Setting up 1 SSD on AHCI (w/ OS) with 2 (new) HDD on RAID 0

dwgsuperman · Jun 26, 2013

Hi Guys,
So I asked a similar question earlier but realized I didn't prove enough information to get the answer/guidance that I was looking for. So I've recently built me a new computer with the following specs:

Windows 8 64 bit
Gigabyte z77 1155
Intel Core i5-3570k
8 gb Corsair Ram @ 1600mhz
EVGA GTX 660 Ti
Samsung 128gb SSD
2 WD Blue 750 GB, 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache (drives in question)

Currently, I have my OS and all files installed on the SSD and have just purchased these 2 new HDDs with the hopes of running them RAID 0 for gaming purposes.

From the last post I made, I understand that it is possible, particularly with the newer intel 7 boards like I have, to run my SSD on AHCI and these two HDDs on RAID 0 without having to re-install my OS on the SSD.

Essentially I've never done anything like this before and have been messing around in the BIOS trying to switch the SATA Mode to RAID, as well as entering the (CRTL+I) RAID menu that's enabled with that. I created a RAID 0 volume with the 2 HDDs in that menu but when I try to boot (still in SATA mode RAID) Windows is giving a generic error and suggesting I restore (didn't help). Switching it back to AHCI mode (without removing the RAID 0 partitions) and expectedly, Windows boots fine but the RAID 0 drives are not recognized.

Ideally I'm hoping for a step by step on how to get this running properly and would really appreciate any help you guys could provide. Again, I'm fairly competent but nascent with this stuff.

Thanks so much in advance for any help.

Regards,
Mack

JackNaylorPE · Jun 26, 2013

dwgsuperman :

There is no "gaming purchase" to RAID. Pulled this from an old THG post .... so some links will be dead by now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_0#RAID_0

RAID 0 is useful for setups such as large read-only NFS servers where mounting many disks is time-consuming or impossible and redundancy is irrelevant.

RAID 0 is also used in some gaming systems where performance is desired and data integrity is not very important. However, real-world tests with games have shown that RAID-0 performance gains are minimal, although some desktop applications will benefit.[1][2]

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
"We were hoping to see some sort of performance increase in the game loading tests, but the RAID array didn't give us that. While the scores put the RAID-0 array slightly slower than the single drive Raptor II, you should also remember that these scores are timed by hand and thus, we're dealing within normal variations in the "benchmark".

Our Unreal Tournament 2004 test uses the full version of the game and leaves all settings on defaults. After launching the game, we select Instant Action from the menu, choose Assault mode and select the Robot Factory level. The stop watch timer is started right after the Play button is clicked, and stopped when the loading screen disappears. The test is repeated three times with the final score reported being an average of the three. In order to avoid the effects of caching, we reboot between runs. All times are reported in seconds; lower scores, obviously, being better. In Unreal Tournament, we're left with exactly no performance improvement, thanks to RAID-0

If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."

http://www.techwarelabs.com/articles/hardware/raid-and-gaming/index_6.shtml
".....we did not see an increase in FPS through its use. Load times for levels and games was significantly reduced utilizing the Raid controller and array. As we stated we do not expect that the majority of gamers are willing to purchase greater than 4 drives and a controller for this kind of setup. While onboard Raid is an option available to many users you should be aware that using onboard Raid will mean the consumption of CPU time for this task and thus a reduction in performance that may actually lead to worse FPS. An add-on controller will always be the best option until they integrate discreet Raid controllers with their own memory into consumer level motherboards."

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1001325
"However, many have tried to justify/overlook those shortcomings by simply saying "It's faster." Anyone who does this is wrong, wasting their money, and buying into hype. Nothing more."

http://jeff-sue.suite101.com/how-raid-storage-improves-performance-a101975
"The real-world performance benefits possible in a single-user PC situation is not a given for most people, because the benefits rely on multiple independent, simultaneous requests. One person running most desktop applications may not see a big payback in performance because they are not written to do asynchronous I/O to disks. Understanding this can help avoid disappointment."

http://www.scs-myung.com/v2/index. [...] om_content
"What about performance? This, we suspect, is the primary reason why so many users doggedly pursue the RAID 0 "holy grail." This inevitably leads to dissapointment by those that notice little or no performance gain.....As stated above, first person shooters rarely benefit from RAID 0.__ Frame rates will almost certainly not improve, as they are determined by your video card and processor above all else. In fact, theoretically your FPS frame rate may decrease, since many low-cost RAID controllers (anything made by Highpoint at the tiem of this writing, and most cards from Promise) implement RAID in software, so the process of splitting and combining data across your drives is done by your CPU, which could better be utilized by your game. That said, the CPU overhead of RAID0 is minimal on high-performance processors."

