GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD -- new build w/RAID 10

[EyeDontKnow]

GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD

As this is a newer board (as of this post, August 2011).... I thought I'd open a topic about it even though I don't have the goods yet.
(I will attempt to keep this simple, just the basics to start)

Good news, I am a full users-manual reader, and you can just point to something I may have missed.
Bad news is I haven't built a puter since 2001, nor have I configured a RAID array.
Good news is this old winXP rig has worked flawlessly since then. 

My primary concern is a RAID 10 setup, and using the proper ports.

In a nutshell, I'm considering these drives...

SSD 120g (for OS and applications)
4 HDD (for RAID 10)
1 HDD, outboard (for full backups using Acronis)

Here are my assumptions.......

Optical CD drive...to Marvell sata port.
SSD OS drive  to Marvell sata port.
4 HDD on Z68 ports (RAID 10).
External hot-swap back-up drive on a USB3 rear connector.

(this still leaves me with one unused Z68 sata port)


I'll stop there for now...see anything you would do differently ?

Thx for reading (did you make it this far ?)

Randall, USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
additional info for this build:

Win7 pro 64bit
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4 GHz
16 gig memory
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (2gig)
850 watt PSU
Rackmount 4U server case
Lots of coffee, tea and redbull.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

In general your proposal is fine and I see no reason to do it any differently apart from having to have your optical drive in AHCI mode along with the SSD. Often this won't be a problem if you have a nice new DVD drive but if it is an older one you might have to replace it. Good luck.

[EyeDontKnow]

I have the goods now. This is the fun part.

I'm scrapping the raid altogether, and going for multiple backup schemes and JBOD. If a drive fails, I don't "need" to be up-and-running in seconds.
I'll make sure I have current backups/images.


I'm building this primarily for Photoshop and Lightroom use, and for surfing the net to find answers  to things like, "why does my pee smell ?"....but so as long as my photos are backed-up well, I'm fine with a fast processor and JBOD.

Still, I am using the Intel 510 SSD hdd for OS and apps....the other drives for data and backup....KISS this as much as possible.

- Bought an Intel 510 ssd drive - putting it on 6Gb/s z68 sata port 3_0.
- Storage and backup drives (2.5 inch) in a hotswap case. (using the remaining z68 sata ports)
- Optical drive on Marvell 9172.

....and remember, I have the z68 board with 20gig slc SSD pre-installed.

QUESTIONs:

1) -- This is where I am in the dark....Is SRT needed for this board and/or my setup ? Is SRT needed for raid "and/or" AHCI ? (remember, no raid here).
 I see ver. 9.6 talked about and recommended. Intel is now up to 10.6.xxxxxx
Is SRT needed because of the pre-installed mSSD on this board ?
(see, I am in the dark, lol)



Also, I assume I want AHCI enabled.

3) -- I see on the Intel site, there are several download-able AHCI versions...
"RST and AHCI Driver and GUI"
"AHCI: Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards"
...and a few more.
Which current one do I need ?

From the intel SSD boards.....

"....Windows 7 has a native AHCI driver that provides TRIM.  It's called msahci, and if you set the SATA mode to AHCI in your BIOS before you installed Win 7, that driver would be loaded.  Intel's RST driver has proved to be a bit superior in speed to msahci in benchmark testing, but msahci is very good and would also work very well with your SSD."

http://communities.intel.com/thread/17986?start=0&tstart=0

4) -- How does "TRIM command" relate to my situation ?

That's a lot, I realize, but I want to make sure I set the right bios options before I install windows7....options that need to be set before installing the OS.

Other thoughts"
Disable "superfetch" from services.msc
Turn off sleep and hibernate.


I will power this build tomorrow, and familiarize myself with the bios before installing windows.
Yes, I'm the typical new builder that dips his toes in the water, afraid to jump in.

Thanks,
=Randall=

[EyeDontKnow]

Much of what I said above has yet to be worked out.
Please don't use my "proposed" setup above as a guide.

I will post a follow-up soon, when my rig is up-and-running, and is properly configured.

[Dark Mantis]

That sounds like a sensible proposal. Always best to test things before advocating their use.

