Intel INTEL RAPID STORAGE Installation guide

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Guide to Intel Rapid Storage
Overview
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology provides new levels of protection, performance,
and expandability for desktop and mobile platforms. Whether using one or multiple
hard drives, users can take advantage of enhanced performance and lower power
consumption. When using more than one drive, the user can have additional
protection against data loss in the event of a hard drive failure.
Starting with version 9.5, a brand new user interface makes creating and managing
your storage simple and intuitive. Combined with Intel® Rapid Recover Technology,
setting up data protection can be accomplished easily with an external drive.
Valuable digital memories are protected against a hard drive failure when the
system is configured for any one of three fault-tolerant RAID levels: RAID 1, RAID 5,
and RAID 10. By seamlessly storing copies of data on one or more additional hard
drives, any hard drive can fail without data loss or system downtime. When the
failed drive is removed and a replacement hard drive is installed, data fault
tolerance is easily restored.
Intel Rapid Storage Technology can also improve the performance of disk intensive
retrieval applications such as editing home video. By combining from two to six
drives in a RAID 0 configuration, data can be accessed on each drive simultaneously,
speeding up response time on data-intensive applications. Also, due to drive load
balancing, even systems with RAID 1 can take advantage of faster boot times and
data reads.
Intel Rapid Storage Technology provides benefits to users of a single drive as well.
Through AHCI, storage performance is improved through Native Command Queuing
(NCQ). AHCI also delivers longer battery life with Link Power Management (LPM),
which can reduce the power consumption of the chipset and Serial ATA (SATA) hard
drive.

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Installation Instructions
1. Download the Intel Rapid Storage Technology software from Intel website.
Save the file to a known location on your computer's hard drive.
2. Locate the file on your hard drive and double-click it.
3. Click Continue (if needed) to launch the installation program.
4. Click Next at the Welcome screen.
5. Click Next.

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6. Read the license agreement and click Yes to accept the terms and continue.
7. Click Next. The application files will now be installed.

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8. Click Next.
9. Click Yes to the restart option and then click Finish to restart your
computer.

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10.Restart your system. You will find the “Intel Rapid Storage Technology” icon
on the Windows task bar.

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Create a RAID Array
1. Double-click “Intel Rapid Storage Technology” icon, then below main screen
appears.
2. Click the “Create” icon to create a RAID array. Here we take RAID 1 for
example.
3. In “Select Volume Type”, click “Real-time data protection (RAID 1)”. Click
“Next”.

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4. In “Configure Volume”, you need to key-in the Volume Name with 1-16
letters, select the RAID disks, and then specify the volume size. Click “Next”.
5. In “Confirm Volume Creation”, you may review the selected configuration.
Then click “Create Volume”.

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6. The volume is created successfully. But you still need to partition your new
volume by using Windows Desk Management before adding any data. Click
“OK”.
7. You will see the current status.

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8. In Windows Desk Management, you need to initialize a disk before Logical
Disk Management can access it. Click “OK”.
9. Right-click on Disk 0, click “New Simple Volume”.

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10. Then follow the instructions on the New Simple Volume Wizard.
11. Finally you can start to use RAID 1 function.