66MB sec from Ultra ATA 66 drives to boost overall system performance Easy to install support four IDE drives on the FastTrak66 while still supporting 4 IDE devices on the mainboard IDE controllers Drive workload is distributed in parallel between members of the array Allows multiasking during disk transfers which increase CPU efficiency The CPU is free to process tasks during IDE ...

Page 8: ...ion in controller onboard BIOS Provides highest level of hardware compatibility Provides 32 bit I O IDE Bus Master and UltraATAperformance for optimal system performance Improves system performance of new and existing installations including mainboards with Intel chipsets Works with newest and current IDE drive specifications Promise engineers experienced with IDE devices perform verification test...

Page 9: ...Introduction ThisPageIntentionallyLeftBlank ...

Page 10: ...INSTALLING Before installing the adapter into an existing system backup any necessary data Failure to follow this accepted PC practice could result in data loss Power off the system Be careful when handling the controller The FastTrak like any valuable part of your computer system is susceptible to static electricity Be sure you are well grounded for the installation If ANY of the contents are mis...

Page 11: ... slots Attach the darker con nectors to the drives Note that the colored cable edge indicates Pin 1 Jumper and install the drives with proper mas ter slave jumper settings recommended by the drive manufacturer When 2 drives are attached configure each drive as a master with no slave attached and each drive on a separate channel Check drive instruc tions for details on Master Slave settings Attach ...

Page 12: ...BIOS ver sion information 1 Press Ctrl F to enter the FastBuild utility 2 Press 1 for Auto Setup Under the Optimize Array for option choose the Performance Fault Tolerance or Capacity For the Typical Application Usage option select the appropriate setting with the Space key See Chapter 4 for details on FastBuild Configuration Setup 3 Press Ctrl Y to save and Yes to save and reboot the system NOTE ...

Page 13: ... version number as follows 1 Under the My Computer icon click Control Panel 2 click the System icon Note the version number that appears here 1 In the dialog box choose Driver from disk provided by hardware manufac turer button In the a drive insert the FastTrak66 utility diskette and type in A where prompted for the directory 2 Select Promise Technology Inc PCI FastTrak66 Driver and click on Next...

Page 14: ...to operate with the FastTrak66 RAID Adapter For optimal performance install all identical drives of the same model and capacity The drives matched performance allows the array to function better as a single drive Refer to the drive manufacturer documentation for proper Master Slave settings Note that sometimes the Master drive with no slave attached is called Single The master slave setting differ...

Page 15: ...en proceed to Chapter 4 which covers operation of the card s BIOS utility and array creation FastTrak66 coexisting with onboardATAPI CD ROM Do NOT attach ATAPI devices to FastTrak66 FastTrak66 is for hard drives only ATAPI IDE CD ROM drives or other devices can be installed on Mainboard or add on IDE controllers No configuration is necessary on the mainboard BIOS setup Total Drives One Two Three F...

Page 16: ...tTrak66 and still rec ognize the onboard non bootable drives If the motherboard CMOS does not al low booting to SCSI the boot drive must be attached on the onboard IDE controller FastTrak66 Coexists with SCSI contr oller The FastTrak66 is bootable with a SCSI controller in the system The adapter with the lower BIOS address will be bootable If it is necessary to change the boot sequence swap the Fa...

Page 17: ...Hardware Installation ThisPageIntentionallyLeftBlank ...

Page 18: ...led drive though the FastBuildTM Setup menu utility and then replace the problem drive Offline A mirrored array has 2 drives or a striped array has 1 drives that have failed or have been disconnected When the array condition is offline the user must replace the failed drive s then restore data from a backup source FastBuild TM Setup Menu Navigation When using the menus these are some the basic nav...

Page 19: ...ps under the Auto Setup 1 selection or Define Array 3 selection To repair an array use the 5 Rebuild Array option FastBuild tm Utility 1 xx c 1995 99 Promise Technology Inc Main Menu Auto Setup 1 View Drive Assignments 2 Define Array 3 Delete Array 4 Rebuild Array 5 Controller Configuration 6 Keys Available Press 1 6 to Select Option ESC Exit 4 2 ...

