Author: eComposer
Subject: RAID Setup Menu
Posted: 31 Dec 2016 at 6:47pm
Subject: RAID Setup Menu
Posted: 31 Dec 2016 at 6:47pm
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  parsec wrote:No idea which UEFI/BIOS version you have in your board, although they should all work. New versions are better, you should use the latest version. With earlier UEFI versions, any time you cleared the UEFI/BIOS, the RAID 0 array of PCIe NVMe SSDs would be lost, as I learned the hard way. That has been fixed since then, as well as a new Intel IRST Option ROM added. Install the two 960 EVOs. Since the M.2 slots share resources with the SATA ports, be sure you don't have any SATA drives in the SATA ports that are shared with the M.2 slots. Also, as in ANY Windows installation, do NOT have any other drives connected (powered up) to the PC. Since I don't know what options you set in the UEFI, clear it with the clear CMOS jumper on the board. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! Go into the UEFI/BIOS, and go to the Storage Configuration screen. Set the SATA Mode Selection to RAID. You MUST MAINTAIN this setting at all times! If you have an earlier UEFI version, at this point you must Save and Exit the UEFI, and go right back in again to continue. If you have a later UEFI version, the options I'll discuss now may already be shown, but if not, Save and Exit the UEFI and go right back in again to the Storage Configuration screen. Don't skip the Save and Exit, you'll be sorry if you do. Find the Launch Storage OpROM Policy option, set it to UEFI Only. If you don't find the Launch Storage OpROM Policy option in Storage Configuration, you'll need to go to the Boot screen, find the CSM option at the very bottom, and set the Launch Storage OpROM Policy option to UEFI Only. You should find two options, called PCIe Remapping, one for each SSD in the M.2 slots that you want to use for the RAID array. Set both of those options to Enabled. Once again, Save and Exit the UEFI, and go right back in again. Go to the Advanced screen, and at the bottom you should find an entry for Intel Rapid Storage Technology. Use that to create the RAID 0 array. I assume you know how to do that. Be sure to choose the 128K stripe size for the RAID 0 array, since that will give you the best performance. Finally done with creating the RAID 0 array. If you don't follow this procedure, you won't have a working RAID 0 array of your 960 EVOs. Next, what IRST driver are you loading during the Windows 10 installation? Only one is correct, which is the SATA Floppy Image ver:15.2.0.1020 driver on your board's download page. Why they still use that terminology, floppy, I don't know but that is the driver file you need. Of course you must unzip the download file, and copy the f6flpy-x64 folder to a USB flash drive. During the Win 10 installation, connect both USB flash drives to USB ports on the board's IO panel ONLY. Also, do NOT REMOVE either USB flash drive from the PC until your Windows 10 installation completely boots to the Desktop for the first time. Another detail, about your Win 10 installation USB flash drive. In the boot order in the UEFI, you MUST select the entry for the USB flash drive that is, "UEFI: <flash drive name>". That is a required step. Be sure that entry is selected as first in the boot order, and Save and Exit to start the Win 10 installation. You seem to know how the Win 10 installation goes, choosing Custom, where you won't see the RAID 0 array until after you load the driver from the f6flpy-x64 folder on the second USB flash drive. If the RAID 0 array does not appear after loading the driver, something was not done correctly. Not quite done yet. Back from the Load Driver screen, with the RAID 0 array now shown, you must format it. Find the New button, click it, which will display a message about creating multiple partitions, just click Ok, and it should format it correctly. Continue with the installation from there. That's it. Performance of a storage device is not shown in one speed spec. For example, the 960 EVO "sequential read" speed is ~3,200MBs, but that is only for large files, over 128KB, and varies depending upon the size of the file. No SSD reads all data/files at 3,200MBs, or its maximum sequential read speed spec. Small 4KB - 16KB files will be read at ~55MB/s, which is called the "4K Random Read" speed. That is normal for any drive, the small file read speed is much lower. One side affect of a RAID 0 array is some loss of the 4K read speed performance, not a lot but it will be at ~50MB/s instead of ~55MB/s. That is normal and happens with any type of drive in a RAID 0 array. Loading/booting an OS involves reading many |
Thanks Parsec,
Interestingly I had followed all the steps listed above (except I used 64kb strip per Tweaktown, and did not clear the CMOS).
I'm not sure what is going wrong, it just won't give the RAID 0 array as an option to install Windows to...
From what you're saying though, RAID 0 has performance penalties to just using a single SSD.
I'm mixing music with multiple channels (often 50+ depending on using "stems"), and each has multiple plugins running (including many high end emulations and samples etc, effects, amp simulators, console emulations etc etc), and I/O is key to avoid drop outs, distortion and other issues detracting from the real time audio output.
Would you suggest just using a single Pcie 3 x4 SSD as the boot drive vs RAID 0, as I/O is the objective here to support the best mixing conditions I can achieve? (Essentially looking for the best streaming config available).
I thought the specs for RAID 0 using the M 2 Pcie 3 x4 slots leveraging NVMe via the ASRock Z170 Extreme 7+ was supposed to deliver the best I/O, but your comment seems to indicate the reverse (that is non RAID vs RAID 0).
FYI: I'm using the Thunderbolt 2 ASRock card with a high end Thunderbolt audio interface to minimize latency etc (especially when recording multiple tracks "real time" and monitoring vs mixing).
RAID 0 or not RAID? - This would be helpful to know since I've held off a full update to build a new config from scratch aiming to reinstall everything on RAID 0 (and have frequent backup capabilities set up to guard against RAID 0 failure). Maybe avoiding RAID 0 is the better option then?