Iulian

Useful Links related to my questions:

Overview P4C800 Deluxe

Specs P4C800 Deluxe

Drivers for P4C800 Deluxe

Related non-OEM products from Promise's website:

Serial / ATA Card - FastTrak S150 TX2plus

Serial /ATA Card (non-RAID) - SATA150 TX2plus


1.) From the Specs and Overview and reading the Manual we get the following
info:

""The P4C800 Deluxe offers the most complete RAID solution. A Promise SATA
controller offers RAID 0, 1 and 10 functions with Max. 2 UltraATA 133 ports
and 2 SATA HD ports, enabling users to build a RAID array with any 2, 3 or 4
of the ports. With unique multi-RAID function, RAID 0 and RAID 1 array can
co-exist."

""Promise 20378 RAID controller:
1 x UltraDMA 133 support two hard drives
2 x Serial ATA
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, Multiple RAID"

My question: Does it mean that we can use the following cominations?:

1.1 - two SATA HDDs connected to the SATA ports, in RAID 0
1.2 - two ATA HDDs connected to the ATA ports, in RAID 0
1.3 - one SATA HDD connected to a SATA port and one ATA HDD connected to the
ATA port, in RAID 0
1.4 - one SATA RAID array and one ATA RAID array in the same time
1.5 - two (one SATA + one ATA) RAID arrays
1.6 - one SATA RAID 0 array mirrored on a HDD of equal or larger size
connected to an ATA port (RAID 0+1)
1.7 - one SATA RAID 0 array mirrored on a RAID 0 array connected to ATA
(RAID 0+1)
1.8 - SATA or ATA HDDs, maximum four, used independently on any port
1.9 - one RAID (0 or 1) array and one or two independent HDDs (lets say for
storage etc)
1.10 - four HDDs in RAID 0

2.) Second question is related to the DRIVERS I have to use for my Promise
FastTrack 378 (chipset PDC20378) integrated (OEM) controller.
On ASUS's website I found three types of drivers for download:

A - 378raid_100137.zip that is explained as : "Promise FastTrak 378 RAID
Driver V1.00.1.37 for Windows 98SE/NT4/ME/2000/XP/2003" or "FastTrak 376/378 Driver" in the README file.
B - 378ata_100104528.zip that is explained as : "Promise SATA378 Driver
V1.00.0.26 (ATA Mode) " or "Promise SATA378 Driver" in the README file.
C - 378ATA100130.zip that is explained as : "Promise FastTrak 378 ATA Driver
V1.00.1.30 " or "Promise SATA378 Driver" in the README file.

On the original ASUS CD that came with my motherboard I found the following
drivers:

A (CD) - 378ATA explained as "Promise SATA378 Driver" in the README file
B (CD) - 378RAID explained as "FastTrak 376/378 Driver" in the README file

There are also two .doc files "FastTrak 378 Quick Start Guide v1.0_OEM" and
"SATA 378 Quick Start Guide v1.0_OEM"

There is NO clear explanation in the Manual, README files or other docs on
why are two or three types of drivers for the same chipset. It seems that
this Promise FastTrak 378 controller OEM card can be used as a RAID
controller (see SATA150 TX2plus) or as SATA/ATA simple ports (see S150
TX2plus) extention card, but not both in the same time (is my question 1.9
valid then?!?). Why Promise creates two non-OEM (FastTrak S150 TX2plus and SATA150 TX2plus) cards and one "two in one" sollution for OEM then? Why there are two SATA drivers ('B' and 'C') on Asus web site, one branded as "ATA mode"?!?

Related to these questions above I found some answres in Google\Group, but
none very clear.

3.) Third question: Is the Promise OEM BIOS integrated with the motherboard
BIOS? I think I've seen in one of BIOS update ROM file related README file
that the "Promise FastTrak BIOS will be updated together with this file".
What does it mean?

4.) Fourth question. For the moment I'm using two 80Gb Seagate SATA HDDs in RAID 0 with Windows XP Pro SP1 installed. Under Device Manager \ SCSI and RAID Controllers tab I can see the following:

A. - SCSI\RAID Host Controller
B. - Win XP Promise FastTrack 376/378 (tm) Controller
C. - XMASSCSI SCSI Controller

I can understand what 'B' is, but not 'A' and 'C'.

5.) Fifth question: The SATA connectors controlled by the ICH5 chipset.
Where are the drivers for them? I read somewhere that SP1 introduced them.
What about Win XP before SP1. There is no download link on Asus website. Or maybe is the Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility that provides
some SATA support? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Under Device Manager \ IDE ATA/ATAPI ontrollers I have the following:

A. - Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
B. - Primary IDE channel
C. - Secondary IDE channel

Is 'A' the SATA driver for the two SATA (ICH5) ports on my motherboard?

6.) What is the difference between Compatible Mode and Enhanced Mode in Asus's P4C800 Deluxe's BIOS. I've got some clues that in Compatible mode Win 9x and Me would access peripherals through BIOS's I/O ports meanwhile Win 2000/XP would access them throgh PCI addresses. How does it exactly work? Any gurus around?
Also, while doing some testing and installing a Win 98 SE in Compatible Mode I realised that it recognized the RAID 0 array on my Promise controller from the first (no RAID drivers needed at installation), but then there is yet a RAID driver to be installed on Asus web site. Meanwhile Win XP in Enhanced Mode won't be able to recognize my RAID array whithout a driver. Total confusion.

