Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 - Intel RAID Controller

[Iron]

Hi everybody,

I recently purcahsed a Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 motherboard which has an onboard Intel Raid Storage Controller.

Controller info:

The device manager lists it as "Intel(R) ICH8R / ICH9R / ICH10R / DO / 5 Series / 3400 Series SATA RAID Controller".

It has 6 SATA ports and supports up to 3GB/s.

The device works fine, RAIDS are setup through a DOS interface that can be accessed at bootup pressing Ctrl + I. There's also Intel Rapid Storage Technology software which I installed and gives you basic overview over the RAID(s) in Windows.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

Since this is my first time dealing with the Intel RAID controller, I have a few questions:

(1.) I currently have a Raid 1 setup on 2 of the 6 controller. I want to expand this to a RAID 10 (using all 6 ports) without losing my data that I have in the Raid 1. Is that possible ?

--> I did not see an option to do that in the DOS config menu...

(2.) If (for whatever reason) the motherboard ever fails and I have to unplug the 6 RAID 10 HD and would connect them to a different motherboard / Sata controller, would I be able to read the data on the disks ?

Or are the disks (once configured as a RAID) only accessible through this specific Intel RAID controller ?


Thanx for your help in advance !

 

- M

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
I can't honestly help you with point 1 as I am not sure if it is possible. However your second point about swapping RAIDs to another controller, this is possible as long as the same controller is used. ie Intel ICH10R

[Iron]

Dark Mantis,

thanx for your answer !

So how can I find out which specific SATA RAID controller I have ?

As I wrote in my original message, the controller was specified with multiple model names...

How do you know it's the ICH10R ? I've read on the i-net that if you don't find the EXACT controller the disks are not readable...

So regarding your answer, what do people do that want to switch to a different controller ? Copy all data ? In my case that would be 6TB...

[Dark Mantis]

So how can I find out which specific SATA RAID controller I have ?

How do you know it's the ICH10R ? I've read on the i-net that if you don't find the EXACT controller the disks are not readable...

So regarding your answer, what do people do that want to switch to a different controller ? Copy all data ? In my case that would be 6TB...

It is the ICH10R on your board(It is actually in the manual )
If you wanted to switch to a different controller then I guess that you would have to back up your data first(or image it). For a definitive answer on that maybe Pierre or Peter could help you they know more about RAID than me.

[Iron]

Dark,

thanx. very helpful... I was very confused why the devie manager did not just display ICH10R...

Let's see if Pierre or Peter have some options...

Thanx again !

[Lsdmeasap]

Yes it is the ICH10R (82801JR) Southbridge on P55A, you can verify that with CPU-z in the Mainboard tab
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

[Iron]

just to give a heads up for other users:

The Intel RAID Controller on the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 mobo only allows a RAID 10 with a maximum of 4 drives...

very disappointing, and of course that was not stated in the product info, otherwise I would have not bought this mobo...

BE AWARE !

[Peteruk]

just to give a heads up for other users:

The Intel RAID Controller on the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 mobo only allows a RAID 10 with a maximum of 4 drives...

very disappointing, and of course that was not stated in the product info, otherwise I would have not bought this mobo...

Very true it is in fact stated here:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022304.htm

There has been some who have made a RAID 10 with six disks there are some posts about that over  on Intel site, Intel on the other hand listed it as a issue...  

And as I told you over on the Intel site ”A 6 disk RAID 10 is listed as a Known Issue it is not likely supported by Intel to do this even though its a RAID 10 spec.

IMSM 8.9 32-bit shell.exe allows user to setup RAID (1+0)x6 arrays”

Its got nothing to do with the Gigabyte supporting it or not the only reason people could make a RAID 10 with 6 disks was by that Issue in the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager 8.9.