AMD RAID Installation Guide 1. AMD BIOS RAID Installation Guide ........................................................................................................ 2 1.1 Introduction to RAID................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 RAID Configurations Precautions ............................................................................................ 4 1.3 Installing Windows OS With RAID Functions ..................
1. AMD BIOS RAID Installation Guide AMD BIOS RAID Installation Guide is an instruction for you to configure RAID functions by using the onboard FastBuild BIOS utility under BIOS environment. After you make a SATA driver diskette, press or to enter BIOS setup to set the option to RAID mode by following the detailed instruction of the “User Manual” in our support CD, then you can start to use the onboard RAID Option ROM Utility to configure RAID. 1.
RAID 5 (Block Striping with Distributed Parity) RAID 5 stripes data and distributes parity information across the physical drives along with the data blocks. This organization increases performance by accessing multiple physical drives simultaneously for each operation, as well as fault tolerance by providing parity data. In the event of a physical drive failure, data can be re-calculated by the RAID system based on the remaining data and the parity information.
1.2 1. RAID Configurations Precautions Please use two new drives if you are creating a RAID 0 (striping) array for performance. It is recommended to use two SATA drives of the same size. If you use two drives of different sizes, the smaller capacity hard disk will be the base storage size for each drive.
® 1.3 Installing Windows OS With RAID Functions If you want to install Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / 8 / 8 64-bit / 8.1 / 8.1 64-bit on a RAID disk composed of 2 or more SATA HDDs with RAID functions, please follow below procedures according to the OS you install. 1.3.1 RAID Functions for AMD A85X, A75, A55 chipsets Way 1: Use legacy RAID ROM to create and configure the RAID disk. The RAID disk will be created in MBR mode which the size of the RAID disk is limited to 2TB.
® Way 2: (for Windows 8 64-bit / 8.1 64-bit only) Create and configure the RAID disk in GPT mode to support RAID disk size over 2TB and speed up system boot time. STEP 1: Set up UEFI A. Enter UEFI SETUP UTILITY → Advanced screen → Storage Configuration. B. Set the “SATA Mode” option to . C. Set the “Onboard RAID 3TB+ Unlocker” option to . D. Click to save and exit. E. Click to enter boot menu and select “Built-in EFI shell”. F.
I. Enter to set up RAID Drive. J. Choose to create a RAID Drive. K. Choose and select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array. Click on keyboard to toggle checkbox. Then choose . L. Enter . Choose and set to LD Max Size. Choose and click on keyboard to create logical drive. M. Click two times.
N. Click to return to the previous page and choose to check the logical drive list. Press to save and exit. O. Enter UEFI SETUP UTILITY → Boot to set the “Fast Boot” option to . Press to save change and exit. STEP 2: Windows® 8 64-bit / 8.1 64-bit OS installation Click to enter boot menu and select “UEFI” DVD-ROM to install OS.
1.3.2 RAID Functions for AMD A88X, A78 chipsets Way 1: Use legacy RAID ROM to create and configure the RAID disk. The RAID disk will be created in MBR mode which the size of the RAID disk is limited to 2TB. For RAID disk size larger than 2TB, please refer to Way 2 (UEFI Mode for GPT partition). STEP 1: Set up UEFI A. During system boot, press or key to enter UEFI setup utility. B. Go to Advanced Storage Configuration. C. Set the “SATA Mode” option to . D.
C. Set the “Onboard RAID 3TB+ Unlocker” option to . D. Click to save and exit. E. Click to enter boot menu and select “Built-in EFI shell”. F. At the Shell> prompt, enter the command “rcadm –M –qa” and click to show RAID information. * Please refer to the step 3 of Section 1.3.2 to copy rcadm.efi file to USB flash disk or download the file from ASRock website http://www.asrock.com. *See the Appendix section for more information on “rcadm.efi”.
G. When the following screen appears, enter “rcadm -M -id -d” and click to initialize disk. H. Enter “rcadm -C -d ” and click to create RAID disk. RAID Types: I.
1.4 Create Disk Array Power on your system. If this is the first time you have booted with the disk drives installed, the AMD onboard RAID Option ROM Utility will display the following screen. The RAID Option ROM includes a Utility with tools to set up your physical drives as RAID logical drives.