[Aussie Allan]

  "Photoshop and lightroom"..........Like poop to a fly!..........I have to jump in and be the devils advocate here

  One thing a Photoshopper loves is fast access time to Photy storage............. JBOD will just give you massive storage, slow driver access, and no redundancy if a single drive fails........you still loose the data on that drive, so backup must be a religion

  Why did you nail Raid10?......or for that matter , why did you not look at Raid 5!.......here is the devils advocate part.

 Raid 5 is widely used for Photoshop and for good reason..........I'll  list a kickass setup with your board and kit you have then explain why!

 SSD to Marvell port as it looks like Marvell finally got the chip working, Load and run under ACHI for best performance with trim first

  Then load up the Array

 Array to intel ports under raid5.......3 minimum......but for some reason Raid 5 loves 5 active discs.........with the right drives , this will fly......With something like 5x500GB Spinpoints (HD502HJ-F3) These fly for SATA2 drives and can be picked up for 30 pounds form "ARIA.COM"..... you could expect about 450-500 write and 550-600 read.....once configured and running stable the Raid can be switched to ACHI in BIOS on the intel ports as well..........you then partition off about 100Gb min for Page file and scratch disc for Photoshop

  This will give you Very,very snappy photo access ......zero overhead for page file...........and if you ever run out of memory, a fast scratch disc for Photoshop and because it's raid5...........Redundancy

  For an extra 30 quid you could get a extra drive (502HJ) to fill the spare slot for something a lot of people miss out on and thats a hot spare for you raid 5 setup..........so if a drive ever goes down......the hot spare just automatically takes over and rebuilds to the hot spare.........then you simply activate the LED on the offending (dead) drive......rip it out...... and order and replace at your pleasure with the redundancy still in place.........hope this helps.

  P.S   I have two of the Momentus XTs and they raid rather well....the 500s are down to 83 now at ARIA......excellent for laptops too!

  Aussie Allan

[EyeDontKnow]

I nix'd the raid idea, because I was having trouble finding a way to back them up.

...and RAID redundancy is not the same as a true backup solution, because if there are errors, it will just copy those errors....meaning I still need a backup of a "previous version", before errors are (were) set in stone.

Acronis seems to only work well with "hardware raid" (a raid card), not "software raid".

If you have any ideas there....I'd love to hear them !!

[Aussie Allan]

I nix'd the raid idea, because I was having trouble finding a way to back them up.

...and RAID redundancy is not the same as a true backup solution, because if there are errors, it will just copy those errors....meaning I still need a backup of a "previous version", before errors are (were) set in stone.

Acronis seems to only work well with "hardware raid" (a raid card), not "software raid".

If you have any ideas there....I'd love to hear them !!

 

   Right! the best way forward is probably tell you what I do and why I do it ....and answer your questions along the way.

  Set it in your head that Raid and Redundancy are two totally different things.....Raid 1,5,10,50 all have some ability to keep your data accessible to some degree under a system drive failure....single or multiple.

  I use Acronis 2011 with the plus pack add on......why!.....One because it works without fault, is versatile, and works across any platform I throw at it.........with the plus pack I can clone to dissimilar drives , bigger or smaller (partitions) different hardware.........I can even load pre-install drivers prior to a clone install on another hardware system configuration....................And two .........it's cloning/backup ability ........no one else can touch it for versatility............Hell I can even mount or unmount a clone , pull data of it , .....even boot off it!

 I'm lazy........so I use  a small internal drive as a target drive for a continues clone loop of C: drive..........so in the event of a catastrophic failure of my main system drive.........I can be up and running in less then 1 hour with virtually no loss of data.

 My photo storage is also configured for an auto-differential  backup to a 2TB backup drive connected via E-SATA (rear port)....again configured to auto through Acronis............I also use a cheap e-sata docking station 2.5/3.5 .........this I use for my master clone copy of C" drive.....as in every 12/18months I do a fresh install.........once loaded up, patched, and all software loaded and activated..........I clone and drop it off the the father-in-laws house.........never needed it yet but it's there

  Never heard of Acronis being better at hardware raid over software raid.......with cloning and backup.....a system image is a system image......Acronis doesn't know the difference

  with the system you're looking at putting together.........the biggest tip I can give you is raid or not......get your self a decent UPS........it's save my bacon countless times

  12 to 16 Gig of ram is the sweet spot for Photoshop.........if you decide to get more memory.........Have a look at "DataRam" as in RamDisc software.........Ive just started to muck around with it ......... 4GB usage is free.........to unlock more is about $10US..........Ive allocated 10Gig as a virtual (Ram) Disc..........I'm getting 4000Mb/s+ out of it......... fastest Page file drive on the planet.........and the gem!........it flushes when you turn the PC off.......or can be configured to "save to disc"

  Hope this helps....................Aussie Allan

[EyeDontKnow]

Good to hear what is working for you.

