FASTTRAK
SX4300, SX8300
USER MANUAL
Version 1.0
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Notices
Radio Frequency Interference Statement
This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B
digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to
provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential
installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency
energy, and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction may
cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, 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:
•
•
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Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which
the receiver is connected.
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Consult Promise Technology, Inc. or an experienced radio/TV technician for
help.
This device complies with Part 5 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the
following conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2)
this device must accept any interference received, including interference that
may cause undesired operation.
Caution
Only digital device equipment CERTIFIED CLASS B should be
attached to this equipment and that must have shielded cables.
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Contents
Chapter 2: Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
SX4300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
SX8300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
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Chapter 1: Introduction
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About This Manual, below
Thank you for purchasing one of Promise Technology’s FastTrak SX4300 or
SX8300 RAID controllers.
About This Manual
This User Manual describes how to setup, use and maintain the FastTrak RAID
controller. It also describes how to use the Promise Array Management (PAM)
RAID management software.
This manual includes a full table of contents, chapter task lists and numerous
cross-references to help you find the specific information you are looking for.
Also included are four levels of notices:
Note
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 loss of
data, or the possibility of physical injury, and how to avoid them.
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
Product Overview
FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 are Serial ATA RAID controllers. When used with
WebPAM software, the FastTrak RAID Controllers offer a feature-rich, secure
and versatile enterprise-wide ATA RAID solution. In addition, the FastTrak SX
Series supports RAID expansion. The resulting RAID environment allows users
and administrators to configure, manage, and monitor everything from single
logical drives on local systems to logical drive networks residing in offsite
locations.
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 RAID Controller cards support 1.5 Gb/s and
3.0 Gb/s Serial ATA hard drives. At their core, all both FastTrak cards provide
advanced RAID management functions: creating logical drives, monitoring them,
keeping them online and operating at optimum efficiency. FastTrak can also
perform many other tasks, such as:
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Create logical drives at various RAID levels (0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD),
depending on the application being used. FastTrak SX8300 can be
configured for RAID 50 also
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Set up a network of FastTrak RAID servers (all running under different RAID
levels) and monitor those servers from any workstation on the network
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Create a series of FastTrak RAID networks at any number of offsite locations
Monitor and/or repair FastTrak RAID logical drives using the Internet from an
offsite location—all without compromising the integrity of secure servers
XOR Acceleration
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 Controllers have a Hardware XOR
accelerator, which offloads the parity calculation workload from the main CPU
and transfers it to the controller card, boosting the performance of the entire
system.
Hot-Swapping
Each FastTrak SX4300 can support up to four Serial ATA disk drives while each
FastTrak SX8300 can support up to eight Serial ATA disk drives. With either
Controller card you can configure the drives as RAID levels 1, 5 or 10. FastTrak
SX8300 can also be configured for RAID 50. Attached drives can be hot swapped
when used with the optional Promise SuperSwap drive enclosures.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
WebPAM Management Software
he Web-Based Promise Array Management (WebPAM) software offers local and
remote management and monitoring of all FastTrak logical drives that exist
anywhere on a network. Browser-based GUI provides email notification of all
major events/alarms, memory cache management, drive event logging, logical
drive maintenance, rebuild, and access to all components in the RAID
configuration (server, controller, logical drives, physical drives, and enclosure).
For information on using WebPAM, refer to the WebPAM User Manual included
on the CD.
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Chapter 2: Installation
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Package lists, below
SX4300
When you receive the FastTrak SX4300 card, the package should contain the
items listed below:
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FastTrak SX4300 RAID Controller Card
Quick Start Guide
Four 1.0m (39-inch) Serial ATA disk drive data cables
Two Y power splitter cables
CD with Drivers, Promise RAID Management (WebPAM) software, WebPAM
User Manual and FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
If ANY of the contents are missing or appear to be damaged, please contact your
dealer or distributor immediately.
SX8300
When you receive the FastTrak SX8300 card, the package should contain the
items listed below:
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FastTrak SX8300 RAID Controller Card
Quick Start Guide
Eight 1.0m (39-inch) Serial ATA disk drive data cables
Four Y power splitter cables
CD with Drivers, Promise RAID Management (WebPAM) software, WebPAM
User Manual and FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
If any of the items are missing or appear damaged, please contact your dealer or
distributor immediately.
Warning
The electronic components on the FastTrak RAID Controller card
are sensitive to damage from Electro-Static Discharge (ESD).
Observe appropriate precautions at all times when handling the
FastTrak card or its subassemblies.
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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.
Note
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 RAID Controller cards are PCI
Plug-n-Play (PnP) devices. No changes are necessary in the
motherboard CMOS/BIOS Setup for resources or drive types in
most applications.
Installing the FastTrak Card
The FastTrak RAID Controller card fits into any available 3.3-volt PCI-X slot. You
cannot plug the FastTrak card into a 5-volt PCI slot.
1. Remove the cover of your system.
2. Remove the inside slot cover of an available PCI-X slot on the motherboard.
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Chapter 2: Installation
3. Install the FastTrak card into the open slot (above).
4. Fasten the FastTrak card bracket to the system case (above).
5. Attach your system case’s 2- or 4-pin LED cable to the LED connector on the
FastTrak card (see the Figures below).
Installing the Disk Drives
Important
If you wish to include your current bootable Serial ATA drive using
the Windows operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored
(RAID 1) logical drive on your FastTrak card, do NOT connect the
disk drive to the FastTrak yet. You MUST install the Windows
driver software first onto this drive while it is still attached to your
existing disk drive controller.
The FastTrak SX-Series RAID Controller card supports 1.5-Gb/s and 3.0-Gb/s
Serial ATA disk drives. For optimal performance, install disk drives of the same
model and capacity. The drives’ matched performance allows the logical drive to
function better as a single drive.
Level
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
RAID 50
JBOD
Number of Drives
2 or more
2 only
3 or more
4 only
6 or 8
1 or more
The table above shows the number of drives required for each RAID level. If you
plan to create a 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 disk drive bays of your system.
If you are using SuperSwap Enclosures, the SMBus ID of each disk drive
must match the Channel number.
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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.
Buzzer
SMBus Connector
FastTrak SX4300
Ch1
Ch3
Ch2
Ch4
FASTTRAK SX4300
LED Pins
FastTrak SX8300
Buzzer
Ch1
Ch3
SMBus Connector
Ch2
Ch4
FASTTRAK SX8300
LED Pins
Ch5
Ch7
Ch6
Ch8
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Chapter 2: Installation
2. Attach one Serial ATA data cable to each disk drive. Then attach the other
ends of the cables to the connectors on the FastTrak card (above).
3. Attach the Y-cable power splitters to each of the disk drives.
Create a Logical Drive
You will now use the onboard FastBuild BIOS utility to create a logical drive with
the attached drives. Even if you plan to use the WebPAM software to manage
your logical drive, you can still create your first logical drive using the FastBuild
Utility, as described here.
For an explanation of the logical drive concepts, see Chapter 5 of this manual.
1. Boot your system. If this is the first time you have booted with the FastTrak
card and drives installed, the Promise onboard BIOS will display the
following screen (below).
2. Press the Ctrl-F keys to display the FastBuild Utility Main Menu (below).
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3. Press 2 on the Main Menu screen to display the Define LD Menu (below).
