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Triple M.2 RAID setup

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eric_x View Drop Down
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    Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 12:33am
Hello,

I have the x299 Professional Gaming i9 and I am trying to setup a triple m.2 RAID. Following the ASRock video, I am able to get two of the 3 m.2 drives showing up as available for RAID but cannot get the third one. It is not selectable for remapping but shows up as a boot device. I have tried swapping drives and updating firmware but it is still not recognized. Is this a BIOS problem or does something else need to be setup?

Here are screenshots of the BIOS:



Edited by eric_x - 15 Jul 2017 at 12:35am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote eric_x Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 3:25am
According to support you can't use M.2_1 in a RAID. They should probably not advertise the feature on the product page: http://www.asrock.com/microsite/IntelX299/index.us.asp and add a note somewhere that M.2_1 will not work in RAID.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote clubfoot Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 4:13am
Please see page 13 of your RAID Installation Guide. I would also remove the none m.2 Samsung drive you have connected until you have your RAID properly configured and Os installed.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote eric_x Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 5:59am
Page 13 of the manual shows what it should look like with all 3 m.2 drives in RAID but they must have taken that screenshot with another motherboard since it does not work on this one. With the sata drives removed it still will not show up for remapping.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote clubfoot Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 7:45am
Yes it looks like my motherboard :(
The way I do it is:
F9 factory defaults,...reboot
Check to see that all three m.2s are properly detected.
Select RAID, UEFI only,....reboot
Back to same screen enable all three m.2s,...reboot
Enter Intel RAID Storage, select all three, stripe 64k, create. Reboot

In your second screenshot it looks like all three drives are detected, but in your RAID selection screen only two are visible which is why I suggested removing all other Intel port attached drives. What are your other RAID type choices beside Intel RST Premium?


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote eric_x Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 9:02am
The only other option is AHCI. In the Advanced menu there is an option for Intel VROC but that doesn't work with chipset m.2 drives. It seems weird to me that they had the feature on z270 boards but not x299, I'll have to see if there is another motherboard option with properly implemented triple m.2 slots.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote clubfoot Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 9:14am
3-WAY RAID 0 works on my board so I know it's possible. Wondering if it's cpu lanes related on the x299?!

Maybe parsec will drop by as he is the resident drive expert :)

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 9:56am
Originally posted by eric_x eric_x wrote:

According to support you can't use M.2_1 in a RAID. They should probably not advertise the feature on the product pagehttp://www.asrock.com/microsite/IntelX299/index.us.asp and add a note somewhere that M.2_1 will not work in RAID.


It looks like this is correct, sorry to say.

You should (must) have a PCIe Storage Remapping option for each of the M.2 slots that supports a PCIe NVMe SSD. You only have two Remapping options, as you know.

As an example, I have an ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 board. It has two M.2 slots that support PCIe NVMe SSDs, but it also has a PCIe slot (PCIE6) that is connected to the Z270 chipset, and can be used with PCIe NVMe SSDs.

I configure the UEFI for NVMe RAID on the Z270 board like this:

With the "SATA" mode set to RAID (Intel RST Premium...) and Launch Storage OpROM Policy set to UEFI Only (actually I set the CSM option to Disabled, which is the equivalent), after a restart of the PC I get three PCIe Storage Remapping options, two for the M.2 slots, and one for the PCIE6 slot. The three PCIe Remapping options are shown whether or not I have an NVMe SSD in each of the three PCIe NMVe interfaces. The rest is just creating the RAID array. I'm assuming that situation would be the same for your board, if the M2_1 slot could be used in a RAID array.

I use an M.2 to PCIe slot adapter card, with an NVMe SSD in it, connected to the PCIE6 slot. I'm able to create a three SSD NVMe RAID array with this configuration.

Sorry for the long description, but my point is for some reason you don't get the PCIe Remapping option for the M2_1 slot. There apparently is a resource limitation that is not allowing the m2_1 slot to be included in an NVMe RAID array. I don't know whether or not that is a UEFI bug.

It seems odd to me that it is possible to do a three drive NVMe SSD RAID array on a Z170 and Z270 chipset board, but not on an X299 chipset board. A major difference the two 'Z' chipsets have over previous chipsets is they provide the resources for the M.2 slots, instead of using the PCIe lanes from the CPU for the M.2 slots. The X299 chipset should have at least as many similar resources as these 'Z' chipsets, unless Intel changed that. On those 'Z' chipsets, you lose two SATA III ports for every M.2 slot in use. That only happens on the X299 chipset if the M.2 SSD is a SATA type drive, and then only one SATA port is lost.

I have not studied the Virtual RAID on CPU header (VROC) feature that is unique to X299. I'm sorry the RAID manual shows a three SSD array example when that is not possible on your board, and that it is shown as a feature in the board's Overview. I'll look into this but I cannot promise anything.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote eric_x Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 10:00am
Thanks for the detailed description.

If I get a PCIe card for one m.2 SSD will it show up for remapping?

Also, here are benchmarks of the dual vs single drive. It seems odd that the read speeds are so similar but there must be a bottleneck somewhere. I haven't overclocked the CPU yet.



Edited by eric_x - 15 Jul 2017 at 10:08am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2017 at 11:17am
An M.2 to PCIe slot adapter will NOT cause a PCIe Remapping option to appear with your X299 board.

My Z270 Gaming K6 board is rather unique in that the PCIE6 slot is connected to the Z270 chipset, rather than the PCIe lanes provided by the CPU. The Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) RAID software that supports NVMe or SATA RAID only works with drives connected to the chipset (X299, Z170, Z270), not with any drives connected to the CPU PCIe lanes via the PCIe slots that are normally connected to CPU, as all the PCIe slots on your board are.

I checked VROC, and without going into the details, forget it.

Your RAID array is just a test array now, no OS on it, right?

About your RAID array performance:

What RAID 0 stripe size did you use? The default 16K stripe will not give you high large file sequential read speeds. But it looks like your small file, 4KB and smaller file performance is much worse than the single SSD, which could mean a large stripe size. But we don't know what your caching mode is set to yet.

Do you have the IRST Windows utility program installed? If so, did you configure the caching on your RAID 0 array? Given your benchmark results, it doesn't look like you did.

This is an example of setting the caching mode with really any Intel RAID 0 array, NVMe or SATA. This is a screenshot of the IRST Windows program. Please ignore my strange RAID 0 array for now Wink :



You first disable Windows write-cache buffer flushing, and then select Write back as the Cache mode. Trust me on this to improve your read speed.

There are other tweaks too, such as disabling any DMI ASPM support, and PCH DMI ASPM support in the UEFI, Chipset Configuration screen. There are others too, but I don't want to get too complicated.

Now some NVMe RAID 0 102 material, that we have learned from experience (right clubfoot?)

RAID 0 performance scaling for NVMe SSDs is not at all what we see with SATA SSDs. Meaning you will not get twice the read speeds with most benchmarks with two NVMe SSDs in RAID 0. Write speed will increase well to a point, but forget simply doubling or tripling the performance of a single 960 EVO, that will not happen. The performance increase from two to three NVMe SSDs is even less than going from one to two NMVe SSDs.

We've also begun to question the ability of the benchmarks to correctly measure the performance of these NVMe SSD RAID 0 arrays. We can get better results by increasing the number of threads being run during the test, in Crystal DiskMark for example.

So let us know where you are at with all of the above.








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