Right now, my (soon-to-be) old system, (no raid) ....I have 2x 500g outboard USB notebook drives.
One backs up my C_drive, plus all my photos - updated at least once a week.
The other does a whole system incremental backup.
True Image Home 11

BTW, I power these outboard drives on separate power supplies (not USB power), in case lightening strikes inside my puter case. Don't know if that adds extra protection, but I suspect it may.

Here is a page talking about Acronis compatibility with RAID arrays...
http://kb.acronis.com/content/11681

[Aussie Allan]

Good to hear what is working for you.

Right now, my (soon-to-be) old system, (no raid) ....I have 2x 500g outboard USB notebook drives.
One backs up my C_drive, plus all my photos - updated at least once a week.
The other does a whole system incremental backup.
True Image Home 11

BTW, I power these outboard drives on separate power supplies (not USB power), in case lightening strikes inside my puter case. Don't know if that adds extra protection, but I suspect it may.

Here is a page talking about Acronis compatibility with RAID arrays...
http://kb.acronis.com/content/11681

 

Good to see you take clone/backup seriously.......too many people treat catastrophic failure like a lottery

  See there's the thing again!..........Sometimes the left foot doesn't know what the right hand is doing scenario .....Running Acronis and the plus pack a few years ago..........I had to reinstall a raid 5 clone.....(pre-UPS).......and as you said.....I had an issue.........after consulting with acronis support.....turned out to be a simple MBR repair with the windows install disc and it booted fine......go figure why that's not in the support list.

  The plus pack does add huge amounts of compatibility.....and from memory reading various articles on Acronis support Data-base.....there's several conflicting statements re raid and specifically raid5

  With a UPS, more experience, and hardware and software getting better.........I now use Raid0 through out

  to be fare my Raid0 - 4 disc is now on a Raid card (PCI-E HighPoint RocketRaid 640) but I still have my program storage on a 2 disc Raid0 on the boards ICH10R ports........Acronis seem to eat all of them!

  With you separate PSU backup..........it will insulate you in the event the PC PSU Fails........but 100.000Volts traveling down your power-line will not discriminate ..... Bar a UPS with a purpose designed and built lightning protection system built in to most UPSs now........3 fused power boards in series might be fast enough...........Most people don't realize, electricity over copper travels at the speed of light ( or fractionally under)

  Anyway.....enough gas bagging..........if you need any other help.....just ask......and good luck with a fault free build.........luckily, unlike a cat.......... there 50 ways to setup and skin a PC

  Aussie Allan

[EyeDontKnow]

Hmmm, too bad that I would need an additional raid hardware card to feel safe with Acronis backups.
That just adds complexity. The more complex the setup, the more opportunity for glitches.

This may have happened to you....You set up a working system with many steps, and it works fine for a year or so...
Then when something goes awry, you have completely forgotten what you did a year ago, to get it working !!!

I have found very little info on the net on backing up raid arrays.

I read that Carbonite lost 7500 of their subscribers' data a couple years ago. They were using RAID 5, with no backup. They were in essence relying on their subscriber's system, to reload the data, if ever lost.

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/tag/carbonite/

Allen, being a fellow geek, it's always tempting to tryout the coolest technology, and innovative ways of doing things (I think I just called you a geek, lol)....but what real benefit does a raid array give me in Photoshop/Lightroom/ photo editing ?
Slightly faster uploads and "saving as" procedures ?

I'd rather feel safe and be glitch-free, than shave off a few seconds during a file conversion, and file copying.

I'm asking you because you have experience in this.
BTW, thanks for all your input so far !!

=Randall=

[Dark Mantis]

Hi that is a perfectly sensible question and I will leave Allan to answer  because of his experience in that field but you could always set up a RAID1 if all you are really concerned about is security of the data. As you say you won't gain any speed but that doesn't really affect most home users significantly.

