I'm posting this here because I found a serious lack of information in the
Usenet history regarding configuring the Promise RAID ("FastBuild 1.32") for
0+1 (stripe/mirror). Maybe someone will stumble across this in google groups
and be enlightened. Here is what I was trying to do, and what I found:

I have an ASUS P4T533 with the onboard Promise RAID option (20276 chip I
believe). Initially I had just two 120Gig hard discs that I mirrored for
safety. I wanted to buy two additional drives and go stripe/mirror for the
extra space and speed.

First thing to do, download the Lumberjacker BIOS to get FULL RAID (The P4T533
ships with Lite RAID in the BIOS which does not allow 0+1). I used 1006. No
problems. If you are looking to do the same, use your favourite search engine
to find "Lumberjacker BIOS", the URL has changed at least once since I've
known of the site. You will have to fight your way through the site unless
you speak German, but worry not, the BIOS files and drivers there are all
English.

I thought to myself, no big deal, throw in the two new drives, create a stripe
with them, copy everything from one of the old mirrored drives, then break the
old mirror and use the old drives to create a mirror of the stripe. It's the
last step where things break down. It does not appear that FastBuild supports
adding a mirror to a stripe.

I resorted to buying a FIFTH drive, big enough to hold all my data. Back
everything up to the 5th drive, then break all arrays on the Promise
controller.

What I found wierd was that even when all 4 drives were considered "free", the
option in FastBuild "3. Define Array" still only had Mirror, Stripe, and Span
available as array types. The only place I could find to create a
Mirror/Stripe Array was in "1. Auto Setup". In there, when you choose
"Security" as the type of array, you will see that if (and only if!) you have
4 drives on the Promise controller that are not involved in any other array,
it will want to create a Mirror/Stripe array.

When using the Auto Setup option, you cannot control the Stripe Block size
very much. You have a choice of "Desktop, Server, or A/V Editting". When you
cycle through the choices, it does not tell you what your strip block size
would be. I chose "A/V Editting". Upon array creation and going back into
"Define Array", Array 1 showed Mirror/Stripe with a 64KB Stripe Block. I was
okay with that, so I just left it.

The last thing worth noting is that the drivers that ASUS gives you for the
Promise controller don't support the FULL RAID features. The virtual drive
will show up in the Disc Management, but it'll be of type "Unknown" and you
can't create partitions. Get an appropriate driver update from the
Lumberjacker BIOS site. Since the Lumberjacker BIOS I'm using includes FULL
RAID TX2000 2.0.0.28, I chose what I thought would be the "closest matching
driver", 2.0.0.26. So far so good (knock on wood).

Bottom line, these FULL RAID BIOS "updates" do allow you to use RAID 0+1 (at
least the P4T533 Lumberjacker 1006 does), however, expect to have to do a full
backup to a device not connected to the Promise controller, array break, and
restore if you want to "upgrade" an existing array. Use the "1. Auto Setup"
option after all arrays are broken. Upgrade your Promise driver from the Lite
version that ASUS gave you.

After flashing the FULL RAID BIOS, the boot sequence shows the Promise BIOS as
a "TX2000", so I'm guessing most of the info above regarding the use and
limitations of FastBuild applies to those that have that Promise stand-alone
controller. Infact, I'd guess that most Promise RAID controllers will behave
pretty much the same in this regard.

I hope someone benefits from my hours of tedious trial and error 8-|

DK.