RAID Setup Menu

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 TwymanD wrote:

Thank eComposer.  I can see in the video, the menu I am missing in my BIOS options... sucks.  I feel ASRock just needs to do a firmware update for the x99 Taichi.  I built my entire computer around this motherboard.  First I had to send back the i7 6800 due to it not having 40 lanes, meaning it could not even see both PCIe NVMe SSDs.  Now that I have the i7 6850, I find out I cant even RAID it. FML, I am now forced to decide;
1. Send the ASRock x99 Taichi Motherboard and i7-6850 LGA2011 CPU back, and reorder (AGAIN)
2. See if I can get ASRock to update the firmware to enable the m.2 slots to RAID0
3. Figure out if a software RAID is an option.
4. Live with it, which sucks the most.  As I paid for high performance rig. Just knowing my two m.2's aren't in RAID0 will fester and build in my mind as hatred for this situation and ASRock/Newegg.

Sorry to say, we can't do anything we'd like to do on every PC platform. Particularly with very new types of hardware like NVMe SSDs. We cannot ignore the details of the hardware specifications, like the number of PCIe lanes available or the features the chipset provides and supports. If we don't closely check every detail of a board's specifications, and the specs of the processors we can use, we are at fault if the hardware does not provide the features we want.

The features a board supports is not controlled by a mother board manufacture. All features are provided by the CPU and chipset used in a board and any required software, by the manufacture of the CPU and chipset. That is Intel in this case. A mother board manufacture cannot change any features and limitations of the CPU and chipset. Mother board manufactures do not write the OS drivers or Option ROMs included in a board's firmware, that is strictly done by the CPU and chipset manufacture. Assuming anything about these things is a mistake. Hating ASRock and Newegg for that does not make sense.

The ONLY chance, which I highly doubt is even possible, is if Intel, and ONLY Intel, found a way to provide IRST RAID 0 for PCIe NVMe SSDs on the X99 chipset. Given the differences between the X99 and Z170 chipsets, that will never happen IMO. I suggest you don't hope or plan on that happening.

The Z170 and other Intel 100 series chipsets that support RAID are the first and ONLY systems that can use PCIe NVMe SSDs in IRST RAID. NVMe is a new and different storage protocol than SATA, using its own driver and storage controllers that are part of the SSD itself. SATA controllers are part of the board's chipset, and are not part of a SATA drive. How Intel managed to get their IRST RAID driver to work with NVMe SSDs is a miracle, but there is much more involved than that software.

Don't expect a different mother board manufacture to provide RAID with PCIe NVMe SSDs on their X99 boards, they can't. If the hardware/chipset does not provide that feature, it cannot be added later.

Sorry to say, software RAID in Windows is normally not an option. I have NO IDEA if the following would work, but you could try to clone an existing OS installation onto a Windows software RAID array. But if that worked we'd know about it now, and I've never heard that it does.

Have you ever used a RAID 0 array of SATA SSDs? I have many times, and I've had a RAID 0 array of 950 Pros. Why people think that RAID 0 will be a magical, super speed result, I don't understand. In reality, it isn't. IF you are working with very large, 100MB - 1GB+ files and folders all the time, then a RAID 0 array can read and write them in half the time of a single drive. Otherwise, for booting an OS, there is no difference in speed. Plus the way the Intel IRST driver works with PCIe NVMe SSDs now, you will NOT get twice the large file sequential read speed. The best we saw with two 950 Pros was about 3,200MBs. I don't expect the new 960 SSDs will do any better, again limited by the RAID software for some reason.