Some help setting up a RAID 0 with ICH10R on a UD3R ?

[vor73x]

Hello.
I got a X58A-UD3R rev 2, updated bios to Fh, 2 Corsair Force 3 SSD's, a Corsair Force 2, and two WD Hds.

I have setup the two Force 3 in RAID 0, using the marvel controller, and I was let down by its performance.
So after reading through sites on the net, I decided to use the ICH10R controller for setting up the RAID 0.
Unfortunatelly I cannot install windows 7, and this is becoming annoying.
I've followed to the letter the instructions found on the mobo manual.
I set the ICH10R to XHD ( RAID(XHD) ), then save and exit, CTRL + I, create new RAID 0 using the two SSDs.
The RAID is not visible under Debian Linux, but I am guessing this is due to luck of proper drivers.
In the Windows 7 installation ( my wish is to use the RAID to host Win 7 , leaving the Force 2 for Linux ),
although the logical volume of the ICH10R RAID is visible, windows 7 cannot install anything on it.
I have tried using the Gigabyte drivers that come with the CD iMSM 64 bit, at windows installation time, but it still fails.
I have also tried using the official Intel ICH10R drivers at installation time, but still fails.
I have even installed windows 7, using the same drives in RAID 0 on the marvell controller, and then moving them to the ICH10R and creating a new RAID, but it simply won't boot.
Is there something I am missing ?
Do I need to update the ICH10R firmware ( its 1.20 currently ).
I dont really like the performance I get on the marvell controller, those drives in theory are capable of 450MB/s read on Sata 6G, and I barely get 400MB/s on RAID 0 when using the Sata 6G. I've seen people post results of up to or more than 600MB/S using those drives on ICH10R.

Please let me know if anyone can help, or if you want more info.
Thank you

[Aussie Allan]

  Welcome vor73x

  Marvell is indeed crap on this board.....only good for Optical or Friday's fish-n-Chips

  Disable XHD but the one underneath in BIOS, Raid/xhd to enable......yes it is confusing......put your optical on the Marvell in IDE and everything else to ACHI and have another go with your SSDs on the ICH10R 0-1 or 1-2 .... you should have no troubles after that .... although!

  are you running 1.2 or 1.3 firm on the SSDs ... there's been some report of raid0 failing with 1.2 and 1.3 seem to have fixed it as long as the drives are in fact goodies..... if done well .... 600Mb/s a second .... you might get there....... or you may want to look at a bootable SataIII PCI-E raid card .... some reports on the net are getting up to 1000Mb/s (1Tb/s) with a pair of these drives

  Aussie Allan

[vor73x]

Hey Aussie Allan.

Thanks for the reply.
You are absolutely right.
I moved my DVDROM and WD HDs to the marvell and Jmicron controller
and left the SSD's on the ICH10R.

I also had to disconnect all the drives apart from the SSDs in the RAID to make windows 7 install, and also move the RAID drives to the
first two ports (somehow the port 4 & 5 dont like RAID).
After installing I left the SSDs  (both RAID and single) on the ICH10R, and connected everything else to the GSata (6,7,8,9)

I am using the Intel 1.20 driver, tried looking around for a newer version but could not find. Will keep looking cuz I've heard people getting better results with newer driver.
ATM I am getting on average 500MB/s Write and 570-580MBs read on the Raid. Which is much better than the 350MB/s on the marvell, yet too little to what the actual potential of those drives is (around 900-1000MB/s)

Thank you for the help though, much appreciated !

[Aussie Allan]

  Cool!....good news

  You need to read this to be on the safe side re your SSD model ............http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=95688.........

  And the updated firmware............. http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97417 ..........

 
  If your interested in another 3 or 400Mb/s....bar changing your board ... a tried and tested solution is the HighPoint RocketRaid 640 PCI-E card, Bootable, JBOD, and all the Raid profiles you'd ever need .... don't look at the 620 as it has only one raid controller not two .... put 1 SSD per controller and watch them fly

  Aussie Allan