[dbmsts]

My specs are in my sig.

Yesterday I bought the 850 pro 512gb to act as my boot drive. Previously I was using an EVO as my OS boot drive. I cloned the drive successfully and Windows booted without any problems. I overclocked the CPU to 4.8GHz at 1.28v and ran stability test (x264 available on this forum) overnight without any problem. Now I have 2 Samsung EVO 500GB SSDs which I want to RAID 0 and use as a single drive (NOT FOR OS/BOOT). I followed the instructions given in the latest manual of the gigabyte Z270x gaming 7 rev 1.0 motherboard to RAID the two SSDs. At the end of the procedure the RAID array was there but the PC would go into BIOS at boot. There were no boot devices or Harddrive BBS priority options available or even the Boot override options. However in the SATA device configurations all 4 drives were being detected.

It seems that when in BIOS section, I select win 8/10 features to win 8/10 instead of other OS and disable CSM support, after saving and exiting the PC boots into the BIOS and no boot drives are available. This step was part of the procedure described in Chapter 3 of the manual in order to create a RAID array. However even after reverting the win 8/10 features to other OS, saving, exiting and reentering BIOS, there are no boot drives.

Fortunately, I had saved a profile after my OC stability test and loading it brought back the boot options. On booting, everything ran perfectly except for the Intel RST managment software which was giving errors that no drives were connected to 2 of the ports. I went into disk management of Win 10 and the RAID array was there and I could allocate/initialize it. But I was not satisfied. I wanted a hardware RAID. Also in the BIOS the Intel Rapid Storage option wasn't visible in the PERIPHERALS section so I could not delete the RAID array.

Going back into the BIOS, I had to select win 8/10 features In the BIOS section, SATA mode to Intel RST premium with Optane...... in the PERIPHERALS section, save/exit and then I could see the Intel RST option visible. I entered it and deleted the RAID array. Then I loaded my previous profile in order to get the Boot devices to show. So I'm back to square one.

How do I raid my 2 Samsung 850 EVO 500gb SSDs in RAID 0 while keep the 850 pro as my boot drive on this mobo? Help would be appreciated. BIOS, drivers are all upto date when I checked in the morning. Also would a software RAID be advisable in this scenario?

 

[gonX]

I would try running a system repair using the Windows installation disc with RAID enabled. It is likely you'll need the RAID drivers for the installation to detect your drives to begin with - these are usually provided with the included driver CD for the motherboard.

 

[dbmsts]

With RAID enabled in the SATA controller mode, I can't boot into windows, the PC starts and automatically goes into BIOS.

 

[gonX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbmsts

With RAID enabled in the SATA controller mode, I can't boot into windows, the PC starts and automatically goes into BIOS.

Use whatever media - CD or USB - you used to install Windows onto the PC. Before the very first step of "Install Now" during the setup, there is a "Repair your computer" button in the lower left:


This should restore your boot configuration. If it doesn't detect your drives, plop in the driver CD or find the Intel RAID drivers for your chipset and put them on a relevant stick, and load them using the guidelines proposed by the setup utility.

 

[dbmsts]

Alright

 

[dbmsts]

I tried the start up repair from my Windows media creation tool USB (in normal AHCI mode) and it says that it can't repair it. In the windows disk manager I can see both the EVOs and I can allocate and unallocate without any problem. I even did a full format of both the drives. It's about the BIOS. When I set the SATA controller to Intel RST Premium then I can boot only into the BIOS (no drives). When I set it back to AHCI, save and exit I can then reenter BIOS and select my desired boot device.

I have updated the Intel RST software from Gigabyte's website. There were some preinstall AHCI/RAID drivers which are supposed to be read from a USB drive by the Windows setup but I don't know how to install them. I can simply copy them to my Windows MCT USB but I suspect there's more to it and I've googled all day but now I've given up.

 

[dbmsts]

I finally did a software RAID using windows storage spaces. It wrongly detected one of the EVOs as the pro but the capacity was correct and it works.

 

[gonX]

Windows' Software RAID isn't too far off in performance from Intel's RST, so no worries there. My previous experienced with Intel RAID has been so unpleasant that it's probably for the better.

 

[dbmsts]

Good news! I finally did it!

I deleted my software raid, enabled RAID mode in bios and also enabled legacy OROM for Intel RST. Without the latter option enabled the PC boots into the raid array and you can't change it. In the absence of a RAID array it will boot into BIOS. So I tried and tested this a couple of times and legacy Optional ROM feature for RST allowed me to choose my 850 pro whenever I made any change to the RAID settings (doing that reverts the boot device priorities to the RAID array). I created a physical RAID 0 array and chose to boot with the PRO and all was fine except for the Intel RST management software which wouldn't run. I fixed that by installed the latest version from Gigabyte's support page. It gave me an option to repair the previous version of the software. So now everything seems to be working fine. I had to go into disk management for the windows to recognize the RAID array.