Acard PCI-to-IDE ATA-133 User manual

© Copyright 2003 ACARD Technology Corp.
ACARD ATA-133 RAID
AEC-6880M
PCI-to-IDE ATA-133
RAID Controller for Macintosh
User’s Manual
Version:2.0

Copyright and Trademarks Information
The information of product in this manual is subject to change without prior
notice and does not represent a commitment on part of the vendor, who
assume no liability or responsibility for any errors that may appear in this
manual.
ACARD and SCSIDE are the trademarks of ACARD Technology Corp.
IBM is a trademark of the International Business Machine Corporation.
Apple and the PowerMac Logo are registered trademarks of Apple Corpo-
ration. All brand names and trademarks are properties of their respective
owners.
This manual contains materials protected under International Copyright
Laws. All rights reserved. No part of this manual may be reproduced,
transmitted or transcribed without the expressed written permission of the
manufacturer and authors of this manual.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ...........................................................4
1.1 Introduction.........................................................................................4
1.2 Feature.................................................................................................5
1.3 Specification .......................................................................................5
1.3.1 Packing List ....................................................................................5
1.3.2 Parts Specification..........................................................................5
Chapter 2 Hardware Installation...........................................6
2.1 Quick start hardware installation .....................................................6
2.2 ACARD AEC-6880M adapter compatibility .....................................8
2.3 What you should know before the installation................................8
2.4 ACARD AEC-6880M cable & power installation............................10
2.5 Configuring ACARD AEC-6880M .................................................... 11
Chapter 3 System Installation ............................................12
3.1 Normal Mode Installation.................................................................12
3.1.1 Mac OS 9.x installation.................................................................12
3.1.2 Mac OS X installation ...................................................................14
3.1.3 Verify System Profiler ...................................................................16
3.2 Striping Mode (RAID 0) / Mirroring Mode (RAID 1) Installation ...21
3.2.1 Mac OS 9.x installation:................................................................21
3.2.2 Mac OS X installation ...................................................................23
3.2.3 Verify System Profiler ...................................................................25
3.3 AEC-6880M RAID Utility Installation...............................................30
Chapter 4 Troubleshooting .................................................32
Appendix 1.............................................................................33

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ACARD AEC-6880M
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
ACARD AEC-6880M is a high-performance Hardware RAID Ultra ATA-
133 adapter for PCI PowerMac. Its on-board Open Firmware supports
booting from IDE disks configured as RAID.
AEC-6880M supports all models of PowerMac which have a PCI slot,
including PowerMac G3, G4. For PowerMac older than G4, ACARD
AEC-6880M can boost the disk better. The performance can further be
improved by using a 7200rpm big capacity drive. Compared with the
original G4, the improvement can be as high as 300%. For PowerMac
G4, ACARD AEC-6880M allows Mac to add more IDE drives or to use
Hardware RAID by adjusting the easy RAID DIP Switch setting.
ACARD AEC-6880M adapter is the first Mac add-on card to support ANSI
X3T9.2 CAM ATA4/ATA5. The data transfer rate is up to 133 MB/sec per
channel, and meets the demand of multimedia, real time video.
ACARD AEC-6880M supports the true PnP function in Mac OS 8.5, OS
9.x and OS X. No software driver is needed for connecting an Ultra ATA
66/100/133 HDD. With the advanced function, the adapter is really user-
friendly. It coexists with the on-board IDE controller. The on-board BIOS
lets the system boot from ATA HDD.

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ACARD AEC-6880M
1.2 Feature
nA standalone PCI-to-IDE RAID controller
n Supports RAID 0(Striping Mode) and RAID 1(Mirroring Mode)
nAt a normal mode as IDE devices extension
nSupports Ultra ATA 66/100/133 HDD
nSupports OS: Mac OS 8.5, OS 9.x and OS X
nCost-effective and high-performance
1.3 Specification
1.3.1 Packing List
When you open the ACARD AEC-6880M cabinet, please check the
following things.
nOne ACARD AEC-6880M
nTwo ATA-133 Cables
nOne Y-splitter Power Cord
nTwo hard disk mounting kits and eight screws
nOne User’s Manual
1.3.2 Parts Specification
Power requirement - voltage : 3.3VB+/- 2%
current : 0.5A Max.
Environment - Temperature
Operating 0 oC to 70 oC
Storage -20 oC to 85 oC
Humidity - 15% to 90%
Model: AEC-6880M
Dimentions - Width: 14 cm
Height: 4.7 cm
Connectors - Dual 40-pin IDE internal connectors

