Installation Continued...

Lot's more to cover in the software install portion, as this is a "hybrid" software RAID setup.  The beauty of the DS351 is that it will offer support for Raid 0, Raid 1, Raid 10 (Raid 1+0) or Raid 5.  I will not go into detail on each of them, but will give you a general idea of what each will offer you, as well as my personal recommendation for this type of setup.

RAID 0 - A striped set (2 disk min) with no parity. RAID Level 0 provides no redundancy and not the recommend choice for an HTPC build. It stripes the data across drives, resulting in higher data throughput and very impressive performance.  However, since no redundant information is stored, the failure of any disk in the array results in complete data loss. 

RAID 1 - A mirrored set (2 disk min) with no parity.  RAID Level 1 provides redundancy by duplicating all the data from one drive on a second drive so that if either drive fails, no data is lost. However, it is not a cost-effective solution for many and also not one I would implement in such an environment where high storage capacity is key.

RAID 10 - A mirrored plus striped set (4 disk min).  This level does actually provide you the best of both worlds...high performance and data protection.  However, all comes at a substantial cost, both in terms of money and capacity.  Again, not an option for many. 

RAID 5 - A striped set (3 disk min) with parity.  If one of drive in the array fails, you will not lose data.  This is, in my opinion, your best choice for an HTPC setup.  You have the peace of mind and only have to sacrifice one drive for parity.  As long as you plan on storing data that will be mostly read like your DVD collection, this is your best option.  Write performance, in mostly all circumstances, will be quite poor when compared to other levels and not necessarily the best option if you plan on writing to the disks frequently.  An example would be a setup that will be used for a DVR environment where large data will be written to the array.

During troubleshooting the issues I have covered here, I did manage to install the DS351 on both a system running MCE 2005 and Windows Vista to rule out the OS as the cause of some of the problems I faced.  In the end, after all issues were taken care of, I was determined to get it running on Vista Ultimate and therefore, most of the installation covered here will focus on Vista. 

The DS351 was tested using a RAID 5 configuration that consisted of the four 500GB Samsung drives featured here.  This is where you'll want to note a few tips I will provide here if you do plan to use the included PCI-Ex1 card bundled with the product.  Also, if you plan on installing in a Vista machine, there are a few things to note as well.

Software Install

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One of the major issues with our sample was a corrupt/bad BIOS on the card itself.  Neither MCE 2005 or Vista could identify the card regardless of what actions I took, including forcing a particular driver to load.  With that said, I highly recommend you right-click on the controller in your Device Manager and choose "Properties".  You will see a tab labeled "Flash BIOS".  Go here and ensure a BIOS revision is listed.  Our sample did not list any info on the BIOS and other attempts to get a reading failed.  Also, attempting to flash a majority of BIOS releases available failed.  Only one particular RAID5 BIOS did load properly as I will explain below...

The very first thing you'll want to do is load the drivers for the card and ensure that it is identified properly in Windows.  You have two options when installing your drivers for the card.  If you plan on using any other RAID Level supported other than 5, you must install the base driver.  If you install the base driver properly,  it should appear as "Silicon Image SiI 3132 SATALink Controller".  On a MCE 2005 system, you should see it under "SCSI and RAID controllers" in your Device Manager as shown above.  On Vista, it will be listed under "Storage Controllers".

Now, if you opt to take advantage of its RAID 5 capabilities, there are a few things you'll want to know, especially if you'll be using the Sil3132 card bundled with the product.  First of all, you must flash the RAID 5 BIOS prior to installing your RAID 5 drivers.  If not, you'll run into quite an number of problems.  After extensive testing and troubleshooting, I highly recommend you go to the Silicon Image Website and load the RAID 5 BIOS version 7.3.13.  Also, and very important, is that you install both the proper driver for this particular BIOS revision and the SATARAID5 Utility supporting it as well.  You must load all three recommended.  If not, it will not function properly, especially in Vista.  When you visit the Silicon Image Website, read very carefully and ensure that you download the right drivers and utility for the BIOS version recommended in this review. 