4. Press the arrow keys to highlight an logical drive number you want to define
and press Enter to select it.
The Define LD Menu for the logical drive number you selected will next
appear (below).
5. Choose the RAID Level you want. In the Define LD Menu section, press the
Spacebar to cycle through logical drive types:
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RAID 0 (Stripe)
RAID 1 (Mirror)
RAID 5 (Block Striping with Distributed Parity)
RAID 10 (Stripe / Mirror)
RAID 50 (Striping of Distributed Parity – SX8300 only)
JBOD (Single Drive)
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Chapter 2: Installation
6. Press the arrow keys to move to the next option. Option choices depend on
the RAID Level you selected.
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Initialize logical drive, zero the disk drives. RAID 1, 5, 10 or 50 only.
Stripe Block Size, the default 64KB is best for most applications.
Gigabyte Boundary, allows use of slightly smaller replacement drives.
Cache Mode, WriteThru or WriteBack.
7. Press the arrow keys to move to Disk Assignments. Press the spacebar to
toggle between N and Y for each available drive. Y means this disk drive will
be assigned to the logical drive.
Assign the appropriate number of disk drives to your logical drive. Refer to
the table under “Installing the Disk Drives” on page 7.
A disk drive that is not assigned to a logical drive will automatically function
as a Hot Spare Drive.
8. Press Ctrl-Y to save your logical drive configuration.
You have the option allocating a portion to a second logical drive. This option
9. Press any key (except for Ctrl-Y) to use the full portion of the logical drive for
one logical drive.
10. Press Esc to exit to the Main Menu. Press Esc again to exit the Utility.
11. Press Y to restart the computer.
You have successfully created a new RAID logical drive.
Important
You must be partition and format your new logical drive before you
can use it. Use the same method of partitioning and formatting a
logical drive as you would any other fixed disk added to your
computer system.
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
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FastTrak BIOS (below)
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FastTrak BIOS
This section explains the information that you can obtain from the FastTrak BIOS.
When the FastTrak BIOS loads during bootup, it displays pertinent information
about the RAID logical drives that it finds. At this point, you can press Ctrl-F to
enter the FastBuild Configuration Utility.
The BIOS Startup screen for FastTrak SX4300 is shown above. The FastTrak
SX8300 screen is similar. T
When the FastTrak BIOS screen appears, press Ctrl-F to enter the FastBuild
Utility.
The FastTrak BIOS screen displays the following information:
ID – An identification number assigned to each logical drive by the BIOS.
Mode – The RAID mode (level) configuration of the logical drive
Size – The data capacity of the logical drive in MB (Megabytes).
Track-Mapping – This is the CHS (Cylinder/Head/Sector) equivalent of the
logical drive geometry as hosted by the FastTrak BIOS int 13h disk services.
Status – Shows one of three logical drive conditions:
Functional – The logical drive is fully operational, and no problems are
present.
Critical – The logical drive is operational, but has lost its fault tolerance. For
RAID levels 1, 5, 10 and 50, the logical drive contains a failed drive. If there
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is a hot spare drive, the logical drive will rebuild automatically. You must
identify and replace the failed disk drive.
Offline – The logical drive is no longer operational and the FastBuild utility
cannot rebuild it. You must identify and replace the failed drive(s). Then you
can create a new logical drive and copy your data to it from the last tape
backup or other device.
For RAID levels 1, 5, 10 and 50, at least two or more disk drives in the logical
drive have failed.
For a RAID 0 or JBOD logical drive, at least one disk drive has failed.
Main Menu
When the FastTrak BIOS displays on your computer screen, press Ctrl-F to
launch the FastBuild utility and display the Main Menu.
The Main Menu (above) has five options:
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Press 1 to view disk drive assignments
Press 2 to create a logical drive or view information about an existing logical
drive.
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Press 3 to delete a logical drive.
Press 4 to view and change controller configuration.
Press Esc (Escape) to exit the menu.
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
View Drive Assignments
From the Main Menu screen, press 1 to see the View Drive Assignments screen
(below).
This screen reports disk drive assigments and provides the following information:
Channel: ID – Shows the FastTrak Controller channel ID (SX4300, 1 through 4;
SX8300, 1 through 8) to which a particular disk drive is attached.
Drive Model – Identifies the manufacturer, model, and model number (if
applicable) of each disk drive.
Capacity (MB) – Reflects the capacity in MB (megabytes) of the disk drive.
Assignment – This field identifies the logical drive to which the disk drive
belongs. In the example above, there is one logical drive composed of three disk
drives. LD 1-2 means logical drive 1, disk drive 2.
Unassigned drives are labeled free and are considered hot spares to provide
fault tolerance. Unassigned drives may also be used to create a new logical drive
at any time.
Extent – An extent is a portion of the disk drive. The FastTrak SX Series
controller allows you to split the capacity of a disk drives between two logical
drives. The portion of a disk drive available to be used in a logical drive is called
an extent. The extent, or sum of two extents, is slightly smaller than the total
capacity of the disk drive.
two extents for each disk drive.
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Create a Logical Drive
1. From the Main Menu screen, press 2 to display the Define LD Menu (below).
2. Press the arrow keys to highlight an logical drive number you want to define
and press Enter to select it.
The Define LD Menu for the logical drive number you selected will next
appear (below).
3. Choose the RAID Level you want. In the Define LD Menu section, press the
Spacebar to cycle through logical drive types:
•
•
•
•
•
•
RAID 0 (Stripe)
RAID 1 (Mirror)
RAID 5 (Block Striping with Distributed Parity)
RAID 10 (Stripe / Mirror)
RAID 50 (Striping of Distributed Parity – SX8300 only)
JBOD (Single Drive)
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
4. Press the arrow keys to move to the next option. Option choices depend on
the RAID Level you selected.
•
•
•
•
Initialize logical drive, zero the disk drives. RAID 1, 5, 10 or 50 only.
Stripe Block Size, the default 64KB is best for most applications.
Gigabyte Boundary, allows use of slightly smaller replacement drives.
Cache Mode, WriteThru or WriteBack.
5. Press the arrow keys to move to Disk Assignments. Press the spacebar to
toggle between N and Y for each available drive. Y means this disk drive will
be assigned to the logical drive.
Assign the appropriate number of disk drives to your logical drive.
A disk drive that is not assigned to a logical drive will automatically function
as a Hot Spare Drive.
6. Press Ctrl-Y to save your logical drive configuration.
You have the option of using all of the disk drive capacity for one logical drive
or allocating a portion to a second logical drive.
7. Choose one of the following:
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Use the full capacity of the disk drives for a single logical drive. Go to
“One Logical Drive” below.
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Split the disk drives among two logical drives. This option does not apply
One Logical Drive
Continued from Create Logical Drive step 7, above.
1. Press any key (except for Ctrl-Y) to use the full portion of the logical drive for
one logical drive.
2. Press Esc to exit to the Main Menu. Press Esc again to exit the Utility.
3. Press Y to restart the computer.
You have successfully created a new RAID logical drive.
You must be partition and format your new logical drive before you can use it.
Use the same method of partitioning and formatting a logical drive as you would
any other fixed disk added to your computer system.
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Two Logical Drives
Continued from Create Logical Drive step 7, above.