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ACARD AEC-6880M
Chapter 2 Hardware Installation
The hardware installation is a simple RAID host adapter installation.
Please follow the instructions given below.
Before installing an IDE device into the ACARD AEC-6880M, the IDE
device should be adjusted as “Master” or “Slave” mode through the
jumper setting. Since the hard drive may contain some data that might
cause the Mac OS installation difficult under striping mode, please adjust
ACARD AEC-6880M DIP Switch to a normal mode at first.
When attaching an IDE hard drive to ACARD AEC-6880M, which already
contains data or any version of Mac OS, it is strongly recommended to
back up the old data before installating the adapter. The hard drive must
be initialized first under the normal mode of ACARD AEC-6880M. After
doing “initialize” under normal mode, adjust AEC-6880M DIP Switch to
striping mode or mirroring mode to “initialize” drive again.
2.1 Quick hardware installation
1. Open the Mac case (please refer to Mac’s manual).
2. Choose an empty PCI slot and plug in ACARD AEC-6880M.
3. Install the hard drive into the Mac.
4. Connect the adapter and the hard drive with an ATA-133 cable.
5. Close the Mac case.
n Connect 2 hard drives in the same channel, check the
Master / Slave jumper.
n Set ACARD AEC-6880M adapter DIP Switch to normal
mode as an IDE extension port.

7
ACARD AEC-6880M
Board Layout:
CN1 (IDE1): The Primary IDE port
CN2 (IDE2): The Secondary IDE port
For the hard drive’s Jumper setting (Master / Slave), refer to hard drive’s
Manual
ATA-133 Cable Layout:
Connect to ACARD
AEC-6880M Adapter
IDE ports (CN1/CN2) Connect to IDE
hard drive (Slave) Connect to IDE hard
drive (Master)
CN2 (IDE2) CN1 (IDE1)

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ACARD AEC-6880M
2.2 ACARD AEC-6880M adapter compatibility
ACARD AEC-6880M is designed specifically for DMA hard drive, and
has been fully tested with many kinds of hard drives. AEC-6880M
supports many ATA 66/100/133 hard drives produced by the following
manufacturers:
nFUJITSU
nIBM
nMAXTOR
nQUANTUM
nSEAGATE
nWESTERN DIGITAL
2.3 What you should know before the installation
Before installing the ACARD AEC-6880M, please follow the instructions
below to get the best performance:
Striping Mode
nIf two hard drives are in different storage capacity, ACARD AEC-
6880M will treat the smaller one as standard capacity, and double
the standard capacity as total disk capacity.
nFor one pair of striping connection using 2 HDDs, the jumper
setting on each hard drive must be set as the same mode; that is,
either “Master” or “Slave”. The two hard drives must connect with
two independent ATA-133 cables on ACARD AEC-6880M.
nFor two pairs of striping connection using 4 HDDs, the jumper
setting on every 2 hard drives must be set as “Master” and “Slave”
on each IDE port (see Figure 1).

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ACARD AEC-6880M
nFor two pairs striping with 4 hard drives, the Jumper setting can
not be set as both “Master” or both “Slave” in same connector cable.
nIn order to get a better performance, use Ultra ATA 66, 100 or 133
hard drive in same model .
Mirroring Mode
nIf two hard drives are in different storage capacity, ACARD AEC-
6880M will treat the smaller one as standard capacity, and double it
as total available disk capacity.
nFor one pair of mirroring connection using 2 HDDs, the jumper
setting on the hard drives must be set as the same “Master” or
“Slave” mode. The two hard drives must connect with two indepen-
dent ATA-133 cables on ACARD AEC-6880M.
nFor two pairs of mirroring connection using 4 HDDs, the jumper
setting on every 2 hard drives must be set as “Master” and “Slave”
on each IDE port.
Normal Mode
nTwo IDE connectors of ACARD AEC-6880M can be regarded as
normal IDE port extension.
nWhen using two hard drives to connect to ACARD AEC-6880M at
the same IDE port (on the same cable), the hard drives’ Jumper
setting must be set as one “Master” and one “Slave” positions. The
two hard drives cannot be set as “Master” or “Slave” at the same
time on the same cable.
nIn order to get a better performance, use Ultra ATA 66, Ultra ATA
100 or Ultra ATA 133 hard drives.

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ACARD AEC-6880M
2.4 ACARD AEC-6880M cable & power installation
The cable connection methods:
Step 1. Find out pin 1 of the IDE connector on the IDE hard drive.
Step 2. Find out a color line of the internal IDE cable indicating pin 1of
the connector.
Step 3. Connect the internal IDE cable to the IDE hard drive aligning
with pin-1 to pin-1.
Step 4. Connect the 4-pin power cord to IDE the hard drive.
Master
Master
Slave
Slave
Power Cord
IDE hard drive