Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => Topic started by: Iron on September 15, 2010, 06:54:16 am
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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
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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
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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... :(
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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.
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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 !
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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
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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 !
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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.