1. Press Ctrl-Y to allocate a portion of the disk drives to the first logical drive.
2. Enter the desired capacity in MB for the first logical drive and press Enter.
The Define LD Menu displays again.
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
3. Press the up and down arrow keys to select an available logical drive
number and press Enter.
4. Choose the RAID level and options for the second logical drive.
Note that the disk drives in Channels 1, 2 and 3 reflect smaller capacities
because a portion of their original capacity belongs to a different logical
drive.
In this example the disk drive in Channel 4 is not assigned to a logical drive
in order to use it as a hot spare drive.
5. Press Ctrl-Y to save your logical drive configuration.
6. Press Esc to exit to the Main Menu. Press Esc again to exit the Utility.
7. Press Y to restart the computer.
You have successfully created a new RAID logical drive.
You must partition and format your new logical drive before you can use it. Use
the same method of partitioning and formatting a logical drive as you would any
other fixed disk added to your computer system.
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View Drive Assignments, Split Disk Drives
After you create two logical drives from the same set of disk drives, press 1 on
the Main Menu screen to see the View Drive Assignments screen (below).
In this example, observe how each of the disk drives in Channels 1, 2 and 3 are
split between two logical drives. Extent 1 belongs to logical drive 1 (LD 1). Extent
2 belongs to logical drive 2 (LD 2).
Under Assignment, the disk drive is divided into LD 1 and LD 2. For example, LD
1-2 means logical drive 1, disk drive 2. LD 2-3 means logical drive 2, disk drive 3.
Note that the combined size of the extents is slightly smaller than the total
capacity of the disk drive.
Unassigned drives are labeled free and are considered hot spares to provide
fault tolerance in the event of a disk drive failure. Alternatively, you can use an
unassigned drive to create a new logical drive.
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
Delete Logical Drive
Caution
Deletion of an existing logical drive will result in the loss of all data
saved on the logical drive.
Record all logical drive information, including RAID level, disk
members, stripe block size and gigabyte boundary, in case you
wish to undo a deletion.
Logical drives may possibly be recovered after deletion by
immediately re-defining the logical drive with information identical
to the original configuration.
To delete a logical drive:
1. From the Main Menu screen, press 3 to display the Delete LD Menu (below).
2. Highlight the logical drive you wish to delete and press the Del key or Alt-D.
The Delete LD Menu for the selected logical drive appears (below).
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3. Press Ctrl-Y to confirm and complete logical drive deletion.
The screen returns to the Delete LD Menu. Press Esc to return to the Main
Menu.
Controller Configuration
From the Main Menu screen, press 4 to display the Controller Configuration
Options screen (below).
the Controller Configuration Options screen has one setting and provides
diagnostic information.
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
Halt On Error
The Halt On Error function causes the FastTrak controller to stop the boot
process at the FastTrak BIOS screen when there is a problem with your logical
drive.
For example, a disk drive failure causes your logical drive to go critical.
Depending on the Halt On Error setting, one of the following events will happen:
•
Enabled – Your system will stop booting at this point to alert you to the
condition. Press Ctrl-F to enter the FastBuild utility and diagnose the
problem.
•
Disabled – Your system will continue booting. In this case, you could use
WebPAM to diagnose the problem.
For more information about logical drive problems
System Resources
The information in the System Resources section might be helpful for
troubleshooting purposes:
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Installed memory address and size
The system IRQ used by the FastTrak card
Base Addresses (advanced troubleshooting)
Logical Drive Problems
While disk drives are highly reliable, on occasion a disk drive can fail. Fault-
tolerant (RAID 1, 5, 10 and 50) logical drives go Critical when a disk drive fails.
Non-fault-tolerant logical drives (RAID 0) and JBOD go Offline when a disk drive
fails.
When a fault-tolerant logical drive goes Critical, one of two things must happen in
order to restore the logical drive to Functional status:
If a hot spare drive is available, the FastTrak Controller will automatically begin
rebuilding the logical drive with the hot spare. You must replace the failed drive,
which becomes the new hot spare.
If a hot spare drive is not available, you must replace the failed drive, after which
the FastTrak controller will automatically rebuild the logical drive.
In either case, you must identify the failed drive so you can replace it. See the
example below.
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When you boot your system, the FastTrak BIOS screen informs you if there is a
critical or offline logical drive. If you enabled the Halt On Error option, your
system will stop booting at this point.
1. Press Ctrl-F to access the FastBuild utility.
2. From the Main Menu screen, press 3 to see the Define LD Menu.
3. Press the up and down arrow keys to select the logical drive with Critical
status and press Enter.
The Define LD Menu for the Critical logical drive displays (below).
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Chapter 3: FastBuild™ Utility
4. In the Define LD Menu screen, compare the number of drives assigned to
the logical drive (Total Drv) with the disk drives listed under Drive
Assignments.
In the above example, three drives are assigned but only two appear. The
missing disk drive is the failed drive. The disk drive on Channel 2 has failed.
In an actual situation, you would replace this disk drive.
the FastTrak Controller card.
RAID 0 and JBOD
Because RAID 0 and JBOD logical drives are not fault-tolerant, there is no way to
rebuild the logical drive when a disk drive fails. After you replace the failed disk
drive, you must create a new logical drive and copy your data to it from a backup
source.
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Chapter 4: Installing Software Drivers
Following are driver installation procedures for the FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300
RAID Controller cards. Download the latest drivers from the Promise Technology
Procedure
Page Number
Windows Server 2003
Install Driver During New OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Install Driver in an Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Confirm Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Windows XP
Install Driver During New OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Install Driver in an Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Confirm Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Windows 2000
Install Driver During New OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Install Driver in an Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Confirm Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Red Hat Linux 8.0, 9.0, EL 3.0, EL 4.0
Install Driver During New OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Install Driver in an Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
SuSE Linux 9.1, 9.2, ES 9.0
Install Driver During New OS Installation: Single Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Install Driver During New OS Installation: Multi-Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Install Driver in an Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
Windows Server 2003
Install Driver During New OS Installation
1. Start the installation: Boot from the CD-ROM. Press F6 after the message
“Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver” appears.
2. When the Windows Setup window is generated, press S to specify an
Additional Device(s)
3. Insert the Promise Technology driver diskette into drive A: and press Enter.
4. Choose Windows 2003 Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller from
the list that appears on screen, and then press the Enter. 1. Press S to use
the driver on the floppy disk and then press Enter to continue with
installation.
5. The Windows 2003 Setup screen will appear again saying “Setup will load
support for the following mass storage devices:” The list will include
Windows 2003 Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller.
Note: If you need to specify any additional devices to be installed, do so at
this time. Once all devices are specified, continue to the next step.
6. From the Windows Setup screen, press the Enter. Setup will now load all
device files and then continue the Windows installation.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Install Driver in an Existing System
Important
If you plan to move the boot drive containing the existing Windows
Server 2003 operating system to the FastTrak card, you MUST
load the FastTrak driver to the boot drive while it is still attached to
your existing hard drive controller.
Do not attach the boot drive to the FastTrak card before
completing this step.
After installing the FastTrak card and rebooting your system, Windows setup will
show a Found New Hardware dialog box.
1. Insert the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette in the A: drive.
2. When the New Hardware Wizard appears, select Install from a list or specific
location (advanced) and click Next.
3. Under Please choose your search and installation options, select Don’t
search. I will choose the driver to install and click Next.
