eSATA Raid

[twoiiz]

Just bought a PCI-Express Dual ESATA / Dual Internal SATA Port card to
connect an eSATA Dual Drive Docking Station. The idea is to have two
separate backups, but I've noticed the card has RAID.
Have I bought the wrong type of card or can I disable RAID some how.

Thanks

 

[Paul]

Just bought a PCI-Express Dual ESATA / Dual Internal SATA Port card to
connect an eSATA Dual Drive Docking Station. The idea is to have two
separate backups, but I've noticed the card has RAID.
Have I bought the wrong type of card or can I disable RAID some how.

Thanks

What is the make and model number of card ?

Maybe the Flash EEPROM chip on the card can be reprogrammed.
Or maybe all it takes is a driver change, or not declaring
a RAID array will leave the two drives independent of one
another.

Paul

 

[twoiiz]

What is the make and model number of card ?

Maybe the Flash EEPROM chip on the card can be reprogrammed.
Or maybe all it takes is a driver change, or not declaring
a RAID array will leave the two drives independent of one
another.

    Paul

Hi Paul

It's an st-lab PCIe SATA Raid card (A-341) looks identical to a PNY
PCIe SATA II RAID 2-Channel.
As you can probably tell I'm not exactly up to speed with RAID, the
instructions offer RAID 0, 1 ,JBOD or
delete RAID.

Dave P

 

[David B.]

Why not read the instructions that came with the card?

 

[twoiiz]

Why not read the instructions that came with the card?

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David.

I did read the instructions but these where unclear to me and I
thought this was the right group to ask the question.

Thanks
Dave P

 

[David B.]

The correct people to ask would be the tech support people for the mfg of
the card, your question has nothing to do with Windows XP and no one here
will have an answer unless they happen to be using that exact same piece of
hardware.

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Why not read the instructions that came with the card?

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David.

I did read the instructions but these where unclear to me and I
thought this was the right group to ask the question.

Thanks
Dave P

 

[Anna]

I did read the instructions but these where unclear to me and I
thought this was the right group to ask the question.

Thanks
Dave P

Dave:
There shouldn't be a problem here. Simply do not create a RAID configuration
within your system. The driver disk that accompanied the PCIe card should
have an option (or provide instructions) to ignore or delete setting up a
RAID configuration. Thereafter the SATA connectors on the card could be used
to support two independent SATA HDDs.

While I'm not familiar with your specific model, similar cards that I've
worked with that support RAID capability could always be used as I've
described above.
Anna

 

[twoiiz]

Dave:
There shouldn't be a problem here. Simply do not create a RAID configuration
within your system. The driver disk that accompanied the PCIe card should
have an option (or provide instructions) to ignore or delete setting up a
RAID configuration. Thereafter the SATA connectors on the card could be used
to support two independent SATA HDDs.

While I'm not familiar with your specific model, similar cards that I've
worked with that support RAID capability could always be used as I've
described above.
Anna

Excellent. Thanks very much for that Anna.

Dave P

 

[Paul]

Hi Paul

It's an st-lab PCIe SATA Raid card (A-341) looks identical to a PNY
PCIe SATA II RAID 2-Channel.
As you can probably tell I'm not exactly up to speed with RAID, the
instructions offer RAID 0, 1 ,JBOD or
delete RAID.

Dave P

It is SIL3132 based. Jumper blocks allow two of four connectors
to be used at a time. (It is a two channel device, with four
connectors, and the jumper block select which connector is active.)

http://www.st-lab.com/assign.asp?keyid=bf30

A text file in the st-lab download (sil3132.exe) suggests visiting
the SiliconImage site. The link they give is here (FYI).

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=11&ctid=2&osid=4&

There is also a user manual available for the RAID Management
software, and it gives hints about what will work and won't work
when using the SIL3132 with RAID firmware.

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SATARAID5-UserGuide_v1.60.pdf

PDF page 45

"The BIOS RAID utility does not report non-RAID drives to the
system BIOS. If a non-RAID boot drive or data drive is desired,
create a JBOD so the BIOS RAID utility will report the drive
to the system BIOS."

PDF page 7

"Data Versatility

The driver supports Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) and Concatenated
drives for applications that do not require increased security or
performance.

The JBOD state may also be achieved with the driver’s "Pass-Thru"
feature. "Pass-Thru" allows access to a new hard disk or one
without any SATARAID5 configuration."

The Pass-Thru capability should do what you want. No need to set anything
up, just plug in the drive.

There is firmware here for the SIL3132, but I don't see a strong incentive
to change what you've got. Some of their older hardware, like the SIL3112,
required more visits to pages like this, changing back and forth between
RAID and non-RAID firmwares.

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=15&ctid=2&osid=0&

Paul