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RAIDCore BC4000 Series README.TXT

Copyright (c) 2006.  Broadcom Corporation, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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Welcome to the RAIDCore BC4000 Series Controller. This document 
provides important release information that should be read before 
using the RAIDCore product.


CONTENTS
--------

	* WHAT IS THE RAIDCore CONTROLLER?

	* IMPORTANT NOTE
 
        * ABOUT THIS RELEASE

        * SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS AND MOTHERBOARDS

        * KNOWN ISSUES

	* CONTACTING RAIDCore


WHAT IS THE RAIDCore CONTROLLER?
--------------------------------

The BC4000 Series Serial ATA (SATA) RAID Controller brings premium, 
enterprise-level storage functionality to the workstation and small
business server environment.

For installation and use instructions, see the RAIDCore BC4000 
Series RAID Controllers User Manual in the file User_Manual.pdf.

The BC4000 Series includes the following: 

* The BC4450, BC4452, BC4850, and BC4852 controllers

* The BC4410 and BC4810 controllers

* HT-1000-equipped systems; the HT-1000 is an I/O controller for 
  HyperTransport(TM)-based server platforms. It incorporates all of 
  the RAIDCore BC4000 Series functionality directly through XelCore. 

All of these controllers use the same BC4000 Series driver.


IMPORTANT NOTES
---------------

1.  You must install all components (firmware, drivers and applications)
    when upgrading to V2.1. 

2.  If you have created an array using the zero-create option under
    V2.0, the array parity may not have been fully scrubbed.  A
    consistency check run against this array will resolve the problem.
    It is highly recommended that you run a consistency check on all
    arrays that were created using the zero-create option.
    This issue has been fixed in this release.


ABOUT THIS RELEASE
------------------
This is the version 2.1 release of the BC4000 Series RAID Controller product,
supporting the Windows and Linux operating systems. The following features 
and capabilities have been added to version 2.1:

1. A new Scan Array feature performs a background scan of an array while no 
   other I/O is pending.


The following features and capabilities were added to version 2.0: 

1.  Copy command; this creates a new array containing an exact  
    copy of the data on a source array. The copy is linked to the source 
    array, so changes to the source are also made on the copy. 
    Unlinking can be done automatically or manually.
  
2.  Task control, so that array tasks can be paused/resumed or canceled. 
    Full task control can be used on create, copy, consistency check 
    and bitmap check tasks. On transforms and on restores for distributed
    spares, task control can only pause/resume tasks.

3.  Reading of Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology 
    (SMART) disk information and the ability to read threshold levels.

    On v2.0.1 and later (including v2.1) SMART is disabled by default 
    and the user must enable it if they wish to take advantage of it.
    See "Reading SMART Information from Disks" on page 118 of the 
    RAIDCore BC4000 Series User Manual for more information.  

4.  The ability to update the BC4000 series firmware directly from 
    RAIDConsole and bcadm.

5.  A Zero Create option has been added to the Create command to write
    zeros across a new array. 

6.  Remote management capability 

7.  Enhanced RAIDConsole GUI application that now runs under Windows and Linux

8.  Windows 64-bit support 

9.  Windows support for arrays greater than 2 TeraBytes

10. Windows stand-by and hibernate functionality for systems with an
    HT-1000 on the motherboard. (One controller only, not supported in
    Windows 2000)


SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS AND MOTHERBOARDS
--------------------------------------------

The version 2.1 release of the BC4000 Series RAID Controller 
product, supports the following operating systems:

   WINDOWS 
 
   * Windows 2000, with Service Pack 4 or later (32-bit only) 

   * Windows XP Home and Professional (32-bit)

   * Windows XP 64-Bit

   * Windows 2003 (64-bit and 32-bit)

   NOTE: Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 is required for all Windows installations.

   LINUX
   
   * Red Hat Linux 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (32-bit only)
 
   * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (64-bit and 32-bit)

   * Fedora Core 1 and 2 (32-bit only) 

   * Fedora Core 3 and 4 (64-bit and 32-bit)

   * SuSE Linux Professional 9.1 and 9.2 (32-bit only)

   * SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 (64-bit and 32-bit)  

   * SuSE Linux 10.0 (64-bit and 32-bit)  
   
   * SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (64-bit and 32-bit)

   * SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (64-bit and 32-bit)



For a list of motherboards and OEM platforms supported by V2.1, see the Broadcom
website at http://www.broadcom.com/storage.


KNOWN ISSUES
------------

For known issues related to specific operating systems, see the
appropriate README file.


CONTACT BROADCOM
----------------

Driver, kernel and documentation upgrades are available
on the web at the following address:

  http://www.broadcom.com/storage

You can also contact Broadcom by e-mailing the following addresses: 

  sales@raidcore.com
  support@raidcore.com

603-324-1555


Product Version: 2.1-0
Product Build: RC-210-2006044.3