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Chapter 4: Installing Software Drivers
4. Under Select the device driver you want to install, click Have Disk...
5. Under Install from Disk, type A:\wnet wnet and click OK.
6. Under Select the device driver you want to install, click Next.
7. If a warning about Windows Logo testing appears, click Continue Anyway.
8. Under Completing the Found New Hardware Wizard, click Finish.
9. If the New Hardware Wizard appears again, close it.
10. Click Yes to restart your PC.
11. Remove the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette.
12. When the Found New Hardware Wizard appears a second time, select
Install the Software Automatically (Recommended) and click Next.
13. If a warning about Windows Logo testing appears, click Continue Anyway.
14. Under Completing the Found New Hardware Wizard, click Finish.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the driver files, for instructions on
installing the RAID Console.
Confirm Installation
1. From the Windows Desktop, open the Control Panel from My Computer.
2. Click on Performance and maintenance.
3. Click on the System icon.
4. Choose the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.
5. Click the + in front of SCSI controllers. Windows 2003 Promise FastTrak
SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller should appear.
Windows XP
Install Driver During New OS Installation
1. Start the installation: Boot from the CD-ROM. Press F6 after the message
“Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver” appears.
2. When the Windows Setup window is generated, press S to specify an
Additional Device(s)
3. Insert the Promise Technology driver diskette into drive A: and press Enter.
4. Choose WinXP Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller from the list
that appears on screen, and then press the Enter. 1. Press S to use the
driver on the floppy disk and then press Enter to continue with installation.
5. The Windows XP Setup screen will appear again saying “Setup will load
support for the following mass storage devices:” The list will include WinXP
Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller.
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
Note: If you need to specify any additional devices to be installed, do so at
this time. Once all devices are specified, continue to the next step.
6. From the Windows Setup screen, press the Enter. Setup will now load all
device files and then continue the Windows XP installation.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Install Driver in an Existing System
Important
If you plan to move the boot drive containing the existing Windows
Server 2003 operating system to the FastTrak card, you MUST
load the FastTrak driver to the boot drive while it is still attached to
your existing hard drive controller.
Do not attach the boot drive to the FastTrak card before
completing this step.
After installing the FastTrak card and rebooting your system, Windows setup will
show a Found New Hardware dialog box.
1. Insert the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette in the A: drive.
2. When the New Hardware Wizard appears, select Install from a list or specific
location (advanced) and click Next.
3. Under Please choose your search and installation options, select Don’t
search. I will choose the driver to install and click Next.
4. Under Select the device driver you want to install, click Have Disk...
5. Under Install from Disk, type A:\winxp and click OK.
6. Under Select the device driver you want to install, click Next.
7. If a warning about Windows Logo testing appears, click Continue Anyway.
8. Under Completing the New Hardware Wizard, click Finish.
9. If the New Hardware Wizard appears again, close it.
10. Click Yes to restart your PC.
11. Remove the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Confirm Installation
1. From the Windows Desktop, open the Control Panel from My Computer.
2. Click on Performance and maintenance.
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Chapter 4: Installing Software Drivers
3. Click on the System icon.
4. Choose the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.
5. Click the + in front of SCSI controllers. WinXP Promise FastTrak SX4300/
8300 (tm) Controller should appear.
Windows 2000
Install Driver During New OS Installation
1. Start the installation: Boot from the CD-ROM. Press F6 after the message
“Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver” appears.
2. When the Windows Setup window is generated, press S to specify an
Additional Device(s)
3. Insert the Promise Technology driver diskette into drive A: and press Enter.
4. Choose Win2000 Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller from the
list that appears on screen, and then press the Enter.
5. The Windows Setup screen will appear again saying “Setup will load support
for the following mass storage devices:” The list will include Win2000
Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller.
Note: If you need to specify any additional devices to be installed, do so at
this time. Once all devices are specified, continue to the next step.
6. From the Windows Setup screen, press the Enter. Setup will now load all
device files and then continue the Windows installation.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Install Driver in an Existing System
Important
If you plan to move the boot drive containing the existing Windows
Server 2003 operating system to the FastTrak card, you MUST
load the FastTrak driver to the boot drive while it is still attached to
your existing hard drive controller.
Do not attach the boot drive to the FastTrak card before
completing this step.
After installing the FastTrak card and rebooting your system, Windows setup will
show a Found New Hardware dialog box.
1. When the New Hardware Wizard appears, click Next.
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
2. Insert the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette in the A: drive.
3. Under Install Hardware Device Drivers, select Search for a suitable driver...
and click Next.
4. Under Locate Driver Files, uncheck Floppy disk drives and CD-ROM drives.
Check Specify a Location and click Next.
5. Under Insert the manufacturer’s installation disk, type A:\win2000 and click
OK.
6. Under Driver Files search Results, when a:\Win2000 \ft8300.inf should
appears, click Next.
7. If a Digital Signature Notice appears, click Yes.
8. Under Completing the New Hardware Wizard, click Finish.
9. Click Yes to restart your PC.
10. Remove the Promise FastTrak Driver diskette.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Confirm Installation
1. From the Windows Desktop, open the Control Panel from My Computer.
2. Click on the System icon.
3. Choose the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.
4. Click the + in front of SCSI controllers. Win2000 Promise FastTrak SX4300/
8300 (tm) Controller should appear.
Red Hat Linux 8.0, 9.0, EL 3.0, EL 4.0
Install Driver During New OS Installation
1. Start the RedHat Linux Installation by booting with the installation diskette or
bootable CD ROM.
2. At the Welcome to Red Hat Linux ... installation screen, a prompt labeled
boot: will appear at the bottom of the screen. Type linux dd and press Enter.
3. When the Installer asks, Do you have a driver disk? click Yes.
4. At the Insert your driver disk and press OK to continue, insert the driver
diskette into the floppy drive and click OK.At the Devices dialog box, insert
the FastTrak driver diskette in the floppy drive and click OK.
5. When the Devices dialog box appears, select Add Device.
6. When the Installer asks, What kind of device would you like to add?, select
SCSI.
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Chapter 4: Installing Software Drivers
7. Scroll down to the Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller and click
OK.
8. When the Installer displays Promise FastTrak SX4300/8300 (tm) Controller
has been found, click Done.
9. Continue with the installation normally.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Install Driver in an Existing System
1. Insert FastTrak Driver Diskette into the floppy drive.
2. Log in as root.
3. Type Run mount -r /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy.
4. Run cd /mnt/floppy; sh ./install.
5. When the Installer asks, You are installing a driver on an existing OS. Is it true
(y/n)?, type Y and press Enter.
6. Run cd; umount /mnt/floppy.
7. Remove the FastTrak Driver Diskette and type reboot to restart the system.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
SuSE Linux 9.1, 9.2, ES 9.0
Install Driver During New OS Installation: Single Processor
1. Insert the install CD into CD-ROM drive.
2. When the boot: picture prompts for an installation option, add the following
line to the input box: acpi=oldboot.
3. Press the left Alt key and insert the FastTrak driver diskette into the floppy
drive.
4. Finish the installation normally.
Note: Check the readme file, included with the downloaded driver files, for
instructions on installing the RAID Console.
Install Driver During New OS Installation: Multi-Processor
1. Set the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM.
2. Insert the install CD into CD-ROM drive.
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
3. When the boot: prompt appears on the bottom of the screen, type
acpi=oldboot into the lower input box.
