ATARAID(4)              NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual             ATARAID(4)

NAME
     ataraid -- software BIOS RAID

SYNOPSIS
     pseudo-device ataraid
     ld* at ataraid? vendtype ? unit ?

DESCRIPTION
     The ataraid driver provides support for BIOS-based software RAID con-
     trollers.  These are devices which have some simple support for several
     basic RAID levels (often RAID 0 and RAID 1), but which require software
     support to actually perform the RAID function.  The BIOS support is
     largely just to create and recognize the array so that it may be a boot
     device.

     The driver currently supports RAID formats from:
           o   Adaptec HostRAID (found in Intel 6300ESB)
           o   Intel MatrixRAID
           o   JMicron RAID
           o   nVidia MediaShield
           o   Promise FastTrak
           o   Via V-RAID (found in many VIA-based motherboards)

     Status of the logical disk as well as the disks associated with it, can
     be viewed through the bioctl(8) utility.

SEE ALSO
     ld(4), bioctl(8)

HISTORY
     The ataraid driver first appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

AUTHORS
     The ataraid driver was originally adapted from FreeBSD by Jason Thorpe
     <thorpej@NetBSD.org>.

BUGS
     Not all features of the software RAID are currently recognized or sup-
     ported.  For example, the Adaptec support doesn't recognize when a RAID 1
     should be in a ``building'' state, and it does not do the right thing.

     At least part of the reason for this is that the publically-available
     information on these formats is quite limited.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE             September 16, 2008             NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