[Aussie Allan]

 A GEEK!........Never been called a Geek Before!.........Rocket Scientist....yeah!..........even "Suicidal" said the wife when I fired up a home made hovercraft in the garage ( Do you know how much dust is in a garage?)........Dam near suffocated

  Well from one Rocket Scientist to another.........I think you're ready for this information "Jim"

  Raid5 and Raid10 is very good......perfect for people that are a little tardy with a strict backup regime......that don't think a UPS is mission critical..........and do little maintenance to their install......

  If you have Acronis (with a Plus Pack for total versatility,...more about this later) Believe in the virtues of a "UPS" and look after your install with maintenance........then Raid0 is for you........the bulk of people are put off because of the scare words ..... "No Redundancy" .... but you do have redundancy!.........."Your Clone"..........No Total System recovery is faster ..... less problematic.....and streamlined as a Raid0 clone install if you ever need to recover from a catastrophic failure.

  Raid0 clone install is faster then even a clean install.........has the advantage of having all your programs and up to date work....settings and bookmarks...........in fact your desk top will be exactly the same if you use the continues clone feature in Acronis.....a master , clean clone copy is also a good idea which can sit on even a sliced off partition........now if you start using a cheap docking station (2.5/3.5 Dual Bay Dock).... cheap, internal drives come into the equation......extremely cheap and versatile to have some labeled HHDs in a box back-up/cloning every thing including the laptop.......I purchased a job lot of 5 new 500GB HHDs for 80 bucks US.....Bargain!

  So with that out of the way....this is what you get with Raid0 and lots of memory for Photo-shop/editing..........your read and write speeds will be near on parity, I can open Adobe CS5 including my entire plug-ins folder (all of NIK and ONONE and a few others) in about one second!........I can open a folder of images in a blink..........constantly monitoring memory usage and flattening images to claw back memory is a thing of the past............have more then 3 or 4 history states is a dream (currently set to 15)...... now the biggy for me and why I built this system.

  HDR Processing is extremely taxing on most PCs...(just like Video encoding)....I use to bring my old system to it's knees with 5 or 7  RAW images even out of a 14MP camera when I hit the "GO" button......it would either take 4 or 6 minutes or just crash in the home run..........now it takes about 8 to 15 seconds...........with the E-SATA port and my reader/dock I can strip a 8GB CF card to my Photo-storage Raid0 in less then a minute

  Now a quick chat re hardware........you can spend a little......or a lot.....

 Good bang for buck..........I bought 4 Samsung SpinPoints F3s ( HD502HJ) Although these are Sata2..........there at the top of write/read transfer bench list..................outperforming a lot of SATA3 drives.......4 of these in Raid0 gives me about 525Mb/s write and 540Mb/s read for 2TB of Photo- storage.....total cost new was 120 pounds for all 4

  My indulgence on this system was 24Gb (6x4) of Muskin Memory now running at (1600-8-9-8-24) total cost ....156 Pounds

 And 2 was the OCZ RevoDrive X2.........these are pretty cool ....effectively 4 SSDs in Raid 0 .....93Gb of usable space running at 720 write/740 read...( I get about 845 read and 640 write).....heres a read ...http://hothardware.com/Reviews/OCZ-RevoDrive-X2-Review-Killer-PCIE-SSD-Performance/  and the RevoDrive 3 X2 just hit the shelves over here..........you can get bigger then the one I have but to be honest.................... 100 odd gig is more then enough for OS, Adobe and half a dozen other programs..........the rest of my programs are on a 2 disc raid0 setup taking up two ICH10R ports..........

  So to make all this work and work well.........A good UPS.........Acronis/Plus-Pack.............a fast drive setup ( SSD/Raid0 or a combo) at least a quad core..........And lots of memory.........does not have to be fast.......but it's nice.........Hope this helps

  Aussie Allan
  

[EyeDontKnow]

Wow...great post mate !
(sends you a beer)

Lot's to think about, especially RAID 0 + Acronis backup regime.

I have not installed any storage drives yet...'till I make some decisions.(they're arriving today)
.....will be installed in this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215223

I moved the 120Gig SSD Operating System drive to the Marvell 88SE9172 port...seems to work just as good as when I had it on the Intel Z68 port.
DVD optical is on the other Marvell port (AHCI enabled).
So my all Z68 SATA ports are open for now (5....2@ SATA3, 3@ SATA2).