4. Press the left Alt key and insert the FastTrak driver diskette into the floppy
drive.
5. Finish the installation normally.
Install Driver in an Existing System
1. Insert the FastTrak driver diskette into the floppy drive.
2. Type the following commands:
# mount /dev/fd0 /media /floppy
# cd /media /floppy
# ./install
# insmod FastTrak
# umount /media /floppy
3. Remove the FastTrak driver diskette from the floppy drive.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
•
•
•
•
About FastTrak, below
Introduction to RAID, below
About FastTrak
FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 are high performance RAID Controller cards that
feature concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS. The channels on
the FastTrak card support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped I/O
under multi-tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between
multiple drives.
Adapter BIOS
The FastTrak card contains 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.
Introduction to RAID
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) allows multiple hard drives to be
combined together into a logical drive. The operating system sees the logical
drive as a single storage device, and treats it as such. The RAID software and/or
controller handle all of the individual drives on its own. The benefits of a RAID
can include:
•
•
Higher data transfer rates for increased server performance
Increased overall storage capacity for a single drive designation (such as, C,
D, E, etc.)
•
Data redundancy/fault tolerance for ensuring continuous system operation in
the event of a hard drive failure
Different types of logical drives use different organizational models and have
outline breaks down the properties for each type of RAID logical drive:
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
RAID 0 – Stripe
When a logical drive is striped, the read and write blocks of data are interleaved
between the sectors of multiple disk drives. Performance is increased, since the
workload is balanced between drives or “members” that form the logical drive.
Identical drives are recommended for performance as well as data storage
efficiency. The logical drive's data capacity is equal to the number of drive
members multiplied by the smallest logical drive member's capacity.
Data
Stripe
Disk Drives
Figure 1. RAID 0 Stripe interleaves data across multiple drives
For example, one 100GB and three 120GB drives will form a 400GB (4 x 100GB)
logical drive instead of 460 GB.
RAID 0 logical drives on the FastTrak SX Series consist of one or more disk
drives.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
RAID 1 – Mirror
When a logical drive is mirrored, identical data is written to a pair of disk drives,
while reads are performed in parallel. The reads are performed using elevator
seek and load balancing techniques where the workload is distributed in the most
efficient manner. Whichever drive is not busy and is positioned closer to the data
will be accessed first.
With RAID 1, if one disk drive fails or has errors, the other mirrored disk drive
continues to function. This is called Fault Tolerance. Moreover, if a spare disk
drive is present, the spare drive will be used as the replacement drive and data
will begin to be mirrored to it from the remaining good drive.
Data Mirror
Disk Drives
Figure 2. RAID 1 Mirrors identical data to two drives
Due to the data redundancy of mirroring, the capacity of the logical drive is only
the size of the smallest disk drive. For example, two 100GB disk drives which
have a combined capacity of 200GB instead would have 100GB of usable
storage when set up in a mirrored logical drive. Similar to RAID 0 striping, if disk
drives of different capacities are used, there will also be unused capacity on the
larger drive.
RAID 1 logical drives on the FastTrak SX Series consist of two disk drives.
When two drives do not offer sufficient data capacity, consider a RAID 10 logical
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
RAID 5 – Block Striping with Distributed Parity
RAID level 5 organizes data across the disk drives of the logical drive, and
distributes parity information across the disk drives along with the data blocks.
This organization allows increased performance by accessing multiple disk
drives simultaneously for each operation, as well as fault tolerance by providing
parity data. In the event of a disk drive failure, data can be re-calculated by the
RAID system based on the remaining data and the parity information.
The adjustable block size of the RAID 5 logical drive allows for performance
tuning based on the typical I/O request sizes for your system. The block size
must be set at the time the logical drive is created and cannot be adjusted
dynamically.
RAID 5 makes efficient use of hard drives and is the most versatile RAID Level. It
works well for file, database, application and web servers.
Distributed Parity
Data
Blocks
Disk Drives
Figure 3. RAID 5 Stripes all drives with data and parity information
The capacity of a RAID 5 logical drive is the smallest disk drive size multiplied by
the number of disk drives, less one. Hence, a RAID 5 logical drive with four 100
GB disk drives will have a capacity of 300 GB. A logical drive with two 120 GB
disk drives and one 100 GB disk drive will have a capacity of 200 GB.
RAID 5 logical drives on the FastTrak SX4300 consist of 3 or 4 disk drives.
RAID 5 logical drives on the FastTrak SX8300 consist of 3 to 8 disk drives.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
RAID 10 – Mirror / Stripe
Mirror/Stripe combines both of the RAID 0 and RAID 1 logical drive types. It can
increase performance by reading and writing data in parallel while protecting data
with duplication. At least four disk drives are needed for RAID 10 to be installed.
With a four-disk-drive logical drive, one drive pair is mirrored together then
striped over a second drive pair.
Data Stripe
Data
Mirror
Disk Drives
Figure 4. RAID 10 takes a data mirror on one drive pair and stripes it over
two drive pairs
The data capacity is similar to a RAID 1 logical drive, with half of the total storage
capacity dedicated for redundancy. An added plus for using RAID 10 is that, in
many situations, such a logical drive offers double fault tolerance. Double fault
tolerance may allow your logical drive to continue to operate depending on which
two disk drives fail.
RAID 10 logical drives on the FastTrak SX Series consist of 4 disk drives.
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
About Dual Data Redundancy
One unique (though rarely occurring) feature of RAID 10 is dual fault tolerance. In
some cases, two drives can fail simultaneously and still maintain the integrity of
data. There are six combinations in which two drives can fail. The FastTrak
SX4300 or SX8300 card protects your data array in four of those cases. Assume
the drives are configured as follows:
•
•
•
CH indicates channels on the FastTrak Controller card.
A/B indicates which striped pair the drive belongs to.
1/2 indicates which part of stripe data.
CH1
CH2
CH3
CH4
Drive A1
Drive A2
Drive B1
Drive B2
Under RAID 10, the array maintains data integrity if any 1, 2 combination
survives.
Failed
Drives
Logical Drive
Status
Event
Why?
1
2
3
4
5
6
A1/A2
B1/B2
A1/B2
B1/A2
A1/B1
B2/A2
Functional
Functional
Functional
Functional
Offline
B1/B2 retain integrity
A1/A2 retain integrity
B1/A2 retain integrity
A1/B2 retain integrity
B2/A2 contain only half the data
A1/B1 contain only half the data
Offline
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Chapter 5: Concepts
RAID 50 – Striping of Distributed Parity
RAID 50 combines both RAID 5 and RAID 0 features. Data is striped across
disks as in RAID 0, and it uses distributed parity as in RAID 5. RAID 50 provides
data reliability, good overall performance and supports larger volume sizes. RAID
50 also provides high reliability because data is still available even if two disk
drives fail (one in the 1-3-5 data stripe, the other in the 2-4-6 data stripe, as
shown in the example below).
Distributed Parity
Data
Stripe
Disk Drives
Figure 5. RAID 50 Striping of Distributed Parity logical drives
RAID 50 logical drives on the FastTrak SX8300 consist of 6 or 8 disk drives.
The FastTrak SX4300 does not support enough disk drives to create a RAID 50
logical drive.
