If you're like some people, you may be in the dark about setting up a RAID array. HardwareSecrets has an article about just that along with some good explainations and visuals regarding the more common RAID levels. So the first thing you need to check is whether your motherboard has an embedded RAID controller or not. This can be seen on the manual of your motherboard. The motherboard chipset – the south bridge chip (which is also known as ICH, I/O Controller Hub, on Intel chipsets) to be more exact – is in charge of controlling the hard disk ports of your motherboard. So the south bridge chip of your motherboard needs to have an embedded RAID controller. On Intel chipsets, this chip needs to have the letter “R” in order to have this feature. For instance, ICH7 chip does not have RAID feature, while ICH7R does. The same thing may happen with chipsets from other suppliers. For example, VIA VT8237R has RAID function while VT8237 doesn’t.
