Need help with a Raid set up

[Dean]

Ok i have a Silicon Image Sil 0680 Ultra-133 Medley ATA raid Controller card .

can anyone tell me how to set it up so i can attach hard drives to it and boot up from this disk.

i dont know much about this , i would be very greatful for any help please


Thanks for replying, i can add the 2 hard drives fidsk and format them to create one volume . How do i find where the pciraid controller is in my bios i have a k7ama mother board.

[Omega]

Well, I don't know any specifics about that card in particular, but I'll give some generic pointers to try to help you get started.

First off, I'll assume it doesn't conflict with any other present ATA, RAID, or SCSI BIOS's present (other SCSI, ATA, or RAID cards can sometimes do this). In a perfect world, when you put the card in your computer, it will display some screen for that card after POST and preliminary ATA loading. It likely has something like "Press Ctrl+H to enter configuration" on the screen. If it doesn't do anything like this, we've got some troubleshooting to do.

So, in the mean time, let's assume it does display this. Your next step is to connect two or more (identical) hard drives to it, on different channels. Once you've done this, enter the configuration utility, as described in the previous paragraph. These configuration utilities vary quite a bit from card to card, so I can only guess that you'll navigate through a menu, or something, to "Create New Array" or "Build New Array" or something like this. This is what you want to do.

Bear in mind, that you'll erase all data present on the drives when you build the array, so don't do this until you're absolutely ready to go for it.

Rather than looking up the specifications of the card, I'll assume it's a RAID 1 and 0 card. You'll have to decide what type of array you want. RAID 0 uses a method called striping, which will write consecutive bytes to alternating disks. This means that a file "ABCDEFGH" would be written to the disks as follows:

Disk 1 Disk 2
A B
C D
E F
G H

This method (RAID 0) provides theoretical doubled read and write speeds, when compared to a single drive, and theoretically the same seek times as a single drive. It offers no data redundancy, so if one drive fails, all data is lost. The capacity of the array will be [capacity of one drive] x [number of drives in array]

The other method, RAID 1, uses a method called mirroring. This offers data redundancy. It sacrifices, however, a significant amount of storage space. For ever two hard drives in the array, only one of them will be available for storing data. The same data file as above, would be written:

Disk 1 Disk 2
A A
B B
C C
D D
E E
F F
G G
H H

The benefit of RAID 1 is data redundancy, and increased read speeds. If one hard drive fails, all data will be retained. Data read speeds are theoretically twice that of a single drive, and write speeds are theoretically the same as a single drive.


Once you've chosen what type of array you want, and created it, you're ready to boot from the array (except for the installation of your OS). The next step is to enter the motherboard BIOS, and select the PCI RAID controller wherever you want. (Again, it *should* be there...and if it isn't well, that's troubleshooting time.)

When you go to install your OS (Windows, for example), you'll probably have to load special drivers for the card during installation. For Windows NT, 2000, and XP, press F6 immediately during installation, and then later it will ask you for a disk with your third party SCSI drivers. You should have a disk that came with your card for use here.

[Glenn]

I have this card and the problem I am having is win2k saying that my drive is too big or it will not complete the setup, it gets to the end of the formating process (within setup) and says that the drive is no good which I know to be false, I am running two Maxtor 120g drives, one drive on each channel as master. :confused:

As far as how to set it up, it is a pretty simple card.

The first thing you have to do is create a floppy disk with the proper drivers from the mini disk that is included w/ the card

Once this is done, install your card and connect each of your drives to the card, one to each channel if you have two drives and if you have more than two drives that you want to raid I would suggest you ask Omega for assistance after that.

Then start your computer, press what ever button you have to enter your bios, (that is if you want to boot from a disk connected to this card otherwise you might be able to skip this part).

Next once you have finished w/ you bios, let it go thru its thing and you will see a message come up and say something about hitting 'F3' to enter RAID setup. There you will be able to setup which ever RAID you want as long as its 0, 1 or 0+1.

After that if you are installing a new O/S proceed with that as usual (if it is win2k you must hit 'F6' to make it ask for your driver floppy that you made).

If you already have an O/S then format and away you go! :nod:

Hope this helps, I am still woundering why mine is not working properly.

Glenn

[MaiPiu]

I've this card too.
I've installed the card and it work right in raid 0 with to maxtor daiamnod 80 gb ata 133.
But when the pc work for 1 night the raid go down and when i restart the pc i look the card on the configuration of the hardware, i look the boot of the raid (but the pc make the boot in other disk in motherbord ata channel) but i don't look the Hd. Anyone can help me?

Please send me an email to

Marlbororedsoft@hotmail.com

I can't retorun on this site early becaouse in my office (where i've internet) many sites are blokked (noe i'm in a internet point) See U and thx everey one

[james]

go ahead and set up multiple partitions on your RAID system. This is the easiest workaround on this issue. make like a 10-15 gig partition for your OS, and then setup your other partitions to be 80gigs or so each. that will help save you from some possible failures of your raid array. but really, raid 0 is DANGEROUS. don't use it if you don't want to spend time redownloading everything you've lost when the array is broken. remember there is no R in RAID 0.

[catfactor]

:mad:
At the moment I cannot find my software (drivers) for my card. Is there anywhere I can dowload it (Medley software)?

Now the main problem:
First I am not trying to set up a raid. I want to add more drives to my system. I tried to add a hard drive. When I ran the medley config, the software saw the drive. However, windows (xp pro) does not see the drive. Can anyone help?
I added this card in to a system with the os already installed. Does that matter? Do I need to set something in my bios and if so, what?
I was also going to add another cd drive, but I wound up buying an external.
Again, where can I get the software?
:confused:

[catfactor]

:) I found the drivers and the software at http://www.siliconimage.com/products/medley.asp

The docs are there also. Apparently, the docs that I got with my card weren't very clear. It worked on my first try this time.

[Runner23]

I have this controller card, too. I face the same situation as Catfactor.
I don't want RAID, just more more hard drives connected to this card.
Installing the card goes very well, no problems there.
But when I connect a hard drive to one of the IDE cables as Master, I get the F3 option during bootup, but I dont enter F3 because I do not want RAID and soon after the computer just goes black, it doesn't enter windows and all I can do is restart.

If I do press F3 for setup, I can either assign or remove sets. If I try to assign a set (number 1 and 2 are my options) it makes no difference. It still goes black when I boot the computer.
Can anyone help??

[kiema]

I have exactly the same problem as Runner23 - what was the solution?

I have this controller card, too. I face the same situation as Catfactor.
I don't want RAID, just more more hard drives connected to this card.
Installing the card goes very well, no problems there.
But when I connect a hard drive to one of the IDE cables as Master, I get the F3 option during bootup, but I dont enter F3 because I do not want RAID and soon after the computer just goes black, it doesn't enter windows and all I can do is restart.

If I do press F3 for setup, I can either assign or remove sets. If I try to assign a set (number 1 and 2 are my options) it makes no difference. It still goes black when I boot the computer.
Can anyone help??

[watchous]

I'm in need of help with my new silicon image sil 0680 ultra-133 medley ata raid controller. My knowledge of the inside of computers is very limited so i need a basic run through firstly to get the card installed and which cables go where. The main questions are on the bottom of the card with the pin like things, how far do they go into the slot? Also which cables go where in the slots. If its any help i have a dell optiplex gx1 using windows 98. Any help would be much appreciated.