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JBOD – Single Drive
An alternative to RAID, JBOD capacity is equal to the size of the disk drive itself.
JBOD appears in the User Interface as one individual drive.
There are no performance or fault-tolerance features. When one disk fails, all
data on that disk is lost. The other disks are unaffected.
Disk Drive
Choosing a RAID Level
There are several issues to consider when choosing the RAID Level for your
FastTrak logical drive. The following discussion summarizes some advantages,
disadvantages and applications for each choice.
RAID 0
Advantages
Disadvantages
Implements a striped disk logical drive, Not a true RAID because it is not fault-
the data is broken down into blocks and tolerant
each block is written to a separate disk
drive
The failure of just one drive will result in
all data in an logical drive being lost
I/O performance is greatly improved by
spreading the I/O load across many
environments
channels and drives
Should not be used in mission critical
No parity calculation overhead is
involved
Recommended Applications for RAID 0
•
•
•
Image Editing
Pre-Press Applications
Any application requiring high bandwidth
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Chapter 5: Concepts
RAID 1
Advantages
Disadvantages
Simplest RAID storage subsystem
design
Very high disk overhead - uses only
50% of total capacity
Can increase read performance by
processing data requests in parallel
since the same data resides on two
different drives
Recommended Applications for RAID 1
•
•
•
•
Accounting
Payroll
Financial
Any application requiring very high availability
RAID 5
Advantages
Disadvantages
High Read data transaction rate
Medium Write data transaction rate
Good aggregate transfer rate
Disk failure has a medium impact on
throughput
Recommended Applications for RAID 5
•
•
•
•
File and Application servers
WWW, E-mail, and News servers
Intranet servers
Most versatile RAID level
RAID 10
Advantages
Disadvantages
Implemented as a mirrored logical drive Very high disk overhead - uses only
whose segments are RAID 0 logical
drives
50% of total capacity
High I/O rates are achieved thanks to
multiple stripe segments
Recommended Applications for RAID 10
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FastTrak SX4300, SX8300 User Manual
•
•
•
Imaging applications
Database servers
General fileserver
RAID 50
Advantages
Disadvantages
High Read data transaction rate
Medium Write data transaction rate
Good aggregate transfer rate
High reliability
Higher disk overhead than RAID 5
Supports large volume sizes
Recommended Applications for RAID 50
•
•
•
File and Application servers
Transaction processing
Office application with many users accessing small files
JBOD
Advantages
Disadvantages
Enables you to manage a large number An alternative to RAID without any
of disk drives from a single controller
RAID advantages
The failure of one drive has no effect
upon the data in other disk drives
Should not be used in mission critical
environments
Recommended Applications for JBOD
•
Any application requiring multiple disk drives but where read/write speed or
fault-tolerance are not important
•
Applications were low-cost operation critical
Other Logical Drive Features
Stripe Block Size
The choices are 32K, 64K and 128K. 64K is the default. This selection will
directly affect performance. There are two issues to consider when selecting the
stripe block size.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
•
•
Choose a stripe block size equal to or smaller than the smallest cache buffer
found on any disk drive in your logical drive. A larger value slows the logical
drive down because disk drives with smaller cache buffers need more time
for multiple accesses to fill their buffers.
If your data retrieval consists of fixed-size data blocks, such as some
database and video applications, choose that data block size as your stripe
block size.
Generally speaking, email, POS and webservers prefer smaller stripe block
sizes. Video and database applications prefer larger stripe block sizes.
Gigabyte Boundary
This feature is for fault tolerant logical drives (RAID 1, 5, 10 and 50). When a disk
drive has failed and the user cannot replace the drive with the same capacity or
larger, this feature permits you to install a replacement drive that is slightly
smaller (within 1 gigabyte) than the remaining working drives. This can be helpful
in the event that a drive fails and an exact replacement model is no longer
available.
You must set the Gigabyte Boundary feature to ON when you create your logical
drive. Gigabyte Boundary rounds the capacity of all disk drives to the common
whole GB drive size. For example, with the Gigabyte Boundary feature enabled,
the remaining working drives can be 80.5 GB and the replacement drive can be
80.3, since all are rounded down to 80GB. Note that the rounding function will
cause you to lose a small amount of capacity from each disk drive.
Initialization (Fast Init)
This function erases the Master Boot Record (MBR) in all of the selected disk
drives. Use this function when one or more disk drives has been used in a
previous logical drive.
Hot Spare Drive
Any extra drive that is not assigned to an array is designated Free in the View
Drive Assignments screen (see below). In order for a free drive to serve as a hot
spare drive, you must designate the free drive as a spare using the WebPAM
software.
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Spare Drives are automatically added to an array once a disk member of the
array has been detected as failed. To restore fault tolerance as quickly as
possible, the FastTrak Controller performs an automatic data rebuild on the spare
drive in the background without the need to restart the system. At a later time, the
failed drive can be physically removed and a new drive added in its place to
function as the spare drive.
Cache Settings
Sets the FastTrak controller’s cache mode for each logical drive. The choices are
WriteBack and WriteThru (write through). A write-back cache holds data after
an I/O operation and tells the controller the data has been written. The data is
written as soon as the disk drive is no longer busy.
This action increases availability of the logical drive. If the power fails before the
data is written to the disk drive, the data will be lost.
The alternative is a write-through cache policy, which reports that the data has
been written to the disk only when it actually has.
Logical Drive Expansion
To expand a logical drive is to increase the number of disk drives.
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 RAID Controller cards support logical drive
expansion. However, you must use the WebPAM software to access this function.
WebPAM ships with the FastTrak SX Series card on the software CD.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
Expansion takes place on an existing Functional logical drive without disturbing
the existing data. While the logical drive is expanding, you can access the data as
before. When expasion is complete, your logical drive will have a larger capacity.
Current Number PossibleNumber
Level
of Drives
of Drives
RAID 5
RAID 0
3
3
2
1
4
4
3 or 4
2, 3 or 4
RAID Level Migration
To migrate a logical drive is to do one or both of the following:
•
•
Change its RAID level
Increase the number of disk drives (sometimes called Expansion)
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 RAID Controller cards support RAID Level
Migration. However, you must use the WebPAM software to access this function.
WebPAM ships with the FastTrak SX Series card on the software CD.
Migration takes place on an existing Functional logical drive without disturbing
the existing data. While the logical drive is migrating, you can access the data as
before. When migration is complete, your logical drive will have a different RAID
level and/or a larger capacity.
Different types of logical drives use different organizational models and have
varying benefits. The following outline breaks down the properties for each type
of RAID supported by Promise products.
Increase
Redundancy
Add Lose
From
To
Capacity Performance
RAID 10
RAID 50
RAID 5
RAID 0
RAID 50
RAID 10
RAID 0
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
RAID 5
•*
•
•
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Increase
Redundancy
Add Lose
From
RAID 1
To
Capacity Performance
RAID 50
RAID 10
RAID 5
RAID 0
RAID 50
RAID 10
RAID 5
RAID 1
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
RAID 0
•
•
•
•
* Increases the existing redundancy
Important
•
•
The Target logical drive may require more disk drives than the
Source logical drive
If the Target logical drive requires an EVEN number of disk
drives but the Source logical drive has an ODD number, ADD
a disk drive as part of the migration process
•
You cannot reduce the number of disk drives in your logical
drive, even if the Target logical drive requires fewer disk
drives than the Source logical drive
•
•
RAID 1 (mirror) works with two disk drives only
You cannot migrate a logical drive when it is Critical or
performing activities such as Synchronizing, Rebuilding and
PDM
•
RAID level migration is not possible to or from JBOD
Ranges of Disk Array Expansion
There are limitations to how large you can expand a logical drive, depending on
the size of your current logical drive.