Page 20: ... the maximum performance where the capacity equals the number of drives times the capacity of the smallest drive in the disk array Change the Stripe Block sectors that best optimizes system applications Using a Stripe Block size of 8 KB is normally recommended for business applications and 64KB for server and Audio Video editing applications Capacity Spanning Achieves the maximum amount of capacit...

Page 21: ...iple arrays attach the drives necessary to create the first disk array and complete the 1 Auto Setup Second install the additional drives for the second array and again use the 1 Auto Setup Repeat if more disk arrays need to be created You can manually create disk arrays with the 3 DefineArray option if necessary View Drive Assignments 2 This option is to display whether drives are assigned to a d...

Page 22: ...ler performance depending on the drive type At a later time a second drive can be added to the array and the array re created to support RAID1mirroring NOTE For most installations Promise recommends the 1 Auto Setup for easy disk array creation To manually create an array from the DefineArray Menu above use the arrow keys to highlight an array number you wish to define and press Enter to select Th...

Page 23: ... Exit Space Select Ctrl Y Save Striping Fault Tolerance RAID 1 Mirroring RAID 0 1 Striping Mirroring for 4 drives or Capacity Spanning See Auto Setup or Chapter 5 about RAID levels Drive Assignments Options Under the Drive Assignments section highlight a drive and with the Space bar key change the Assignable option to Y to add the drive to the disk array Press Ctrl Y to save the disk array informa...

Page 24: ...Duplicate N Create Only Adding Fault Tolerance to an Existing Drive FastTrak66 will create a mirrored array using an existing system drive with data You must assign the existing drive and another drive of same or larger capacity to the Mirroring array The BIOS will send the existing data to the new blank drive Create the array by confirming Y or Yes to the message that follows as shown below Do yo...

Page 25: ...t to bootable in the FastBuildTM Setup and 2 the Array number i e Array 0 Array 1 This would be involved in determining which drive letters will be assigned to each disk array Saved Disk Array Information All disk array data is saved into the reserved sector on each array member Promise suggests that users record their disk array information for future reference Another feature of the FastTrak66 d...

Page 26: ...tion Deletion of an existing disk array could result in its data loss Record all array information including the array type the disk members and stripe block size in case you wish to undo a deletion Arrays can normally be recovered after array deletion by defining array information identical to the deleted array To delete an array highlight the Array you wish to delete and press the Del key Confir...

Page 27: ...disk array Note Drives must be replaced if they contain any physical errors Follow these steps before using the 5 Rebuild Array menu option 1 From the FastTrak66 Startup BIOS error message identify which array has failed 2 In the FastBuildTM Setup 3 Define Array select the failed array and identify the Channel and ID of the failed drive 3 Power off and physically remove the failed drive 4 Replace ...

Page 28: ...appear Under Select Drive for Rebuild highlight the drive to replace the failed drive Press enter and confirm that the data will be copied onto the selected drive All data on the replacement drive will be written over with mirrored information from the array drive NOTE Forautomaticrebuildsofamirroredarray attachanextra spare driveto the FastTrak66 Drives that are not assigned to an array and are t...

Page 29: ...sets the disk DMA burst rate Auto is the default setting to optimize system performance Turbo forces the fastest data rate The Fast setting operates for reliable mode Halt On Error allows FastTrak66 to Halt operation at the BIOS startup screen should an error be detected System Resources Configuration This section displays the PCI slot interrupt and port address used by the Fast Trak66 The resourc...

Page 30: ...rd ac cess to the utility and schedule maintenance on Mirrored RAID 1 or a Striped Mirrored RAID 0 1 arrays Installation From the Start Button choose the Run button In the Run dialog box type in A and click OK Follow the directions from the setup program Promise recommends to have FastCheck load during Startup This insures you that it will be ready to post alerts on errors During installation clic...

Page 31: ...uring startup of Win95 98 NT It appears minimized on the taskbar below far right as shown under Win 95 98 NT 4 0 Under Win NT 3 5x it appears as a minimized icon on the desktop Double click the FastCheck icon appears as 3 disk drives on the taskbar or desktop OR select FastCheck utility from the Win95 98 NT Start button shown below 5 2 ...

Page 32: ...array configurations directly it clearly identifies which drives are associated with each array shown in the left pane By left clicking on the Array the right pane shows the following information categories for that array RAID mode Striping Mirroring Mirroring Striping Spanning Mapping similar to physical drive specifications describing of cylinders heads and sectors of the array s virtual drive a...

