Gigabyte Adaptec 7902W chip Quick guide

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Server Systems and
Motherboards
Raid Configuration and
Driver installation guide
For Adaptec 7902W chip

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Contents
1. RAID Configuration
1.1 RAID Definition ………………………………………….. 3
1.2 Installing disk drives ……………………………………. 3
1.3 Setting the RAID in IOS ……………………………….4
1.4 Adaptec 7902W RAID configuration utility ……….4
1.4.1 Create a RAID 0 (Striped) ………………………………7
1.4.2 Create a RAID 1 (Mirrored) …………………………….9
1.4.3 Create a RAID 1+0 ………………………………………….12
1.4.4 Deleting a RAID set ……………………………………..14
1.4. Rebuilding a RAID 1 Set …………………………………..15
2. RAID driver installation
2.1 Installing the Adaptec 7902W RAID controller …18
2.1.1 Windows 2000/2003 (Installing the driver in new
system) ……………………………………………………….. 18
2.1.2 Windows 2000/2003 (Adding the controller to an
existing system) ……………………………………………. 19
2.1.3 RedHat 9.0 ……………………………………………………. 23

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1. RAID Configuration
GIGABYTE server systems and motherboards that a RAID supports is comply with
the following RAID solutions:
● Hardware RAID: Use dedicate hardware to control RAID array, and supposed
to doing RAID 0, 1, 1+0, configurations through software utility.
● Software RAID (Host RAID): Use BIOS setup and management utility
complete RAID 0, 1, 1+0, Spare configurations and support Ultra 320
products.
● SATA RAID: Adaptec SATA RAID is embedded in the Intel south bridge chip,
depending on the specific configure, it is support up to two SATA hard disk
drives and RAID support 0, 1, JBOD configuration.
1.1 RAID Definition
RAID 0, Striping supports up to two SCSI disk drives to read and write data
in parallel. Even two hard disk drives reliability the same as single disk, but
offers higher performance than a single disk. If one disk fails then all data in
the array is lost.
RAID 1, Mirroring copy from one hard disk to second hard disk such both of
them contains exactly the same data, in case of failure of one disk, the system
will boot through the second disk and data is still available to use therefore.
RAID 1+0 is a combine with data striping and data mirroring. Take a stripe
pair of disks and mirror them completely in parallel architecture. Excellent
solution for RAID 10 provides fast and highly fault tolerant.
1.2 Installing hard disk drives
In general, we suggest using the same model and capacity disk drives to
create RAID array.
1. Install the disk drives into the drive bays of the respective GIGABYTE
server or motherboard.
2. Select cables suitable for your disk drives.
3. Connect power code to hard disk on each HDD.
4. Enable or Disable SCSI termination.
Note 

 Please make sure your SCSI controller support U160 or U320 SCSI
device and find suitable for your SCSI disk, cable and terminator.

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1.3 Setting the RAID in IOS
Since onboard RAID controller option, please enable onboard H/W SCSI
capability of the BIOS utility before you creating.
1) During the POST screen, please enter the BIOS setup utility.
2) Into Advance Menu > click Integrated Peripherals screen item.
3) Choose Onboard Device item > Onboard H/W SCSI [Enable].
4) Save your change and Exist BIOS setup.
1.4 Adaptec 7902W RAID configuration utility
Adaptec 7902W RAID controller is built-in BIOS code, even you create
software RAID after detected SCSI devices that you need to start SCSI select
utility by pressing “Ctrl+A” during the controller BIOS startup.
The illustrator is an Adaptec 7902W host RAID utility; you can set SCSI
capability on options window.

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After into SCSI Disk Utility screen, you can check your SCSI hard disk
drives be detected on your system, in general, a SCSI bus can support up to
1 devices and the controller connected to its 16-bit bus.
Return Options, choose “Configure/View SCSI Controller Settings”.
Select HostRAID options and “Enabled” it.

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Save Changes Made screen will pop-up , please click “Yes”.
Options item will become 3 selections, please pull down to
“Configure/View HostRAID Settings”.

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Click “Configure/ View HostRAID settings” icon that will allow you to
check and create RAID array or Spare capability of SCSI hard disk drives.
1.4.1 Create a RAID 0 (Stripe)
From the Create RAID menu, please click “RAID-0 (High Performance,
No Fault Tolerance)” that disk drives set requires for the maximum of 4
drives.
All required SCSI hard disk drives will appears in the Select RAID
members screen.

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Select default Strip size 64-K from the menu, then press <Enter>.
(Of course, you also can select 16-KB or 32-KB by your application)
Enter 1 ~1 alphabetic or numeric characters to assign RIAD name and
press <Enter> to proceed.
If you would like to set this array on bootable, please select “Yes” on this
window and apposite, please select “No”.

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The RAID-0 is complete the array propertied.
After configure successfully, please exit Adaptec SCSISelct Utility window
and restart system.
1.4.2 Create RAID 1 ( Mirrored )
From the Create RAID menu, click RAID-1 (Fault Tolerance) that disk
drives set requires for the maximum of 2 drives.

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All required SCSI hard disk drives will appears in the Select RAID
members screen.
Select default “Create new RAID-1” on RIAD-1 build option. In the
RAID-1 uild Option item, you also can choose copy data from one hard
disk to the second hard disk.
Enter 1 ~1 alphabetic or numeric characters to assign RIAD name.