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From: Paul on 2 Apr 2010 02:54
Daniel Prince wrote:
> Paul <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote:
>
>> On some RAID controllers, you can connect a single disk, not
>> set up any kind of RAID on it, and it will be used as a standalone
>> disk. If that doesn't work, you can try the disk as "JBOD" or
>> a single striped disk, or the like.
>>
>> There are some controllers, which are quite insistent that they're
>> RAID only. On those, they won't detect the disks, until at least
>> two disks are connected.
>
> This one will detect the disk. If it is the only disk, it does not
> offer any options to make any type of RAID or JBOD. The single
> drive will NOT show up in Device Manager or Disk Management.
>
> When I connected the 2 tb SATA hard drive and an old 120 gig IDE
> drive to it, it allowed me to make a mirrored RAID which showed up
> in Device Manager and Disk Management as a 120 gig drive . If I did
> not make a RAID with the two drives, neither one showed up in Device
> Manager or Disk Management.
>
> I think this is an incredibly stupid way to design a controller
> card. Could it be cheaper to make the card RAID only?

Cards like that are "soft RAID". As far as I know, there isn't a lot
of hardware in the chip, dedicated to RAID functions. It is a basic
disk controller, where firmware and OS software, define the functions.
They certainly have had their share of weird design features, such
as the chip with an IDE connector, that only supported one hard
drive.

On controller cards like the ones based on SIL3112 or SIL3114,
the configuration is controlled by the firmware that is loaded.
You could load "IDE" firmware or "RAID" firmware. People who own
cards like that, spend their first hour with the card, flashing
it to the alternate personality.

On Promise chips used on motherboards, some have dual BIOS
modules (i.e. the firmware as such, supports IDE or RAID,
as selected by a BIOS setting). My P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard
had a PDC20378 on it, which could be set to IDE or RAID. And
I tested both modes and had success running one disk or running
RAID.

Do you have a web link, to the product page of what you've bought ?

Paul
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