User's Manual

Chapter 5: Advanced Serverboard Setup

5-25

5-13 Enabling SATA RAID

Now that the hardware is set up, you must install the operating system and the

SATA RAID drivers, if you wish to use RAID with your SATA drives. The installation

procedure differs depending on whether you wish to have the operating system

installed on a RAID array or on a separate non-RAID drive. See the instructions

below for details.

Serial ATA (SATA)

Serial ATA (SATA) is a physical storage interface that employs a single cable with a

minimum of four wires to create a point-to-point connection between devices. This

connection is a serial link that supports a SATA transfer rate from 300 MBps. The

serial cables used in SATA are thinner than the traditional cables used in Parallel

ATA (PATA) and can extend up to one meter in length, compared to only 40 cm for

PATA cables. Overall, SATA provides better functionality than PATA.

Installing the OS/SATA Driver

Before installing the OS (operating system) and SATA RAID driver, you must decide

if you wish to have the operating system installed as part of a bootable RAID array

or installed to a separate non-RAID hard drive. If on a separate drive, you may

install the driver either during or after the OS installation. If you wish to have the

OS on a SATA RAID array, you must follow the procedure below and install the

driver during the OS installation.

Building a Driver Diskette

You must ﬁ rst build a driver diskette from the Supermicro CD-ROM that was included

with the system. (You will have to create this disk on a computer that is already

running and with the OS installed.)

Building a Driver Diskette

Insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive and start the system. A display as 1.

shown in Figure 5-8 will appear.

Click on the icon labeled "Build Driver Diskettes and Manuals" and follow the 2.

instructions to create a ﬂ oppy disk with the driver on it.

Once it's been created, remove the ﬂ oppy and insert the installation CD for 3.

the Windows Operating System you wish to install into the CD-ROM drive of

the new system you are about to conﬁ gure.