The onboard i311 20Gig SSD is still free to use, and I was able to  "initialize" it in Computer/Manage, and it shows up as a usable with a drive letter.
 I temporarily have Lightroom using it as cache space. I haven't put LR to full use yet until storage drives are attached, though it opens in 3 seconds with a photo loaded.

Do you know if the Momentus XT drives like/need to have TRIM working ? If I put these in a RAID array, I don't think TRIM is functional.
(I'll research this).

=Randall=

EDIT:
To check for TRIM....

When done, we need to verify that TRIM is active. At a command prompt (start/run/cmd), type the following: fsutil.exe behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
It should respond back with DisableDeleteNotify=0 if trim support is ready and active. If it is not, type fsutil.exe behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0
This will set Windows 7 to use TRIM when the drive and drivers are ready to do so.

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/700470-tutorials-real-world-windows-7-ssd.html

[Aussie Allan]

Wow...great post mate !
(sends you a beer)

Lot's to think about, especially RAID 0 + Acronis backup regime.

I have not installed any storage drives yet...'till I make some decisions.(they're arriving today)
.....will be installed in this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215223  

 Nice little Raid boxes those are.....tell me, did they come with a Raid PCI-E card or can you add what ever you like....as in are they compatible with third party cards?

I moved the 120Gig SSD Operating System drive to the Marvell 88SE9172 port...seems to work just as good as when I had it on the Intel Z68 port.
DVD optical is on the other Marvell port (AHCI enabled).
So my all Z68 SATA ports are open for now (5....2@ SATA3, 3@ SATA2).

Cool! Giga and Marvell seem to have sorted the Marvell chip out , Z68 and above that is ....so you should have no issues there......although there can be the occasional report of optical being temperamental under ACHI

The onboard i311 20Gig SSD is still free to use, and I was able to  "initialize" it in Computer/Manage, and it shows up as a usable with a drive letter.
 I temporarily have Lightroom using it as cache space. I haven't put LR to full use yet until storage drives are attached, though it opens in 3 seconds with a photo loaded.

  Snappy enough!......I'm afraid I'm a little behind on the iSSD and it's implementation into the OS.......Been waiting for some nice person from Gigabyte to sent me something high end with iSSD on the box ...... so I'm better informed to answer these type of questions......when you say cache space for LR....do you mean scratch disc space?......either way, scratch only comes into play if you have used all your memory during a project.........if you have 16Gb of mem.....you can allocate more in performance (LR) I think it's similar to CS5.....maybe 12Gb....iSSD is something I'm trying to get up to speed.....reading can only get you so far unfortunately

Do you know if the Momentus XT drives like/need to have TRIM working ? If I put these in a RAID array, I don't think TRIM is functional.
(I'll research this).

 Trim will not be active if you Raid them......Ive even activated through command line but no way of knowing if it's actually doing it's thing......the adaptive learning side of the XTs defiantly worked for me under raid0.......even tested them out as a boot drive under Raid0.....very snappy by the third boot......just didn't have the balls for file transfers and read/writes.....I think I got around the 200Mb/s mark from memory with 2

=Randall=

EDIT:
To check for TRIM....

When done, we need to verify that TRIM is active. At a command prompt (start/run/cmd), type the following: fsutil.exe behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
It should respond back with DisableDeleteNotify=0 if trim support is ready and active. If it is not, type fsutil.exe behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0
This will set Windows 7 to use TRIM when the drive and drivers are ready to do so.

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/700470-tutorials-real-world-windows-7-ssd.html

 
   Hope you don't mind me writing in the Quote above.....some times makes it easier targeting the subject......but to kick off.....at the moment Trim is not supported in Raid.......this could be changing across the industry as OCZ has finally cracked trim in Raid on some new product to be released very soon, if not already.........if it's software based (I pray) we all could be enjoying it sooner then later..... in the mean time....don't discredit "garbage collection".....it actually does a pretty good job.......you just need to give your PC lots of idle time to do it's thing.

  As far as fine tunning your SSD......"SSD Tweak" is a utility put together by an OCZ user that seem to be pretty handy....the download is free...is versatile and even has a one button "optimization" option......trim optimization is supported for a small unlock fee......about $10 us.....pretty fair really

 Don't want to overload you Randell so catch you later on....again if you have any question ....feel free.

 Aussie Allan