Chapter 1 Introduction - Asus PCI-DA2100 User Manual

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Chapter 1 Introduction
The ASUS PCI-DA2100/-DA2200 is a PCI-to-SCSI RAID controller
specifically designed to provide RAID 0, 1, 3 or 5 capability to any
host system equipped with a Little Endian PCI Local Bus interface.
All the RAID functions of ASUS PCI-DA2100/-DA2200 are
performed by an Intel486(PCI-DA2100) or AMD 5x86(PCI-DA2200)
CPU coupled with high-speed DRAMs and firmware in flash
memory. In effect, it endows the host system with the high-
performance and fault-tolerant disk storage operation of RAID
technology. It is also an ideal solution for weaving several hard disks
into one contiguous volume.
The controller has comprehensive drive failure management that
allows automatic reassignment of reserved blocks when a bad sector
is encountered during a write. Hot-swapping is supported through
automatic disconnection of a failed drive and detection of a reserved
drive followed with background rebuilding of data. The controller
also supports spare drive operation. Remarkably, all of these failure
recovery procedures are transparent to the host system.
The ASUS PCI-DA2100/-DA2200 has been designed with ease of
integration and maintenance in mind. The major features are
described in the next chapter. The controller already includes all the
major operational requirements for a RAID subsystem. The overall
features of a fully-built RAID subsystem will, however, depend on
the actual components used and the creativity of the integrator.
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ASUS PCI-DA2100/PCI-DA2200 User's Manual