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After you have properly installed the correct BIOS, drivers and utilities, go to your Disk Management in Windows and ensure that all drives are detected in their unallocated state.  After what I went through, I recommend you power on and off the DS351 while in disk management to ensure it picks up all your drives every time.  If not, you have some kind of connectivity issue that needs to be resolved before you even attempt to create your array.  Also, note that when going into Disk Management, you'll be prompted with a window to initialize one of the disks that does not display capacity.  Depending on how you have your drives connected, this can be Disk 1 or Disk 6.  Do not attempt to initialize this disk.  This is the disk that represents the Silicon Image processor and you should ignore or cancel out of these windows.  The important thing to note here is that all the disks you have installed are properly identified, including their capacity.  Vista does have support for mirroring and striping but if choosing RAID 5, I highly recommend you stick to the Silicon Image Utility, despite the issues you will face with it.  Considering I did choose this option, the following installation steps are for RAID 5 setups only.

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The SATARAID5 Manager from Silicon Image does not run very well in Vista.  Although they claim to support "Vista RTM", it does not run very well and you'll want to note a few things mentioned here.  For one, it does not support the Aero interface and will force Vista to revert back to basic mode.  This is not usually an issue on a machine connected to an LCD monitor.  However, on a TV, it will certainly make navigating quite difficult.

After you are confident that everything is working as it should, launch the SATARAID5 Utility you have installed.  You should see all your drives displayed in gray, simply representing they are unused and not yet configured.

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Click on RAID Group from the Tool Menu and choose to Create a RAID Group.  You'll then be prompted with a number of options.  For RAID 5, choose Parity RAID from the configuration drop down list.  For this kind of use, I always recommend you choose 64 KB for the chunk size.  With very large arrays, Rebuild Priority should be set at its maximum.  However, these are just recommendations and you can choose from many options here before creating your array.  Finally, before you click on create, ensure that you have selected all the disks you want configured.

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After you click on create, you can go to the Window Menu and choose Task Summary to get an idea of its progress.  Sit back and relax, watch a movie or two, go to sleep, take a drive, etc.  With capacities 1TB and over as tested here, it can take anywhere from 7 to as high as 16 hrs to create or rebuild the array.

Note (Vista Users):  The SATARAID5 Manager is quite unstable in Vista.  When setting up a RAID 5 on high capacity drives, you may get an Exchange Error dialog box stating that there was a read or write error reported.  Do not do anything at this point and do not power down your HTPC or the DS351.  You need to ignore this message and keep an eye on the blue activity LED's on the front of the DS351.  That's why they are there!  They should all remain active until the creation of the array is complete.  Yes, you'll have to wait several hours, but just keep an eye on them and use them as a guide over the Task Manager.  Once they are no longer showing activity, the RAID group should be created.  I was able to duplicate this error during troubleshooting on arrays with a capacity of 1TB and over.  It did not seem to be an issue with lower capacities.  Also, this would only happen on a Vista machine.  This kind of software RAID setup is not exactly trouble-free and you should not necessarily panic when something does go wrong.  Just keep an eye on the activity LED's.  You may even want to leave the DS351 open and keep an eye on the activity LED on the internal controller board as well. 

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After the RAID Group has been created, close and re-open the SATARAID5 Manager.  If all is good, you should see all your disks listed in green with the configuration you chose.   At this point, you're good to go and can move one to initializing and partitioning it so that Windows will recognize it.

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Go into Windows Disk Management.  You should now see your configured drives listed in an unallocated state.  Make sure you note the capacity of the drive.  In a RAID 5 setup, the capacity shown should be the total of all drives in the array minus one for parity...provided they are all of the same size and type.

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You will be prompted to initialize the disk before proceeding to partition and format it.  Again, do not initialize the first disk.  Only check the disk showing the capacity of the new RAID group you created.  Also, you will have the option of choosing the partition style.  For this kind of use, it is recommended that you choose MBR as your option.  Remember that GPT disks cannot be read by previous versions of Windows, including Windows XP.  This new partitioning scheme is intended for server use and for managing data larger than 2TB in size so configuring it this way is not recommended.

The final steps are to partition and format your drives.  In my case, I will be using the DS351 strictly for Movie storage.  However, you can partition the large volume as you wish.  As an example, in an HTPC environment, you may want to set a partition for movies, music and pictures.  If your drives are new and are certain they are functioning properly, I recommend you choose a quick format.  If not, it will set you back a couple of hours on capacities 1TB and over.  You should only resort to a normal format if you have doubts a drive is functioning properly and requires a full scan for bad sectors.

Once you have setup everything properly, the DS351 will function similar to any mass storage device.  You do not need to power the unit before you turn on your HTPC and it should pick up the drive whenever it is powered and connected.  With that said, you can power the DS351 only when you need access to the files you have stored on the unit.  This is, of course, provided that you have installed your OS on another drive which is highly recommended!

Next: Performance