Page 33: ... pane shows the following information categories for that array Status Okay Bad Offline Rebuilding Okay Means the drive is working normally Bad A problem has been detected in the drive and the drive taken offline Mirrored arrays will continue to function without the drive Striped and Spanning arrays will go offline when a drive fails In this case you have likely lost data Fix replace the drive tha...

Page 34: ...s of drive cylinders heads sectors Timing Shows selection of drive timing directly related to burst speed based on type of drive and cable used Array Pull down Menu At the bottom of the Array window it indicates to right click on an Array to perform synchronization or rebuild operations Right clicking displays the following pull down menu From this menu users may choose to have the Window appear o...

Page 35: ... differences detected data from the primary drive s is automatically copied to the secondary drive s This assures that all mirrored drives will contain the exact information To synchronize choose theArray Tab View right click the array and choose Syn chronize from the context menu You can also Schedule the array synchroniza tion under the Options Tab view Once Synchronization is selected you will ...

Page 36: ...data from an existing data drive in the array on to a blank drive The operation will be typically used when a failed drive has been replaced with a new drive within a mirrored array NOTE During Array Rebuild users may continue to access the working array and perform normal PC functions However system performance will be slightly degraded and the rebuild process will take longer RememberduringArray...

Page 37: ...t drive which will receive data Make sure you select the blank new or replacement drive The unselected drive will contain good data It will be the remaining working drive of an array or a system drive containing existing data that you wish to mirror Make absolutely sure and double check which drive is which If data exists on the target drive it willbeover written Click the Next button to proceed t...

Page 38: ...ew Step 2 or Cancel button to Stop Rebuild Progress Bar Once Array Rebuild is started users are returned to the FastCheck Monitoring window A progress bar will appear at the bottom of the FastCheck Monitoring window similar to below NOTE When a spare unassigned drive is present on the FastTrak66 a rebuildwillautomaticallybeperformedfromtheremainingworkingdrive 5 9 ...

Page 39: ... Rebuild process right click theArray again The pull down menu will appear showing the Stop Rebuild option as shown below Once Stop Rebuild is selected you will be asked to verify Cancel Rebuild Click Yes to Stop or No to continue Rebuild 5 10 ...

Page 40: ...nnels on the card and the attached drives Controller Card Information By left clicking on the FastTrak icon the right pane shows the following informa tion categories for that array PCI Slot Shows identification of PCI slot where FastTrak66 resides IRQ Identifies interrupt request assigned to PCI slot Bus Master Base Shows base address in hex numbering for board s bus master function 5 11 ...

Page 41: ... Status Okay Bad Offline Rebuilding Okay Means the drive is working normally Bad A problem has been detected in the drive and the drive taken offline Mirrored arrays will continue to function without the drive Striped and Spanning arrays will go offline when a drive fails In this case you have likely lost data Fix replace the drive that has failed then restore data from a backup source Offline Dri...

Page 42: ...ectly related to burst speed based on type of drive and cable used Options Window Clicking on the Options tab reveals the Options Window Array administrators can customize the FastCheck Monitoring Utility in four major areas Notification Array Synchronization Scheduling setting Password Desktop Appearance Most options relate to Mirroring arrays RAID 1 RAID 0 1 Notification Enable audible prompt ch...

Page 43: ...o to Start Programs Adminstrative Tools Event Viewer In the Event Viewer choose Log from the menu bar then check Application Any events generated by FastCheck will appear under the Source column as FastCheck Schedule Array Synchronization see page 5 6 for more information Disable checkbox turns off scheduling of synchronization If left un checked the Scheduling section is highlighted Schedule even...

Page 44: ...enabled the following menu will appear on each use of FastCheck Change the Password First use the original password to return to the FastCheck Monitoring Window Click on Options tab then click on the Change button in the Password section Desktop Appearance Start minimized checkbox directs the Utility to remain minimized on the Windows toolbar Always on top checkbox tells the Utility to appear abov...

Page 45: ...FastCheckTM Monitoring Utility ThisPageIntentionallyLeftBlank ...

