easiest way to setup data raid drives with SSD boot on x58a-ud3r

[shikae]

So after a lot of headaches, I have win7 64bit pro installed on my corsair 80gb SSD. According to corsair's recommendation, they suggest a AHCI harddrive setup in the BIOS. The SSD is in slot 0 of the ICH10R sata ports

I would like to add a separate RAID 0 setup for my data drives (samsung f4  2TB drives)


What's the easiest way to make a RAID-0 setup with my drives?

Should I connect both identical data drives to the intel ICH10R sata ports? Or should I use the gigabyte sata ports (GSATA2 ports 8 and 9)

Should I change the BIOS setting to the X.H.D. setting? Is there another way not to using just the mobo/windows7 and my drives?


Thank you in advance!

[shikae]

quick update:

Connected both samsung f4 2TB drives to the 3/4 slots of the ICH10R sata ports and got an error message during POST. It said "disk read error" press ctrl+alt+del to reboot.

I'm pretty sure the error has to do with the fact that one of the samsung drives is not properly formatted and contains a partial installation of windows 7, so that might be part of the problem?

But now my usb keyboard and mouse no longer work! lol. I can't even enter the BIOS to modify settings.


sigh

[shikae]

after reading this thread about hotswapping problems ttp://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3813.0.html I realized I was having a slightly similar problem.

This could be the problem: updating the AHCI driver in windows first, before setting the BIOS sata mode to AHCI. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976


When I try to connect more sata drives (the two samsung 2tb drives) to the ICH10R sata ports, with the SSD win7 boot disk and AHCI enabled...I get mucho problems. The OS will not boot and I get a 'disk read error' asking me to restart. My legacy USB drivers also seem to not function, forcing me to restart the CMOS/bios settings.

This is what I did..

Did a full reset of the bios (powered down and took out battery). Booted the SSD win7 OS drive using IDE instead of AHCI and the system booted. Everything seemed to work normally.

I did a restart and went into the BIOS to load "optimized defaults" (I forgot to do this after the first full rest of the bios)and then this problem keeps happening..

my USB drivers (keyboard/mouse) do not work during POST.. they work during the Win7 login screen.. and then suddenly they stop working again. not fun =(.


But WHATEVER! AGHH. According to what a Moderator (mantis) wrote in another thread, SSD drives in IDE mode are only slightly slower than in AHCI mode. I don't care as long as my system stops having problems. I don't mind booting the SSD in IDE


Long story short...


1) is it ok to continue using my SSD/OS in IDE mode (if I did the initial OS installation with AHCI enabled).

2) suggestions on the easiest route to making an efficient RAID 0 setup with two 2tb drives (samsung f4)

3) Do I have to take out the MOBO battery and do a full restart of the BIOS? please help.. very frustrated


p.s. I think my bios version is "rev 2.0"  printed on the mobo

thank you!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

One of your troubles is the 2 GB ceiling on a single partition. If you are trying to run something larger than this you will get mucho problems.

I would suggest dismantling the RAID for now and use them as single standalone disks to start with. You can then format them and that will clean off any unwanted data that could also be causing problems.

Try setting your controllers to IDE mode at least to start with until you get everything running smoothly.

[shikae]

Thank you very much for your input Mantis. I don't mind using a RAID 1 setup if you think that would cause less problems =)

So the system seems stable at this point. Running IDE mode with my 80gb SSD OS drive, and two separate Samsung 2TB data drives (that are healthy, NFTS and formatted).


In order to utilize my hardware raid controller, should I use the "Intel Matrix Storage Console" ?

It's currently disabled because it says "the raid plugin failed to load, driver not installed correctly."

What BIOS setting should I use? X.H.D. or AHCI and with what controller? My SSD os drive manufacturer, corsair recommends AHCI

I also plan on doing the Win7 registry fix for AHCI if you think that's the best boot method. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

[Dark Mantis]

If you are planning to change them to a RAID1 array why not just use them as two seperate drives. All right you don't get the redundancy that you would get with RAID1 but your speed would be as much and less bother to set up.
If you are dead set on running a RAID0 for the speed then there is a way around the limitation but I don't have it to hand at the moment.

The Matrix Storage is old hat now Rapid Storage is the new in thing from Intel and is available on their website.

With the SSD I would advise putting it on the Intel mICH10R port at 0. You can set the controller to AHCI if you want to as it is the fastest setting but not much more than IDE. Both modes will pass the TRIM commands as long as you are on this controller.

If you decide on the standalone drives over the RAID then there is no problem again to put them on these same ports. The only thing that doesn't like AHCI is the optical drives. They really need to be on an IDE controlled port for stability.

You can use the GSATA or the Marvell 9128 ports for the optical drive.

[shikae]

THank you Mantis.

I successfully modified the windows registry to enable AHCI system boot

I also managed to correctly boot in XHD mode in the bios and setup a RAID 0 using the intel controller.


Just one quick question, when I went to setup the drive in windows, disk manager listed a single drive but it had two partitions already. Is that normal?

[Dark Mantis]

Happy Christmas.

I must say I am not 100% sure but I think it is normal. I don't normally run RAID1 arrays so I can't be sure but it sounds ok.

[nlrd]

I have 2 X 640 Caviar Blacks in Raid 0 and they report as one drive.  If that is any help to you.
Thanks for the tip on the optical drive liking IDE

[shikae]

They are reporting as one drive in the OS, but windows automatically partitioned them into two drives before I even formatted/initialized them

[Dark Mantis]

I have 2 X 640 Caviar Blacks in Raid 0 and they report as one drive.  If that is any help to you.
Thanks for the tip on the optical drive liking IDE

Thanks for the confirmation but I am familiar with the RAID0 array more so. As you say in RAID0 it shows as one drive(partition) that is why I think it is normal for it to show as two drives(partitions) in a RAID1 setup.

They are reporting as one drive in the OS, but windows automatically partitioned them into two drives before I even formatted/initialized them

Have you set up the RAID properly in the BIOS and before even booting into Windows? There are detailed instructions in the back of the manual if you need any prompts.

[Lsdmeasap]

RAID array's of any type, should be one single drive with no partitions on them until you create one.

Is the drive with 2 partitions on it your RAID array or your OS boot drive?   If it's the OS boot drive then you may have two partitions already due to how windows 7 sets up the disks because it creates a backup/system files partition before the actual OS partition.   

If it is your RAID array, just delete the partitions and create one new one

[shikae]

I realized that windows automatically setup my data raid 1 setup into two partitions because of the formatting choices when initializing the drives with windows. Windows can't see more than a 2TB partition unless choosing the newer version

I forget the acronyms, but one was GDP (or GDE? lol) and another acronym.

[Lsdmeasap]

Ahh ok, ya then that would be normal!


I didn't realize you had such large drives, sorry.