HOW TO: SATA III-SSD-RAID0-Windows Installation: Questions, Troubleshooting Thread

[Mr. Fox]

Where it could get messy (OS re-install) is if you re-installed the OS to the current SSD "after" changing from raid to ahci.

Yes, this is correct.

acerguy, you will have to try it and see. If Windows was installed with the BIOS in AHCI mode, switching from AHCI to RAID will usually BSOD because the AHCI drivers will not work with RAID. However, if the Intel RST RAID drivers are present and installed it might work. I'm skeptical, but it is worth trying. Some claim it has worked for them, but it never has for me. I think it may possibly work when the opposite is true; meaning Windows installed with BIOS in RAID with RST drivers installed may let you switch the BIOS to AHCI, but I have not confirmed this.

The key to doing creating a RAID successfully on an existing Windows installation is having the BIOS set to RAID without actually configuring a RAID array. If Windows is installed this way and Intel RST and Intel Control Center are installed, adding a second identical HDD or SSD you can create the RAID array from within Windows without having to reinstall the OS.

Most of this is covered in the posts above as Steve pointed out.

[Mr. Fox]

Updated information on setting up RAID0 is on the first post of this thread.

[johnksss]

My new setup. Raid 0

[Mr. Fox]

That's just SICK, John. I bet you can't blink fast enough with that level of read/write speed.

Are you planning to go with a data drive in the optical bay to allow for sufficient storage space?

[steviejones133]

Nice results, John! - what kinda figures do you get doing 3 or 5 test runs at 100mb with random fill? (only ask as sandforce based drives perform much better with highly compressible 0 fill data than non-sandforce....would be nice to see what you get with a random fill with slightly larger test size file.) Just wondering what you get from a "real-world" scenario dealing with compressible and incompressible data.

Other than that, those are some awesome figures - are they holding sata without drops? - you done any "tweaks" with 'em?

[johnksss]

That's just SICK, John. I bet you can't blink fast enough with that level of read/write speed.

Are you planning to go with a data drive in the optical bay to allow for sufficient storage space?

Thinking about that now. What i wonder is if that bay is sata 3 or just sata 2. Any ideas?

Nice results, John! - what kinda figures do you get doing 3 or 5 test runs at 100mb with random fill? (only ask as sandforce based drives perform much better with highly compressible 0 fill data than non-sandforce....would be nice to see what you get with a random fill with slightly larger test size file.) Just wondering what you get from a "real-world" scenario dealing with compressible and incompressible data.

Other than that, those are some awesome figures - are they holding sata without drops? - you done any "tweaks" with 'em?

Real world would be me loading games from the same drive (raid 0) and they load pretty quick. Real world transfer rate of the drives is at about 900 megs to 1 gig. (ran them in raid 0 with my agility raid 0 and moved files back and forth)
If you are asking if i disabled system restore...nope!
side note:
I looked around and didn't see any of these random runs from you or am i missing something?

[steviejones133]

I was just gobsmacked at 4k writes of almost 400 and queue depth 4k of over 600...wth? LOL

[johnksss]

Lets see what you got.

This is a nother easy to manipulate bench. Now i see why most have dropped it.

[Mr. Fox]

Thinking about that now. What i wonder is if that bay is sata 3 or just sata 2. Any ideas?

I'm not 100% positive. I think it is SATA 2, but I don't remember where I got that impression. For a mechanical HDD being used for data it probably would not matter a lot, but I would still like to know for sure.

I think the only reliable way to determine it would be to connect a SATA drive and look in the Intel RST utility to see what it shows.

[johnksss]

Hummm, i may try a sata 3 drive to find out. when i get ready to do it. I might just make a foam housing and put it in.