Page 46: ... users can press F2 to enter the FastBuildTM setup to select from menu settings FastBuildTM Auto Menu Setup This setup utility is used to build and manage FastTrak66 disk arrays The utility is menu driven and features the 1 Auto Setup option that uses a simple interactive setup process Once the array is built all the array members store the configuration information in the drive s reserved area Se...

Page 47: ...rs Each member of a specific disk array is coded in their reserved sector with configuration information that identifies the drive as a member Disk Array Types For most installations the FastBuildTM setup 1 Auto Setup option will configure your system There are four disk array types in three categories that can be installed on the FastTrak66 card Striping is in the Performance category while Mirro...

Page 48: ...orm a 4GB 4 x 1GB disk array Stripe Size a value can be set from 1KB to 1024KB sector size The size can directly affect performance In the FastBuild BIOS the Desktop default is 8KB while Server and A V Editing are 64KB Mirroring RAID 1 Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are performed in parallel IDE RAID 1 is fault tolerant because each drive of a mirrored pair is installed o...

Page 49: ...rive capacity of the array is half the total drive capacity For example two 1GB drives that have a combined capacity of 2GB would have 1GB of usable storage With drives of different capacities there may be unused capacity on the larger drive Spare Drive Under a RAID 1 setup an extra hot spare drive can be attached to the FastTrak66 and not assigned to the array In this case it will be put on stand...

Page 50: ...ty of data There are six combinations in which two drives can fail FastTrak66 protects the data array in four of them for most drives some drives do not permit the Slave drive to continue to function if the Master drive fails Assume the drives are configured as follows M Master A B indicates which striped pair the drive belongs to indicates which part of stripe data IDE1 IDE2 M Drive A1 DriveB1 S ...

Page 51: ...ning may be considered for performance in certain instances With striping the performance is affected directly by the stripe block size Block size should be tailored to the typical I O on the drive whether it is generally more random or sequential However what if there is no predictability of the type of I O access What if both random and sequential I Os occur unpredictably The performance of a st...

Page 52: ...follow the standard meth ods of installing the DOS operating system onto your hard disk 1 Place Disk 1 of your DOS installation diskettes into the A drive 2 Type A SETUP at the A prompt 3 Follow the normal DOS installation procedures and refer to your DOS manual for additional details OR 1 Place a DOS bootable diskette that contains both DOS FDISK EXE and FORMAT COM into theA drive 2 At the A prom...

Page 53: ...the version number 1 In the dialog box choose Driver from disk provided by hardware manufac turer button 2 In the A drive insert the FastTrak66 utility diskette and type in A WIN9x when prompted for the directory 3 Select Promise Technology Inc PCI FastTrak66 Driver and click on Next The FastTrak66 driver is now copied onto the system and entered into the Windows95 98 driver database 4 When the Sy...

Page 54: ...se driver diskette into drive A and press ENTER 5 Select the Promise Technology Inc FastTrak66 RAID Controller and click OK Note for CD installations you must also specify the driver for your CD ROM adapter i e if using anATAPI CD ROM specify the IDE 2 1 controller 6 Follow the normal setup installation procedure Installing Driver in an Existing Windows NT System If you will be attaching an existi...

Page 55: ...t Promise Technology Inc FastTrak66 RAID Controller and click on Remove 4 After successful removing the SCSI Adapter Setup box will show that Promise Technology Inc FastTrak66 RAID controller has been removed Installing in Existing Windows NT 4 x System 1 In Start Button choose Control Panel in Setup group 2 In Control Panel select SCSI Adapter next choose Drivers Label 3 Choose Add button 4 In In...

Page 56: ...Start Button choose Control Panel in Setup group 2 In Control Panel select SCSI Adapter next choose Drivers label 3 Choose Remove button 4 After successful removing the SCSI Adapter Setup box will show that Promise Technology Inc FastTrak66 RAID Controller has been removed 7 5 ...

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Page 58: ...ndows starts Intermittent data problems Different drive lettering under Windows NT Promise Windows95 98 driver does not appear Device Manager Tips forAudio Video Editing Eliminate Master Slave combination problems Master slave problems may exist between two IDE drives of different brands at tached to a single cable For both compatibility and better performance choose drives of the same model brand...