Many thanks in advance,
Julian

clintfan

Hi Iulian, and welcome to the forum. I am catching up on still-unreplied threads which occurred since my vacation. You ask many questions. Let me see what I can do with this, it will take some time. I will give a new description of the mobo capabilities, then take each question one at a time, that way I can inject more extra details that might not come up otherwise. Here goes...

For P4C800 Deluxe:

PRI_IDE:
driven by ICH5, can support 1 or 2 PATA drives in non-RAID mode
SEC_IDE:
driven by ICH5, can support 1 or 2 PATA drives in non-RAID mode
SATA1 & 2:
driven by ICH5, can support 1 or 2 SATA drives in non-RAID mode

SATA_RAID1 & 2, PRI_RAID:
driven by Promise PDC20378, together in either non-RAID or RAID mode:

in non-RAID mode,
-can support 1 to 4 SATA and/or PATA drives
-does not support ATAPI devices, whether PATA or SATA.

in RAID mode,
-can support (AFAIK) 1 or 2 pairs, of 2 drives each, in RAID0 or RAID1 mode, creating up to 2 arrays. The arrays need not be the same mode: having one RAID0 and one RAID1 array would be termed "Multi-RAID".
-can support 4 drives (2 SATA plus 2 PATA) in a single RAID0+1 array.
-does not support "Span" or "JBOD" modes.



Actually this statement is out of date. Many other mobos, such as P4C800-E Deluxe and P4P800-E Deluxe, now offer more RAID than this model.

Yes, but only on the SATA_RAID1 & 2 ports driven by the Promise. The P4C800 Deluxe is the practically only one in the series with the plain ICH5 Southbridge chip, and this means the SATA1 & 2 ports driven by that chip can only run non-RAID mode (which is still an admirable feature BTW). For this reason (and others such as PCI-based LAN) I would steer you away from this older mobo, and get the P4C800-E Deluxe instead. But you appear to already have the non-E version.

Yes, but only on the PRI_RAID port driven by the Promise. The regular PRI_IDE and SEC_IDE ports, driven by the ICH5, cannot run RAID.

But I would caution you that RAID0 on IDE is quite inefficent unless you have multiple RAID IDE ports, such as on the P4P800 Deluxe's VIA6410 controller. Sharing an IDE cable in a RAID0 array can cut your throughput due to sharing of the cable, depending on the application. The sharing effect doesn't seem to impact RAID0+1 as badly.

Meaning one on SATA_RAID1 and one on PRI_RAID; or one on SATA_RAID2 and one on PRI_RAID; yes, I think so.

But it would not be a good idea to mix technologies (SATA + IDE) in a RAID0 array. Drives should be as identical as possible. This doesn't seem to matter as much for RAID1, but you can get some performance improvements if the RAID1 drives are closer to being identical, since with 2 spindles, either drive can respond and the heads need not be at the same spot.

On the SATA_RAID1/2/PRI_RAID ports, yes. The Promise PDC20378 can support 2 independent arrays. But then you need to start considering the throughput of the PCI bus, which will limit what you can get from 2 arrays.

Yes, I think so, but again this would not be recommended since it would be mixing technologies.

No. You said "a" HDD, but RAID0+1 mirrors to two drives, not one. PDC2037x is not quite flexible enough to mirror 2 drives onto one, which might be nice.

The RAID0+1 configurations use 4 HDD's. Typically the auto-setup mode first creates a RAID0 array of the two SATA drives on SATA_RAID1 & 2, then mirrors each of those to one of the two drives on PRI_RAID.

Well, that's sort of what's happening with RAID0+1. You're not really creating 2 RAID0 arrays and mirroring them to each other. Rather you're mirroring each half of one RAID0, to another HDD. But we're "splitting hairs" here.

Yes. When you set the Promise into IDE mode, you can attach up to 10 independent hard drives to this mobo, choosing ports as you wish. But for best performance you should consider the data flow within the system. For ATAPI devices your choices are limited to the main chipset ports only.

Yes. You can run a 2-drive RAID0 array on the Promise ports SATA_RAID1/2/PRI_RAID, and 2 independent HDD's on any of the other ports PRI_IDE, SEC_IDE, SATA1/2. But you cannot run both non-RAID and RAID on the Promise ports at the same time: the entire chip is either in RAID mode, or non-RAID mode, set by the BIOS.

Yes but it would be 2 arrays. AFAIK the PDC20378 cannot bring more than 2 drives into a single RAID0 array, that is a limitation of the Promise.



Yes that is the driver you need to load after you set the Promise into RAID mode in the BIOS, and if you plan to use any of its SATA_RAID1/2/PRI_RAID ports for RAID arrays.

