IDE RAID

IDE (or ATA) RAID seems to be the rage these days. Almost every motherboard manufacturer has at least one motherboard with IDE RAID features in the market these days. ASUS, for example, uses Promise Technology's RAID solution on most of their new motherboards. ABIT, on the other hand, chose to go with Highpoint Technology's HPT37x IDE RAID chips to power their RAID solutions.

Today, we are going to take a look at how you can optimize your IDE RAID solution. For this purpose, we are going to use Promise Technology's FastTrak100 ATA-RAID card. So, before we start with the checking out the optimal settings, let's take a look at Promise Technology and what the fuss about RAID is all about?

Promise Technology

Well, who else can be better at introducing Promise Technology Inc. other than Promise themselves? So, here are some excerpts from their website :-

With more than 12 years of hardware engineering experience, Promise Technology continues to create breakthroughs in the ATA storage industry for application environments unheard of just a few years ago. RAID protection for today's small office/home office user. Faster data transfers for home users and professional workstations. Increased value and advanced network storage for large networks.

Promise is the Industry-recognized leader in the ATA RAID market, having single-handedly established the product category three years ago. In 1999, the company achieved 90 percent unit market share in the host-based UDMA RAID controller market.' With offices in San Jose, Taiwan, Europe, and China, Promise Technology, Inc. uses worldwide resources to continue the strong Promise heritage of innovation. Recent highlights over the last four years help illustrate our story :

1997
First Ultra ATA/33 controller. Broke 8.4GB drive capacity barrier. Created ATA RAID storage with FastTrak IDE RAID 0,1 controller for video editing and entry-level network servers.
  
1998
First ATA RAID embedded PCI motherboard and first ATA RAID "hot swap" box for continuous PC operation
  
1999
First Ultra ATA/66 drive controller and first Ultra ATA/66 RAID card (FastTrak66)for RAID 0,l.
  
2000
First Ultra ATA/100 drive controller. First Ultra ATA/100 RAID card (FastTrak100) for RAID 0. I. First RAID 3, 5 card supporting Ultra ATA/100 drives (SuperTrak100). First external RAID 5 subsystem for Ultra ATA/100 drives (UltraTrak100)