Data Storage Solution - Frequently Asked Questions

 
Updated 3/31/2011 by SuperMediaStore Staff
MS1U USB 2.0
MS1UT USB 2.0 and eSATA
MS2UT USB 2.0 and eSATA
MS2C1 USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800
MR5S1 SCSI U320

USB 2.0
eSATA
Firewire 400/
1394a
Firewire 800/
1394b
DB68
VHDCI68

Yes


USB2.0 480 Mbps
Firewire400/IEEE1394a 400 Mbps
Firewire800/IEEE1394b 800 Mbps
SATA I 1.5 Gbps
SATA II 3 Gbps
SCSI U320 320MBps
Fiber Channel 2/4Gbps

 

JBOD is an informal term, short for "Just a Bunch of Disks." The official term is "spanning." JBOD combines multiple physical hard drives to make one larger logical volume. The simplicity of JBOD makes it an easy way to increase the capacity of your system in a cost-effective manner.

RAID stands for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks". It refers to the use of multiple hard drives to increase the performance and protect data. Even though it is using more than one hard drive, the computer will see them as one logical unit. The concept of RAID originated from a paper published at the University of California, Berkley which proposed using multiple small and inexpensive disks to replace the use of a single large disk to achieve fault-tolerant data redundancy.

Originally five RAID configurations, levels 1 through 6, were defined. A newer version, "data striping", or level 0, offers some performance advantages over other RAID levels. However, level 0 lacks data redundancy, so technically isn't RAID. The most popular RAID levels are 0, 1, 3, 5 and 6. The following is a brief overview of the various RAID levels:

RAID 0
Known as disk striping.
  • High Performance but no protection.
  • Requires a minimum of 2 disks.
RAID 1
Known as mirroring, data is written to two different disks simultaneously. Data can be read from either disk.
  • Mainly used for Protection of data.
  • If one disk is defective, the unit can still read the data from the other disk. 
  • Requires a minimum of 2 disks.
RAID 3
Stripping data over several disks. Parity interleaves at byte level and is stored on a dedicated disk.
  • Provide high performance and protection.
  • Requires a minimum of 3 disks.
  • Due to the creation of the parity, the entirety of one disk will not be usable. For example, 3 * 500GB HD on RAID 3 system will have 1TB usable space.
  • Allow maximum of one defective hard drive without losing the data information.
  • Mainly used in Video Editing Environment.
RAID 5
Stripping data and parity over several disks with no dedicated disk for parity.
  • Provide high performance and protection.
  • Requires a minimum of 3 disks.
  • Due to the creation of the parity, the entirety of one disk will not be usable. For example, 3 * 500GB HD on RAID 5 system will have 1TB usable spaces.
  • Allow maximum of one defective hard drive without losing the data information.
  • Mainly used in Database, Information Technology Environment.
RAID 6
Stripping data and parity over several disks with no dedicated disk for parity. Compared to RAID 3 and 5, it uses 2 parities instead of one.
  • Provide high performance and protection.
  • Requires a minimum of 4 disks.
  • Due to the creation of the parity, the entirety of two disks will not be usable. For example, 4 * 500GB HD on RAID 6 system will have 1TB of usable space.
  • Allows a maximum of two defective hard drives without losing the data information.
  • Mainly used in Database, Information Technology Environment

9. How do I format the Hard Drive in Windows?

1. Use Disk Management

a. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.

b. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

c. In the console tree, click Disk Management.

The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the view that you want to use.

2. Create a new partition or a new logical drive

  a. In the Disk Management window, complete one of the following procedures, and then continue to step 2:

b. To create a new logical drive in an extended partition, right-click free space on an extended partition where you want to create the logical drive, and then click New Logical Drive.

3. In the New Partition Wizard, click Next.

4. Click the type of partition that you want to create (pick from one of the option: Primary partition, Extended partition, or Logical drive), and then click Next.

5. Specify the size of the partition in the Partition size of the MB box and then click “Next”.

6. To decide whether to manually assign a drive letter, let the system automatically enumerate the drive, or do not assign a drive letter to the new partition or logical drive, and then click Next.

7. Specify the formatting options you want to use by using one of the following procedures:

a. If you do not want to format the partition, click Do not format this partition, and then click Next.

If you want to format the partition, click Format this partition with the following settings, and then complete the following procedure in the Format dialog box:

Type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.

Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. You can change the disk allocation unit size, and then specify whether to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes. Click Next.

8. Confirm that the options that selected are correct, and then click Finish.


The new partition or logical drive is created and appears in the appropriate basic disk in the Disk Management window. If you chose to format the volume in step 6, the format process will start.


10. How to format a basic volume?

To format a partition, logical drive or basic volume:

1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to format (or reformat), and then click Format.

2. In the Format dialog box, type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.

3. Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. If you want, you can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.

4. Click OK.

5. Click OK when you are prompted to format the volume. The format process starts.


11. How to upgrade the firmware of MS2UT?

1. Connect MS2UT with PC using the serial cable, and power on MS2UT

2. Open the RAIDGuide Manager program

3. In the RAIDGuide Manager Program, Choose RAID --> Connect --> RAID System 1


4. In the popup window, RS-232 Setup, select the COM port which you are using to connect with MS2UT and then Click OK


5. The utility will detect if there is any unit connected with the PC. Once it finds out the unit, there will be a window of RAID System 1 pop out.

6. Choose Advanced --> RAID System 1 Setting


7. A Password window will come over, type in the password for the unit; the default password is 0000


8. After inputting the password, the RAID System 1 Setting window will be shown.


9. Choose the right most tab, RS-232 UPGRADE, a firmware update confirmation window will pop out. Choose OK.

10. Click Open Files, select the firmware data and click OPEN