Press 2 on the Main Menu screen to display the Define LD Menu. Press to create a RAID array. Press the arrow keys to highlight an option. Press the spacebar to cycle through logical drive types, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. WARNING!! While you are allowed to use any available RAID level for your bootable logical drive, it is recommended to use RAID 1 for most applications. Press the arrow key to move to Disk Assignments.
Press to input the LD Name. Choose one of the following actions: 1. Use the full capacity of the disk drives for a single logical drive: Please read “One Logical Drive” below. 2. Split the disk drives among two logical drives: Please read “Two Logical Drives” below. One Logical Drive After selecting the logical drive in Disk Assignments as the above-mentioned procedures, press any key (except for ) to use the full portion of the logical drive for one logical drive.
1. Enter the desired capacity for the first logical drive and press . The Define LD Menu displays again. 2. Press to exit to the Main Menu. Press again to exit the Utility. 3. Press to restart the computer. You have successfully created a new RAID logical drive. Please install the operating system to your computer by following the detailed instruction of the “User Manual” in our support CD. 1.4.
Use the arrow keys to select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array and press . The selected hard drives will be shown in green. To use all of the hard drives, simply press to select all. Then press . Use the arrow keys to select a RAID level you want. Press to confirm your selection.
Use the up/down arrow key or / to adjust the size and press . Select a caching mode and press to proceed. Press to confirm and then press to return to the previous screen.
When completed, you will see the new array on the main screen. Press to exit the RAID BIOS utility. 2. AMD Windows RAID Installation Guide AMD Windows RAID Installation Guide is an instruction for you to configure RAID functions by using RAIDXpert RAID management software under Windows environment. The RAIDXpert software offers local and remote management and monitoring of all AMD SATA logical drives that exist anywhere on a network.
2.3 Installing RAIDXpert Follow these steps to install RAIDXpert on your Windows-based PC or Server. 1. Boot the PC or server, launch Windows, and log in as the Administrator. If the computer is already running, exit all programs. If you are not logged in as the Administrator, log out, then log in again as the Administrator. 2. Insert the software CD into your CD-ROM drive. 3. Double-click the Install CD’s icon to open it. 4. Double-click the Installer icon to launch it (right).
9. When the Choose Install Folder screen appears, make your selection of a folder for the RAIDXpert applications you are installing. For example, the Windows default folder is: C:\Program Files\AMD\RAIDXpert If you want a different folder, type its location or click the Choose... button and select a new location. Click the Next button when you are finished. 10. When the Check HTTP SSL screen appears, you can choose External Security. An explanation follows.
11. When the Ready to Install screen appears, click the Install button to continue. 12. When the Install Complete screen appears, click the Finish button. 2.4 Logging into RAIDXpert Choose RAIDXpert in the Windows Programs menu. Or, log on manually with your browser: 1. Launch the Browser. 2. In the Browser address field, type the entry explained below. If you did not choose the External Security option during RAIDXpert installation, use the Regular connection.
2.5 Regular Connection RAIDXpert uses an HTTP connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .http:// • Enter the Host PC’s IP address . . . . . . . . . . . .127.0.0.1 or localhost • Enter the Port number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :25902 • Add to launch RAIDXpert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /amd Together, your entry looks like this: http://127.0.0.1:25902/ati or http://localhost:25902/ati 2.
2.7 Creating a New Logical Drive A logical drive is a collection of physical drives in a RAID. To create a new logical drive: 1. Click Logical Drive View in Tree View. 2. Click the Create tab in Management View. The Select RAID Level screen appears. 3. Select the option beside the RAID level you want for your logical drive. RAIDXpert displays the RAID levels you can use with the available physical drives. 4.
7. Click the physical drives to select them. Available drives have a black frame. Selected drives have a red frame. 8. Click the Next button. The Assign a Name screen appears. 9. Enter a name for the logical drive in the field provided. 10. Click the Next button. The Final Settings screen appears. 11. RAID 0, 5, and 10. Choose a Stripe Block Size from the dropdown menu. The choices are 64 and 128 KB. The Write Cache policy is None. You cannot change this setting. 12. RAID 0, 1, and 5.
14. Click the Finish button. If there are physical drives available, the Select RAID Level screen appears again, where you can create an additional logical drive. Click the Logical Drive in Tree View to see all of the information about your new logical drive. Before you can use your new logical drive, you must partition and format the logical drive using your PC’s operating system. 2.
browser opens and displays a “no connection to the Internet is currently available” message. 2. Click the Work Offline button. 3. In the RAIDXpert login screen, enter your user name and password (if used), then click the Sign in button. A “webpage unavailable while offline” message will display. 4. Click the Connect button. A “no connection to the Internet is currently available” message will display. 5. Click the Try Again button.