Page 59: ...onsult your motherboard manual for information that is specific to your mother board Set Mainboard CMOS Boot sequence to boot to FastT rak66 On some Mainboard BIOS it is necessary to set the Boot sequence to SCSI A C since the Promise card is identified as a SCSI card Mainboard CMOS displays C or D drive failure during startup Do not reference C or D in the Mainboard Standard CMOS for drives attac...

Page 60: ...nd cause inter mittent boot and data problems Different drive lettering under Windows NT This may happen when using a SCSI card in addition to the Promise card Windows NT does not necessarily load the driver for the boot device controller first This results in a drive that in MS DOS is the C drive being the D or E etc in Windows NT Use Windows NT s DiskAdministrator utility to reassign the letters...

Page 61: ...e setting Striping 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 chapter 4 FastBuild tm Utility 1 xx c 1995 99 Promise Technology Inc Auto Setup Options Menu Optimize Array for Performance Typical Application usage A V Editing Auto Setup Configuration Mode Stripe...

Page 62: ...h will supportATAPI packet messages Q Will the FastTrak 66 work with a 37Mhz or 41Mhz PCI bus speed A The current PCI 2 1 specification is for a 33Mhz PCI bus speed The FastTrak 66 is designed around the specification In most cases a higher PCI bus speed will result in a variety of different errors While some people have been able to get these higher speeds to work since it is out of specification...

Page 63: ...the speed of the slowest HDD in the array A RAID 0 array consisting of four HDDs will transfer at about three times the speed of the slowest HDD in the array RAID 1 mirror For capacity The FastTrak 66 array will be as big as the smallest HDD in the array The lar ger HDD will simply be truncated The truncated space on the bigger HDD will then be unusable For sustained data transfers The FastTrak 66...

Page 64: ...are all connected you must restart the system for it to recognize the newly inserted array configuration Q Can I take a drive used in a FastT rak66 array and access it dir ectly with a different controller such as the one integrated on the motherboard A Yes but only under certain configurations The following array configu rations will allow the drive s to be accessed individually on another contro...

Page 65: ...ne to a FastT rak 66 array You can and should use the FDISK and FORMA T utilities to partition format the array You can partition the array however you see fit You can format the array with whatever file system you wish Installation Issues NT I2 O Drivers Drive Capacity Booting IRQ Settings Q Why are some drives recognized by the FastT rak66 Array Setup utilities with only partial capacity A Some ...

Page 66: ...ptions that 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 see previous question If you do not require the FastTrak66 BIOS to boot from an array and it is only to be used through a driver under the O S one simpler solut...

Page 67: ...The FastTrak66 controller is dedicated to RAID array management and does not provide any means of addressing individual hard drives through the Int 13h interface used by FDISK In order to access drives on the FastTrak66 from MSDOS at all you must first create a RAID array A 6 ...

Page 68: ...for version information 3 Description of Problem 4 System Configuration Mainboard and CPU type Hard Drive Models Other Controllers These are the available Technical Support sources If you wish to write to us for support address it to Promise Technology Inc Attn Technical Support 1460 Koll Circle Suite A San Jose CA 95112 USA Internet E Mail Support support promise com RecommendedTechnical Service ...

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Page 70: ...causes improper or inadequate maintenance by the end user unauthorized modification operation outside the environmental specification for the product abuse result of an accident misuse negligence misapplication natural or personal disaster maintenance other than by Promise or an authorized service center Disclaimer of Other W arranties This Warranty covers only parts and labor and excludes any cov...

Page 71: ...ny use of the product Promise shall not be liable for the cost of procuring substitute goods or services lost profits unrealized savings equipment damage costs of recovering reprogramming or reproducing any 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...

Page 72: ...umber Then return ONLYthe specific defective part that is covered by the warranty do not ship cables manuals diskettes etc with a copy of your proof of purchase to Promise Technology Inc Customer Service Department Attn RMA ______ 1460 Koll Circle San Jose CA 95112 You must follow the following packaging guidelines for returning products a Use the original shipping carton and packaging b Include a...

Page 73: ...or only standard return shipping charges You will be required to pay for any shipping options such as express shipment you require Your Responsibilities You are responsible for determining whether the product is appropriate for your use and will interface with your equipment without dysfunction or damage You are responsible for backing up your data before you install any product and for regularly ...