These are both the same thing. I have never been able to identify any version differences within the two downloads, in the components that matter. They are both the driver you would need to load after you set the Promise into IDE mode in the BIOS, and if you plan to use any of its SATA_RAID1/2/PRI_RAID ports for non-RAID HDD's. Note you cannot use those ports for ATAPI devices like CDROM's. I recommend the one named SATA378.

This is some version of the same non-RAID Promise driver you could download. I recommend the downloaded one.

Again, just some version of the downloadable Promise RAID driver, and again I'd recommend the download version which I think is up to version 37, probably newer than the CD.

These are golden! You cannot get these documents anywhere else, you cannot download them anywhere.

I agree the explanation is poor. There are probably a lot of reasons for this. One of my main chores here has been to help people sort this out.

Yes you are right the promise runs in either RAID or IDE mode, but not both at the same time. The setting is controlled in BIOS by Advanced- Onboard Devices Configuration- Onboard Promise Controller "Operating Mode".

Not everybody has the embedded chip on their mobo. For those that don't, there is the add-on card (which might have a different chip BTW).

If you search the Promise site you will find almost NO mention of the PDC20378 chip, its drivers, or its BIOS, nor the PDC20376 or PDC20375 chips either. They keep the OEM stuff completely hidden, probably so that the OEM's will have to do all the support. And that makes sense to me.

Never try to use any drivers downloaded from the Promise website, to run your onboard chip. it will be just asking for trouble.

It's usually a good idea to post more than one version of a driver, in case users have trouble with one version they can try the other. Sometimes Asus removes multiple versions, other times they don't. It's their decision and there seems to be no pattern.



Yes. The mobo BIOS flash memory chip reserves chunks of storage locations for the BIOS of add-on devices. For the P4C800 Deluxe there are 2 of these chunks of which I'm sure: Promise RAID BIOS and Promise SATA378 BIOS. For boot-from-LAN there may be an additional 3Com chunk, I don't know. For P4C800 Deluxe, there is another chunk, for the Intel RAID BootROM. I don't know how big all these are but that's Asus' problem,not ours.

BTW the BIOS for each chunk cannot be independently updated. New versions have to be brought into the main BIOS by the mobo manufacturer, who then releases a new BIOS that integrates it into the binary. The user updates to the new BIOS (e.g. v1015) and gets the other chunks too. Sometimes dependent software then has to be updated on the OS too, by the user.

I have no idea what 'C' is. B is of course the Promise. I think A is just the heading under which B appears. Remember that Windows calls every add-on controller a "SCSI" controller... it's an archaic leftover which will probably be corrected someday.

No special drivers are required. By design the ICH5 SATA ports look --to software-- exactly like regular PATA controllers. The hardware side is different, (SATA vs. IDE) but the software side is the same. This magic eliminates the need for drivers. However the ICSIU you referred to, does provide configuration files which more completely define the capabilities of the chipset ports. So although the OS Setup can get things to boot in "Standard" mode, you really need the ICSIU installed first, to get the full benefits.

I find it more useful to View "Devices by connection". That way you can clearly see there are 2 "Ultra ATA" controllers. The first one drives the PRI_IDE & SEC_IDE ports. The second one is really your SATA controller; it will list Primary and Secondary, but again that's only because it looks like regular IDE to the Windows software.

Enhanced mode means your OS can support more than 4 storage devices on the main chipset; yours has 6. Compatability Mode is only for older OS's, which hardcoded the assumption that the main chipset will never have more than 4 storage devices. To satisfy these, Intel provides the Compatability Mode, and lets you choose which pair of 2 devices to drop out: PRI_IDE, SEC_IDE, or SATA1/2. If you load XP or Win2K, use Enhanced Mode: S-ATA.

I have no idea why 98SE recognized your array, especially since the PDC20378 chip probably didn't exist yet. It must already have a driver built-in. The downloadable Asus driver is probably a much newer version.

But the Promise company has been around for a long time, and has for years had some pretty impressive migration caoabilities built-in. You maye have accidentally gotten the advantage of one of those.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan

rayhendriksma

Wow, this was exactly what I was looking for and it answered all of the questions I've had since I installed my P4C800-E Deluxe board! The manual was NOT clear and ASUS support was unattainable!

Thank you Mr. Clintfan, whoever you are!

i3inary

This is the most info in one place I could have ever hoped for...suprisingly someone asked the exact questions I had for so long.

chane

I will soon be loading M-Powered ProTools on my Dell Pentium IV 3.4GHz desktop (2.256GB RAM). ProTools will become unstable if the audio files it works on are stored with it on the system drive, so I will add a dedicated audio file storage drive. Furthermore, ProTools does not tolerate any kind of RAID configuration, so neither a speed boost nor a mirrored drive file safety backup benefit from a RAID 1 or RAID 0 pair of drives is possible.

Both the system drive (storing Windows XP SP2 and ProTools) and the WAV file storage drive are 7200RPM SATA. And the desktop’s Intel 875p motherboard has two SATA ports.

However, I am curious about one thing: Is a speed boost possible if one or both drives were instead run by a separate non-RAID controller card?

If this happens to be true, please explain why. And if it will, in fact, make the pc run noticeably faster, please suggest one or more specific make and model cards.

Thank you.