Intel® 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package PCH Datasheet Volume 1

Datasheet

ID 631119
Date 13/07/2021 00:00:00
Public Content
Document Table of Contents

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST)

The PCH SATA controller provides support for Intel® Rapid Storage Technology, providing both AHCI and integrated RAID functionality. Matrix RAID support is provided to allow multiple RAID levels to be combined on a single set of hard drives, such as RAID 0 and RAID 1 on two disks. Other RAID features include hot spare support, SMART alerting, and RAID 0 auto replace. Software components include an Option ROM and UEFI Driver for pre-boot configuration and boot functionality, a Microsoft* Windows* compatible driver, and a user interface for configuration and management of the RAID capability of PCH SATA controller.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) Configuration

Intel® RST offers several diverse options for RAID (redundant array of independent disks) to meet the needs of the end user. AHCI support provides higher performance and alleviates disk bottlenecks by taking advantage of the independent DMA engines that each SATA port offers in the PCH SATA controller.

  • RAID Level 0 performance scaling up to 6 drives, enabling higher throughput for data intensive applications such as video editing.
  • Data redundancy is offered through RAID Level 1, which performs mirroring.
  • RAID Level 5 provides highly efficient storage while maintaining fault - tolerance on 3 or more drives. By striping parity, and rotating it across all disks, fault tolerance of any single drive is achieved while only consuming 1 drive worth of capacity. That is, a 3 - drive RAID 5 has the capacity of 2 drives, or a 4 - drive RAID 5 has the capacity of 3 drives. RAID 5 has high read transaction rates, with a medium write rate. RAID 5 is well suited for applications that require high amounts of storage while maintaining fault tolerance.

By using the PCH’s built - in Intel® Rapid Storage Technology, there is no loss of additional PCIe*/system resources or add - in card slot/motherboard space footprint used compared to when a discrete RAID controller is implemented. Intel® Rapid Storage Technology functionality requires the following items:

  1. Intel® Rapid Storage Technology RAID Option ROM or UEFI Driver must be on the platform.
  2. Intel® Rapid Storage Technology drivers, most recent revision.
  3. At least two SATA hard disk drives (minimum depends on RAID configuration).

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology is not available in the following configurations:

  1. The SATA controller is programmed in RAID mode, but the AIE bit (D23:F0:Offset 9Ch bit 7) is set to 1.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) RAID Option ROM

The Intel® Rapid Storage Technology RAID Option ROM is a standard PnP Option ROM that is easily integrated into any System BIOS. When in place, it provides the following three primary functions:

  • Provides a text mode user interface that allows the user to manage the RAID configuration on the system in a pre - operating system environment. Its feature set is kept simple to keep size to a minimum, but allows the user to create and delete RAID volumes and select recovery options when problems occur.
  • Provides boot support when using a RAID volume as a boot disk. It does this by providing Int13 services when a RAID volume needs to be accessed by MS - DOS applications (such as NTLDR) and by exporting the RAID volumes to the System BIOS for selection in the boot order.
  • At each boot up, provides the user with a status of the RAID volumes and the option to enter the user interface by pressing CTRL - I.