SATA RAID issues - Single SSD for Boot, Striped disks for Data. DFI LanParty P35 T2RS

[guinn]

Hi,

I've finally joined the SSD club and bought an OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD and having problems installing Windows to it.

Plan is to use the Vertex as my boot drive (Windows 7 Ultimate x64), 2x320GB SATA in a RAID-0 for data. Also have an external drive for backup of important stuff.

The motherboard is a DFI LanParty DK P35 T2SR (Intel ICH9R) with 6 SATA channels and lets me choose IDE, RAID and AHCI in the BIOS.

If I select IDE then all 3 drives show correctly. I don't want IDE though.

If I select RAID then the BIOS only shows the two 320GB disks. If I run up the Win7 install disk it shows all 3 drives but wont let me install to the SSD (says that the drive cannot be set to boot from). In the Intel Storage Manager it shows all 3 disks briefly just after the POST but then if I go into the config (Ctrl-I) then the SSD isn't visable anymore.

If I select AHCI then all 3 drives show correctly. Again, prefer to stripe the data though.


So, anyone seen similar before? The SSD certainly seems alright, I can install an OS to it in IDE or AHCI mode and everything is nice and snappy etc. but for some reason it's not there in RAID. I can put the ICH9R drivers on a key and load them during Windows 7 setup but it doesn't change anything.

Any ideas very much welcome.

Cheers

(As an aside - is Windows 7 software striping significantly slower than ICH9R?)

[Terbinator]

Are all drives plugged into SATA ports which run off the ICH9R ?

[alsenior]

try setting the ssd to a 1 disk jbod in the raid setup

[ehhhhhhh]

2x320GB SATA in a RAID-0 for data.

/off

I don't want to be patronising, but are you sure you want to keep your precious data on a striped volume?

even if you back it up to an external drive it sounds too risky for me.

I'm saying this because my friend recently lost quite a lot of work because of this. and he had a "time machine" like backup system set up (saving changes in every 2 hours).

[StevenBE]

I noticed the same issue - with common factor the ICH9R.
After joining the SSD-club with a Corsair Force F60, this disk is not visible in BIOS setup screens.

My PC is ACER M5620 with GT33 chipset and ICH9R. Thanks to ACER (...) the SATA mode is fixed to RAID in the AMI BIOS setup.
I can perfectly use the SSD as non-boot disk in Vista and XP OS.

Apparently the ICH9R device driver can manage the SSD, while the ICH9R ROM cannot.
As I can only select RAID mode in BIOS setup, I won't be able to use the SSD as boot disk...

[GoNz0]

if you setup the raid array for the raid 0 drives then swap to ahci windows should still see the raid 0 array when you install the intel software, had to do that myself a few years ago.

[StevenBE]

I fixed my PC's problem by inserting ICH9R Option ROM v8.9.0.1023 into ACER ami BIOS v R01-B2 using mmtool.
This made my SSD visible in BIOS setup or boot disk menu.

[GoNz0]

I fixed my PC's problem by inserting ICH9R Option ROM v8.9.0.1023 into ACER ami BIOS v R01-B2 using mmtool.
This made my SSD visible in BIOS setup or boot disk menu.

i bet your butt cheeks were clenched when you updated to the hacked BIOS

i tinker with mine but i have the luxury of 2 BIOS chips on my board so there is always a way out

[watercooled]

Dual-BIOS does make you more relaxed when you're updating.
The Intel board in my server has an interesting feature, you can move a jumper to put the board into recovery mode so it will load a BIOS file from a flash drive even if the BIOS is corrupted.

[GoNz0]

yeh the asus do that if its fubar, "most of the time"

[peterb]

/off

I don't want to be patronising, but are you sure you want to keep your precious data on a striped volume?

even if you back it up to an external drive it sounds too risky for me.

I'm saying this because my friend recently lost quite a lot of work because of this. and he had a "time machine" like backup system set up (saving changes in every 2 hours).

I'd agree with this. Unless you are doing something with intensive read/write like a database, there really isn't much point in striping to RAID0 - and in some cases write performance can be worse than to a single disk.

Personally I would be using the two disks as a logical volume or just using them for different types of data - but in either case, ensure you have a good backup strategy.

[ChaosSystem]

Set the BIOS to AHCI, install Win 7 on the SSD and then use Win 7 to create your RAID 0 on the 320Gb.
There is no speed difference between using the SoftRaid. Setting RAID in the BIOS allows the OS to see the RAID on boot but it would still require drivers to use it.
In theory (if you were using more advanced RAID level) it would be easier to recover, troubleshoot and maintain a Windows RAID - think about trying to replace a faulty Raid controller.

I would only use RAID 0 to play around with, not to store information. Possiblity of slight speed increase with twice the risk of hdd failures.