Intel Rapid Storage Technology is a Windows-based application that provides improved performance and reliability for systems with SATA hard drives for desktop, mobile, and server platforms. If you use one or more SATA drives, you can benefit from improved performance and lower power consumption. If you use more than one hard drive, you can increase data loss protection in the event of a hard drive failure.
RAID-enabled system features:
* Intel Rapid RAID-This technology provides the ability to create RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 volumes on desktop and mobile platforms. Data is distributed across two or more hard drives to provide data redundancy or improve data storage performance.
* Intel Rapid Recover technology-This technology provides full data redundancy by copying data from a designated source drive (i.e., master disk) to a designated destination drive (i.e., recovery disk). Data updates for recovery volumes can be continuous or on-demand.
* Intel Matrix RAID Technology – This technology allows two independent RAID volumes to be created on a single array. The first volume occupies a portion of the array, leaving room for the second volume. The array can consist of two to six SATA hard drives, depending on the volume type.
* Native Command Queuing-A feature that allows SATA disks to accept more than one command at a time. When used in conjunction with one or more disks that support NCQ, it increases storage performance for random workloads by allowing the disk to internally optimize the order of commands.
* Disk capacity greater than two terabytes (if this size is supported by the ROM option)-This feature provides support for hard disks and solid-state drives with capacities greater than 2 TB that are reported as pass-through devices (available) or used in a RAID configuration. In addition, booting from a system disk with more than 2 TB is allowed as long as the version of the ROM option in your system supports this feature.
* Password-protected disks-This feature provides high security and protection for the data on your disks with a password to deny access to unauthorized users.
AHCI-enabled system features:
Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that automatically enables the storage driver to enable advanced SATA features such as native command queuing and native hot-plug on SATA hard disks attached to your computer. The following features are supported on AHCI-enabled systems:
– Native command queuing
– Hot plug
* Hard disk capacity greater than two terabytes (if this size is supported by the ROM option).
* Password-protected hard disks.
Main functions:
* Status-This is the main screen where you can determine the status of your storage devices.
* Manage-This section displays detailed information about each item that is part of the storage system, such as volumes and disks; The storage system view shows how the selected item relates to other items. Each item has its own Manage section, which you can access by clicking an item that appears under Status or Manage in the Storage System View.
* Accelerate or Performance (depending on version)-You can configure an internal solid-state drive to use as nonvolatile intelligent caching for a disk or volume on your system. By moving frequently accessed data to the cache, you can improve overall system performance, increase read/write access speed, and shorten boot times without adding more system memory.
This feature also increases the energy efficiency of a mobile computer by saving stored data and reading data from the cache instead of the SATA hard disk itself.
* Settings-In the system settings, you can decide whether to display the notification area icon. In addition, you can select the types of notifications you want to receive, such as warnings or storage system errors, and be notified of reported problems while the application is closed.
