GA-Z170X-UD3 with M.2 Samsung 950 NVME PCIE SSD and RAID 5 data drive

[Maistro]

Hello!

I found this (http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=16611.msg97954)
very similar topic but its last post was from november so the forum told me to start a new topic.

The relevant parts:
GA-z170X-UD3 rev1.0 - BIOS: F6
1x Samsung 950 Pro 512GB on M.2 port: M2A_32G
1x Corsair SSD 60GB on SATA port: 0
3x Toshiba P300 2TB on SATA ports: 1,2,3
1x LG DVD drive on SATA port: 4

The Setup i'd like to achieve is
Samsung 950 as Boot device
P300 as RAID 5 with Corsair SSD as Cache drive with Intel SRT

Much like in the above mentioned topic, when in AHCI Mode Windows installation works fine (although BIOS does not recognize the 950 in any of its M.2 or NVMe specific menus.
After Windows Installation in AHCI Mode i can install the Samsung NVMe drivers and Samsung Magician detects the 950 correctly.
For some reason Crystal Disk Info only shows S.M.A.R.T but no NCQ or TRIM  - Is this normal or something i should worry about?

When i switch to RAID Mode System doesn't boot - which is as expected i guess, so i try to reinstall Windows while in RAID Mode
While installing windows the 950 doesn't show up as a possible install location. Not unless i load the Intel RST RAID drivers from the Mainboard DVD. After that windows installs normally.

My actual problem now is the following
With RAID mode active, in windows, i can't install the Samsung NVMe 1.1 driver as the setup thinks i don't have an applicable drive.
The Samsung Magician software sees the drive, but doesn't recognize it as a Samsung 950, instead it horribly garbles the name (aSsmnu gSS D59 0RP O15G2) and doesn't display most information.

Crystal Disk Info also displays the Transfer mode only as PCIe 3.0 x2  (as opposed to x4 in AHCI mode)
TRIM and NCQ are missing just like in AHCI mode

My questions are:
Why does the BIOS not see the 950 in any M.2 or NVMe related menus? And is this something i can fix?

Is the missing of TRIM and NCQ something i should worry about?

Is there a way to have a RAID active and still let windows detect the 950 "normally" as in being able to install the Samsung NVMe drivers and the Magician software detect the drive correctly and have a Transfer Mode of PCIe 3.0 x4
Or what are the possible downsides of operating the 950 in this kind of wonky way?

Thanks in advance!

[dmdilks]

Here this might help and read what it he did to fix it.

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=16770.0

[Maistro]

Thanks for the link!

I read quite a few posts in the meantime and there seems to be no other way to get the 950 to work in RAID Mode other than with the Intel RST RAID drivers during windows installation.

The inability to install the Samsung NVMe drivers and the wrong info the Samsung Magician displays is just a sideeffect of that.

On the plus side: Windows recognizes the driver as a SSD so chances are TRIM works even if Crystal Disk Info doesn't display it.

I also ran some CrystalDiskMark benchmarks and the results are about equal to those of most "regular" benchmarks of the drive i found online. So i guess the "Transfer Mode: PCIe 2.0 x2" shown in CDI is a bug aswell.

While not the most elegant solution, at least everything works now and without any apparent negative side effects.

Only thing left now i guess is to wait for either a new BIOS from Gigabyte or new Drivers/Firmware from Samsung.