The current SCSI and Fibre Channel HBA cards and PC Operating Systems
support a 10-byte LBA format. This means that a logical drive can have up to 4
billion address blocks or sectors.
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Chapter 5: Concepts
Multiply the number of blocks by the sector size to find the capacity of a logical
drive:
4,000,000,000 blocks x 512 bytes per sector = 2,048,000,000,000 bytes
of data for a 2TB drive.
Note that you cannot change the size of the sectors nor can you increase the
number of address blocks above 4 billiion.
As a result, there are range limits imposed upon logical drive expansion as
shown in the table above. For example:
•
•
You can expand a 2.5 TB logical drive up to 4 TB
You can only expand a 1.9 TB logical drive up to 2 TB
See the table below.
Maximum LD
Expansion Size
Current LD Size
Sector Size
8 to 16 TB
4 to 8 TB
2 to 4 TB
0 to 2 TB
16 TB
8 TB
4 TB
2 TB
4096 bytes
2048 bytes
1024 bytes
512 bytes
You can direct WebPAM PRO or the CLU to expand a logical drive beyond the
maximum expansion size. However, when expansion is finished, your logical
drive will be the maximum size listed in the table.
If you require a logical drive larger than the maximum expansion size:
1. Backup the data from the current logical drive.
2. Delete the current logical drive.
3. Create a new logical drive with the desired capacity.
4. Restore the data to the new logical drive.
Caution
Before you begin logical drive Expansion or RAID Level Migration,
always back up your important data.
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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting & Tips
•
•
•
Motherboard Issues, below
System CMOS Issues, page 52
Drive-Related Errors, page 52
•
Operating System-Related Issues,
•
Performance Tips, page 54
This section is used to assist with troubleshooting conflicts and FastTrak SX4300
or SX8300 installation problems. Also refer to the README.TXT file on the
FastTrak driver and utility diskette for more recent information as well as the
PromiseOnline services listed in Chapter 7.
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 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:
•
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.
•
Excluding an IRQ from being used by a PCI slot – If you have an ISA
card that is using an IRQ, change the setting for this particular IRQ from
Available to Used by ISA card so that the motherboard will not assign
this IRQ to a PCI slot.
Consult your motherboard manual for information that is specific to your
motherboard.
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System locks up during boot up or when Windows starts
There may be a possible IRQ conflict with an ISA card. Identify what IRQs
are used by ISA cards, enter the Motherboard PCI Setup, and reserve the
IRQ for use with ISA. PCI slots cannot share IRQs with ISA cards.
Miscellaneous problems such as:
•
•
•
FastTrak BIOS does not appear during boot
FastTrak driver does not load
Slow data transfer rates
Move the FastTrak card to a different PCI slot.
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 the FastTrak card
On some Motherboard BIOS, it is necessary to set the 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 card
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.
Drive-Related Errors
Critical Logical Drive Status Error reported during boot
If a critical status error message appears on the FastTrak BIOS startup
screen for a mirrored logical drive (see below), there is a drive in the logical
drive that has failed or is not responding. The FastTrak controller will identify
the failed disk drive by channel number. The logical drive has lost its fault
tolerance, but will still perform normal drive reads and writes.
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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting & Tips
Powering the system off and on once to reset the drive. Also confirm that
cables are properly attached and the drive is receiving power.
If the drive still appears to have failed, refer to the Rebuilding a logical drive
option in the WebPAM software as detailed in the WebPAM User Manual.
Drive cannot be formed into an logical drive
Disk drives must be free of media defects to be added into a logical drive.
Promise recommends using new identical disk drives for each logical drive.
Re-secure data and power cabling while checking for proper alignment.
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 controller. Only enter drive information in the
Motherboard CMOS for drives attached to the onboard IDE controller.
FDISK reports a much lower drive capacity if a single physical drive or a
striped logical drive exceeds 64GB (Windows 2000)
Due to a limitation with FDISK, the utility reports only the storage capacity
that exceeds 64GB. This is a cosmetic, not actual, limitation. Simply create a
single DOS drive partition, reboot, and then format the partition. The Format
command will recognize the total capacity of the partition accurately.
Windows will now recognize the total capacity of your logical drive.
Unable to Partition or Format Logical Drive
The MBR of one of the drives has become corrupt. Delete the existing logical
drive, then create a new logical drive with the Fast Init feature set to ON.
Cannot Rebuild Mirrored (RAID 1) Array
See Unable to Partition or Format array, above.
Fatal Errors or Data Corruption Are Constantly Reported When Reading or
Writing to Drive Array
See Unable to Partition or Format array, above.
Operating System-Related Issues
The Operating System no longer boots after creating a Mirrored Array using
your existing boot drive using Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server
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.
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For Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Server, Promise recommends 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
You did not press the F6 key 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.
“No Hard Drives Found” message appears during CD-ROM installation of
Windows
You did not press the F6 key 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.
Performance Tips
Here are some tips that may optimize performance in a RAID 0 striped array.
If you are using an audio/video-editing card, we also recommend reviewing
your card?s documentation for additional information.
Use a FastTrak array as D: or other non-bootable drive in a Striped Array
For Audio/Video editing, keep the original system boot drive on the standard
IDE controller as C: drive. Partitioning software such as FDISK will see the
array as one physical drive, D: or later. This will prevent file fragmentation
and provide better accessibility to the array.
Re-Configure PCI Latency Setting
The PCI Latency setting appears in some Motherboard BIOS. The setting
governs how much time is allocated to service each PCI slot. Promise
recommends a value of 64. An optimal value will vary from system to
system.
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Chapter 7: Support
•
•
•
•
Frequently Asked Questions, below
Limited Warranty, page 61
Return Product for Repair, page 63
Frequently Asked Questions
This section lists frequently asked questions involving pre-installation, drive
issues, installation, and post-installation.
Pre-Installation (Speed, Device Types, Capacity, Cabling)
What kind of HDDs can I use for a FastTrak SX Series logical drive?
You can use any Serial ATA hard drive(s) to create arrays on the FastTrak
SX Series. Use matching drives for multiple-drive arrays to maximize
capacity usage as well as performance.
What it the maximum disk drive storage capacity of FastTrak SX Series?
FastTrak SX8300 supports up to 3.2 TB (eight 400 GB disk drives). FastTrak
SX4300 supports up to 1.5 TB (four 400 GB disk drives).
Will ACPI work with HDDs on the FastTrak SX Series?
Yes. The FastTrak Controller supports ACPI S1, S3 and S4 standby modes.
Can I use ATAPI devices on the FastTrak SX Series?
No. The FastTrak Controller does not support ATAPI devices.
Will the FastTrak SX Series work with 66MHz PCI bus speed?
FastTrak SX Series will work with a 66MHz PCI bus, however the FastTrak
card itself requires a PCI-X slot.
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How can I change the resources that the FastTrak uses?