2.10 Using RAIDXpert2 to Create RAID Array in Windows (for AMD A88X/A78 Chipset) 1. When you install the all-in-one driver to your system from ASRock’s support CD, AMD RAIDXpert2 will be auto-installed as well. 2. Execute RAIDXpert2 in the Windows Programs menu.
3. When the login screen appears, type “admin” in the Login ID field. Type “admin” again in the Password field. 4. Create new username and password. Then log in to RAIDXpert with new username & password.
5. Be sure to delete the existing disk arrays before creating a new array. 6. To create array, Click on Array → Create.
7. Select the disks to be included in the RAID array. Select Array Type Enter Array Name & Array Size. Then click Create to create a RAID array. 8. Check if the array is created successfully.
9. In Disk Management, create partition and initialize the disk as GPT.
Appendix –rcadm.efi information for AMD A88X/A78 rcadm -? -?, --help Displays all primary rcadm commands, or if used after an option, displays help for that specific option. -log, --log-file Print output to a log file as well as standard output. Requires a log file name argument. Overwrites existing file. Only one occurrence of this option on the command line is allowed. Example: rcadm -M -qa -v -log status.txt -C, --create Command for creating arrays.
-ras, --remove-all-spares Removes any spares from an array. -ags, --add-global-spare Adds a disk as a global spare. No space is reserved on the disk selected. -rgs, --remove-global-spare Removes a global spare disk. -ca, --cache-array Sets the cache attributes for an array. Cache attributes include read cache (r), read and write-back cache (rw), write-back cache (w), and no cache (nc). -cd, --cache-disk Sets the cache attributes for a disk.
Specifies if background array scan scanning is on or off. -sp, --smart-poll Turns SMART polling on or off for the specified drive(s). -t, --task Used to pause, resume, and remove tasks. -ul, --unlink Unlinks two arrays linked through a create copy operation.
for read and write-back cache for write-back cache for no cache Examples: rcadm --manage --cache-array rw --array * rcadm -M -ca nc -a 1 DISK SETTINGS (Advanced) Disk cache: --cache-disk --disk -cd -d Cache attributes: for read cache for read and write-back cache for write-back cache for no cache Examples: rcadm --manage --cache-disk r --disk 1 2 3 rcadm -M -cd w -d * HIDE ARRAY --hide --array -h -a Examples: rca
-q [-a ] [-ct ] [-d ] [-v] Examples: rcadm --manage --query --array 1 --disk --verbose rcadm -M -q -a 1 2 3 -d -v QUERY ALL --query-all -qa Example: rcadm --manage --query-all RESCAN DISKS --rescan -rsc Example: rcadm --manage --rescan SCAN ARRAY --scan-array --array -sa -a Example: rcadm -M --array 1 --scan-array on cadm -M -a 1 -sa off SMART POLL --smart-poll --disk -sp -d Example: rcadm --manage --smart-poll
Examples: rcadm --manage --unlink --array 2 rcadm -M -ul -a 5 rcadm -C CREATE Long form: rcadm --create --disk [--size ] [--sub-member ] [--spare-disk ] [--no-sync] [--d-spare] [--cache ] [--max-size] [--name "name"] [--priority <1..10>] [--zero][--scan-array] Short form: rcadm -C -d [-s ] [-sub ] [-sp ] [-ns] [-ds] [-ca ] [-ms] [-n "name"] [-p <1..
Prints the maximum possible size for an array without actually creating an array. -n, --name Identifies an array with a user-supplied name. The name can be up to 30 characters, but only 17 of those characters display in the BIOS. -p, --priority Sets the background initialization task priority from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest priority. For redundant array types only. -led, --leave-existing-data Leaves the existing data on the disks untouched after the array is created.
rcadm -D DELETE Long form: --delete --array [--no-ask] Short form: -D -a [-na] [-cg ] OPTIONS -na, --no-ask If the no ask option is specified the array is deleted without confirmation. EXAMPLES Example: Delete arrays 1 and 2. rcadm -D --array 1 2 Example: Delete all arrays.
