Building RAID 1 (mirroring) array on AORUS GA-Z270X-GAMING 7

[milleniumaire]

Iv'e just built a new machine which contains a single Samsung 960 EVO M.2 storage drive connected to 32P_M2G.  This is showing as port 0 in Windows Disk Management utility.  I've installed Windows 10 onto this drive.  I also have a bluray DVD writer connected to SATA connector 0.  Everything works perfectly.

Now I want to transfer a couple of Seagate Barracuda 500GB hard drives from my old PC to the new setup.  These drives store all my data and are setup in a RAID 1 array, so I have 500GB of storage, backed up on the other drive.  I want to replicate this in my new setup.

Here's what I did, following the instructions in the motherboard manual:
- Connected the two hard drives to SATA connectors 1 and 2 on the motherboard.
- In the BIOS, changed the SATA mode to "Intel RST Premium With Intel Optane System Acceleration".
- Rebooted
At this point, during the reboot, I noticed the 2 drives were listed and the option to press CTRL-I to enter the RAID configuration utility was displayed.  Unfortunately, I didn't choose this as I wanted to use the EZRAID utility and the system booted into Windows.

- I re-entered BIOS and selected EZ RAID.  This is where it all went wrong, so not so Easy after all!  When trying to use the utility it put up a message saying I didn't have enough drives to create a RAID and wouldn't go any further.  When I exited BIOS I got a message saying it couldn't find a bootable disk (or some such message).  I am unable to get passed this message.

If I change the SATA mode back to AHCI it will boot into Windows, but whenever it's set to "Intel RST Premium With Intel Optane System Acceleration" it displays the message saying it can't find an OS to boot.

I really, really wish I had just pressed CTRL+I to get into the configuration manager and not decided to use the not so EZ RAID utility.

I suspect this has something to do with having a mix of M.2 storage, from which the OS needs to boot and SATA drives.

I would appreciate any assistance on being able to move forward and create the RAID 1 for the two Seagate drives while still booting from the M.2 Samsung drive.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
Maybe this will help. 

RAID is a great tool that can provide both performance and resilience to a system. What you get depends on the RAID level you select as well as the hardware.  RAID should never be an excuse not to perform regular back ups of your system or its data.

RAID controllers are not created equally.  Some offer basic functionality and require management.  Others are extremely robust and automate many tasks.  In some cases this is complimented by utilities running under the host OS.  In most cases, it is not recommended that you move disk arrays between dissimilar hardware (controllers) as each can have different requirements, specifications, drivers, etc. that does not allow interchangeability.

The primary issue affecting your installation is the controller operate mode.  RAID vs. AHCI.  They are similar, but the RAID operate mode offers hybrid functionality beyond standard AHCI capabilities.  Operating systems (Windows, MAC, Linux) do not respond favorably when you change the operate mode of the controller after the OS has been installed.  This is part of the design by Intel (this case) which basically tells the hardware how it will interact with the OS, and facilitates the "bridge" between the two.  Second issue.  Windows versions since Vista disable drivers as well as other controller operate modes in the registry that are not being used by the OS.  Google is helpful if you want more information.  Not sure what your experience level is? 

Do you have a back up of your array data?  If not, I would reconnect the disks to your old system/controller and back up your data.  The array mirror will be broken and operating in a degraded state, but one of the disks can probably be read.  You didn't say what hardware you were migrating from, but the recommended migration procedure here is to recreate the array on the new hardware and restore your data from back up.  500GB is small and can be done in a couple of hours.

Risk to your data and the problem you encountered.  The risk would have been the same even if you had used the ctrl+I (RAID Config Utility).  Here's why.  When you move disks between computers, their capacity and formatting can be addressed and/or interpreted differently.  Further, the version of the RAID Utility as well as the hardware could be different.  This is less of an issue today that it was years ago, but its not worth risking your data to find out.

Changing the operate mode of the controller (after install) is also possible, but the integrity of the OS (specifically the storage controller interface) cannot be guaranteed.  You'd be better off biting the bullet (a little pain) and reinstalling the OS to your m.2 with the correct operate mode and drivers.  I'm not telling you to do this, its just what I would do.  You could then move the disks to the new system, create the RAID (ctrl+I) and restore your data from back up.     

[milleniumaire]

Hi shadowsports,

Thanks for taking the time to post some information against my question.

I had already done some research and also got some feedback from Gigabyte Technical Support and came to the conclusion that I would need to re-install Windows 10 after first setting the SATA mode to RAID.  This was based on my inability to to get both the M.2 drive to work at the same time as RAID.  For example, the SATA mode was set to ACHI by default and while in this mode I could boot into Windows 10, installed on the M.2 drive.  If I changed the SATA mode to RAID (Intel RST Premium With Intel Optane System Acceleration) the PC wouldn't boot as the OS couldn't be found, presumably because it wasn't recognising the M.2 drive (for some reason).  Now, this behaviour only started after I tried using EZ RAID in the BIOS.  As I explained, the very first time I changed the SATA mode to RAID I was presented with the option to press ctrl I to enter the configuration utility when the machine was rebooted, however, I chose not to use this as I wanted to use EZ RAID.  Big mistake!