The FastTrak SX4300 and SX8300 are fully PnP. This means all the
resources that it uses are given to it by the PnP BIOS on the motherboard.
The FastTrak Controller supports IRQ sharing, but this feature only works
when ALL the concerned devices support it. 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.
Reset the configuration data in your CMOS. This is usually an option in
the PnP section of your CMOS.
Otherwise, switch the FastTrak Controller card to a different PCI slot.
How do the FastTrak SX Series RAID Controllers provide storage and data
protection with their arrays?
The FastTrak SX Series implements five RAID levels plus JBOD as follows:
•
•
•
•
•
•
RAID 0 – Stripe
RAID 1 – Mirror
RAID 5 – Block Striping with Distributed Parity
RAID 10 – Mirroring / Striping
RAID 50 – Striping of Distributed Parity (SX8300 only)
JBOD – Single disk drives
Drive Issues
Can I add a drive to a FastTrak SX Series logical drive via hot-swap and
dynamically adjust the array size/configuration?
Yes. The FastTrak Controller supports online logical drive expansion and
migration. You must use the WebPAM software to expand or migrate an
existing logical drive.
Do the HDDs on the FastTrak SX Series have to be the same size?
The disk drives that you use with the FastTrak SX Series do not have to be
the same size. If the sizes differ, the FastTrak Controller will truncate the
large drive so the capacities match. The resulting difference in drive space is
unusable, so avoid using disk drives of significantly different capacities.
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Chapter 7: Support
I already have an array on an older FastTrak controller. Can I move that
array to my new FastTrak SX4300 or SX8300 controller?
Yes. All FastTrak controllers read the arrays the same way and can be
moved from one controller to another.
Can I take a drive used in a FastTrak SX Series logical drive and access it
directly with a different controller, such as the one integrated on the
motherboard?
Yes, but only under certain configurations. First, the other controller must
address the drives as LBA, not CHS.
Second, only the following configurations allow the drive(s) to be accessed
individually on another controller:
•
•
•
Single-drive RAID 0 (stripe)
One drive from a RAID 1 (mirror) logical drive
JBOD
Other array configurations will not work for this purpose.
If I have a problem with one of the drives on the FastTrak SX Series, how
can I low-level format it to correct the problem?
Do NOT do this! Low-level formatting hard disk drives is not only
unnecessary but it generally does not correct problems commonly
experienced during use.
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 drive in order
to access the full storage capacity of drives?
No! Disk management software will only complicate things. The logical drive
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. Also see “Ranges of Disk Array Expansion” on
What system BIOS setup settings do I use for the drives on the FastTrak SX
Series controller?
A BIOS setting is required only if you want to boot your system from the
logical drive on the FastTrak controller. After your logical drive is created,
partitioned and formatted, make the change in your BIOS boot order setting.
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How do I partition/format my FastTrak SX Series RAID logical drive?
The FastTrak Controller represents the logical drive 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 drive.
For example, you should use the FDISK and FORMAT utilities to partition
and format the logical drive. You can format the logical drive with any file
system you wish.
Installation Issues (Capacity, Booting)
How can I change the system boot sequence in order to boot from the
FastTrak SX Series logical drive?
The boot sequence is controlled by the system BIOS. As far as the system
BIOS is concerned, the FastTrak Controller and defined logical drives 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 them will be determined exclusively by their PCI/PCI-X slot
priority. PCI slot #1 will be first, slot #2 second, etc. Put the FastTrak
Controller in the PCI-X slot where it will be accessed ahead of other SCSI
controllers if you want to boot from the logical drive.
How can I change the boot sequence between a PCI SCSI card and the
FastTrak SX Series RAID logical drive?
Since all PCI and PCI-X devices are PnP, it is difficult to determine which
device is addressed first. Most motherboard BIOSes have advanced options
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/PCI-X slots so that the boot device is in the highest priority
slot number (see previous question).
Post-Installation
Why can’t I see the drives on the FastTrak SX Series under FDISK?
You have not created a logical drive yet. Without a logical drive, the system
will not recognize the disk drives attached to the FastTrak Controller.
How can I obtain the latest FastTrak drivers?
Download the latest drivers from the Promise Technology website at
www.promise.com. Click on Support, then on Download.
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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:
•
•
•
•
Product model and serial number
BIOS and driver version numbers
A description of the problem / situation
System configuration information, including: motherboard and CPU type,
hard drive model(s), SATA/ATA/ATAPI drives & devices, and other
controllers.
Technical Support Services
Promise Online™ Web Site
(technical documents, drivers, utilities, etc.)
United States
E-mail Support
Fax Technical Support
(408) 228-1097
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
(408) 228-1400 option 4
8:00am-5:00pm M-F Pacific Time
If you wish to write us for
support:
Promise Technology, Inc.
Attn: Technical Support
580 Cottonwood Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035, USA
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Europe, Africa, Middle East
E-mail Support
Fax Technical Support
+31 (0) 40 256 9463
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
+31 (0) 40 235 2600
8:30am-5:00pm M-F The Netherlands Time
If you wish to write us for
support:
Promise Technology Europe B.V.
Attn: Technical Support
Luchthavenweg 81-125
5657 EA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Germany
E-mail Support
Fax Technical Support
+49 (0) 2 31 56 76 48 - 29
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
+49 (0) 2 31 56 76 48 - 0
8:30am-5:00pm M-F Germany Time
If you wish to write us for
support:
Promise Technology Germany
Attn: Technical Support
Europaplatz 9
44269 Dortmund, Germany
Italy
E-mail Support
Fax Technical Support
0039 06 367 12400
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
0039 06 367 12626
8:30am-5:00pm M-F Italy Time
If you wish to write us for
support:
Promise Technology Italy
Attn: Technical Support
Piazza del Popolo 18
00187 Roma, Italy
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Chapter 7: Support
Taiwan
E-mail Support
+886 3 578 2390
Fax Technical Support
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
+886 3 578 2395 (ext. 8870)
9:00am-5:30pm M-F Taiwan Time
If you wish to write us for
support:
Promise Technology, Inc.
Attn: Technical Support
2F, No. 30, Industry E. Rd. IX
Science-based Industrial Park
Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
China
E-mail Support
Fax Technical Support
+86-10-8857-8015
Attention: Technical Support
Phone Technical Support
+86-10-8857-8085/8095
9:00am-6:00pm M-F 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 100081, China
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;
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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 makes 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.
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
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Chapter 7: Support
failure of the essential purpose of the foregoing remedy and regardless of
whether Promise has been advised of the possibility of such 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:
•
•
•
•
•
Product model and serial number (required)
Return shipping address
Daytime phone number
Description of the problem
Copy of the original purchase invoice
The technician will assist you in determining whether the product requires repair.
If the product needs repair, the Technical Support Department will issue an RMA
(Return Merchandise Authorization) number.
Important
Obtain an RMA number from Technical Support before you return
the product and write the RMA number on the label. The RMA
number is essential for tracking your product and providing the
proper service.
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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:
Other Countries:
Promise Technology, Inc.
Customer Service Dept.
Attn.: RMA # ______
47654 Kato Road
Fremont, CA 94538
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:
•
•
•
•
Use the original shipping carton and packaging
Include a summary of the product’s problem(s)
Write an attention line on the box with the RMA number
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).
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