Tonight, just before I trashed the Windows 10 install on the M.2 and set the SATA mode to RAID, I decided to try resetting the BIOS to factory defaults.  After doing this, I set the SATA mode to RAID and, hey presto, I got the "Press ctrl + I to enter the configuration utility" option displayed on boot.  This time I followed the prompt and was able create a RAID 1 array on the two Seagate HDD's.  The utility did recognise that these two drives had been part of a RAID 1 array, however I had to delete it and then re-create it.  Not a problem as I have backup images of all my drives/partitions.  On starting Windows, this allowed me to format and partition the new drive.

So, it appears I have acheived what I wanted, however, based on your original response and on the insistence by Gigabyte Technical Support that this was NOT possible without first setting the SATA mode to RAID and THEN installing the OS, I'm a little confused and concerned about exactly what I have!

Am I getting the best performance from the M.2 drive?  Why is it working, when Gigabyte TS said it wouldn't?  Is it likely to cause problems down the line?  I believe you alluded to this in your post.

[shadowsports]

Thanks for your reply.  Support for storage devices continues to evolve.  The storage controller driver has slightly different .inf files that the OS uses depending on the operate mode you set in BIOS.  Typically when you change the mode after install, the OS does not have the driver, the OS is expecting to interface "communicate" with the hardware.  To ensure integrity and performance the recommended procedure is a re-install.   

When windows 10 was first released, you could usually change the operate mode in BIOS and start in SAFE mode, then provide the new driver for the OS to achieve support and maximum performance from the storage interface.  This also allowed people to migrate their installs and add the RAID option to single SATA disk installs.  Windows 10 now includes native support for almost every mainstream storage controller in use now.  Good for us  .  Makes life so much easier. 

NVMe support is now implemented at the BIOS level.  This is superior to the way old way the storage interface had been managed between BIOS and OS previously.  I see you experienced the issue I mentioned regarding migration of your existing array from the old system.  Also glad you have back ups of your data.

Next steps.  Use Samsung Magician software to benchmark your m.2 performance.  Max theoretical is  read 3200 / write 1900.  If you are near these benchmarks, you have migrated successfully.  If not, you can try a reinstalling / using same or different storage controller drivers, or reinstall the OS. 

[milleniumaire]

Hi shadowsports,

What are your thoughts on using UEFI rather than legacy BIOS for Windows 10?  If I decide to start again, I may switch to this although there seem to be a number of BIOS settings that affect UEFI and at this stage I'm not sure what they should be set to.

I'm also concerned about the possible implications of trying to restore my data backup images, which were taken on a Windows 10 install that wasn't using UEFI! 

My understanding is that UEFI creates partions in GPT format rather than MBR, which is the format used by the legacy BIOS. 

I use Acronis Backup.  I guess it would need to be able to convert an MBR image to GPT during the restore process.

[shadowsports]

Answering this last post in PM.

[milleniumaire]

Hmm, running Samsung Magician against my 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD reports the following:

Sequencial reads: 2,335
Sequencial writes: 1,363
Random reads: 395,709
Random writes: 206,858

Those sequencial reads and writes seem quite low compared to the documented 3200 and 1900, which makes me wonder if there is an issue with the setup.  I ran the optimisation settings in the magician and this simply reduce the figures rather than improving them, which was a bit of a surprise!

[shadowsports]

I agree, they seem to be a bit low.  This is my reason for recommending a clean install of the OS.  You might be able to play with it, change or reinstall the drivers.  Depends on how much time you want to spend messing with it.

[milleniumaire]

I realised I only had the Microsoft driver installed, so I downloaded and installed the Samsung driver and this has improved the speeds a little:

Sequencial reads: 2,732
Sequencial writes: 1,366
Random reads: 399,373
Random writes: 227,038

Obviously, still not close to the documented speeds, but I wonder if they are really acheivable in the real world.

[shadowsports]

I don't do a lot of benchmarking myself...  but I just downloaded CrystalDiskMark to run on a few of my machines.  It lets you change from 50MB to 4k file sizes for testing.  I don't know what Samsung (and other disk manufacturers) use for benchmarking, but it might not be representative of 'real world" use cases.  You should probably research, I don't keep up with this. 

An old Yoga2 Pro  (LoL)  Seems to be in line with what others are seeing.

http://www.disctech.com/Samsung-MZMTE512HMHP-512GB-SATA-Gen3-mSATA-SSD