Even the HD manufacturers limit RAID's advantages to very specific applications and non of them involves gaming:

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/

dwgsuperman · Jun 26, 2013

**Also do I need any sort of software?

Pinhedd · Jun 26, 2013

With the storage controller in AHCI mode, install the Intel RST drivers. Then, switch the storage controller to RAID mode and see what happens.

dwgsuperman · Jun 26, 2013

Ah so I'm better off just running 3 separate drives eh?

JackNaylorPE :

dwgsuperman :

There is no "gaming purchase" to RAID. Pulled this from an old THG post .... so some links will be dead by now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_0#RAID_0

RAID 0 is useful for setups such as large read-only NFS servers where mounting many disks is time-consuming or impossible and redundancy is irrelevant.

RAID 0 is also used in some gaming systems where performance is desired and data integrity is not very important. However, real-world tests with games have shown that RAID-0 performance gains are minimal, although some desktop applications will benefit.[1][2]

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
"We were hoping to see some sort of performance increase in the game loading tests, but the RAID array didn't give us that. While the scores put the RAID-0 array slightly slower than the single drive Raptor II, you should also remember that these scores are timed by hand and thus, we're dealing within normal variations in the "benchmark".

Our Unreal Tournament 2004 test uses the full version of the game and leaves all settings on defaults. After launching the game, we select Instant Action from the menu, choose Assault mode and select the Robot Factory level. The stop watch timer is started right after the Play button is clicked, and stopped when the loading screen disappears. The test is repeated three times with the final score reported being an average of the three. In order to avoid the effects of caching, we reboot between runs. All times are reported in seconds; lower scores, obviously, being better. In Unreal Tournament, we're left with exactly no performance improvement, thanks to RAID-0

If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."

http://www.techwarelabs.com/articles/hardware/raid-and-gaming/index_6.shtml
".....we did not see an increase in FPS through its use. Load times for levels and games was significantly reduced utilizing the Raid controller and array. As we stated we do not expect that the majority of gamers are willing to purchase greater than 4 drives and a controller for this kind of setup. While onboard Raid is an option available to many users you should be aware that using onboard Raid will mean the consumption of CPU time for this task and thus a reduction in performance that may actually lead to worse FPS. An add-on controller will always be the best option until they integrate discreet Raid controllers with their own memory into consumer level motherboards."

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1001325
"However, many have tried to justify/overlook those shortcomings by simply saying "It's faster." Anyone who does this is wrong, wasting their money, and buying into hype. Nothing more."

http://jeff-sue.suite101.com/how-raid-storage-improves-performance-a101975
"The real-world performance benefits possible in a single-user PC situation is not a given for most people, because the benefits rely on multiple independent, simultaneous requests. One person running most desktop applications may not see a big payback in performance because they are not written to do asynchronous I/O to disks. Understanding this can help avoid disappointment."

http://www.scs-myung.com/v2/index. [...] om_content
"What about performance? This, we suspect, is the primary reason why so many users doggedly pursue the RAID 0 "holy grail." This inevitably leads to dissapointment by those that notice little or no performance gain.....As stated above, first person shooters rarely benefit from RAID 0.__ Frame rates will almost certainly not improve, as they are determined by your video card and processor above all else. In fact, theoretically your FPS frame rate may decrease, since many low-cost RAID controllers (anything made by Highpoint at the tiem of this writing, and most cards from Promise) implement RAID in software, so the process of splitting and combining data across your drives is done by your CPU, which could better be utilized by your game. That said, the CPU overhead of RAID0 is minimal on high-performance processors."

Even the HD manufacturers limit RAID's advantages to very specific applications and non of them involves gaming:

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/http://westerndigital.com/en/products/raid/

liquidsnaske · Jun 26, 2013

Hi Mark,

I've never done this myself for Windows 8, but I have achieved it a couple of times with 7 which ended up involving some registry editing. It looks like microsoft have put up a KB about this which is a worthwhile read http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2751461 and I've found a second work around http://blog.rolpdog.com/2012/03/enabling-ahciraid-on-windows-8-after.html . Essentially what you are looking to do here is re-configure windows 8 to run in Raid mode then switch the bios setting over to raid and create the raid partition for your hard drives. One note is I don't beleive the raid software will format your drives for you, so you may have to look in disk manager inside of windows to find them the first time. Let me know how it goes.

Edit: Just spotted your question, no you don't need additional software for this.

Hope that helps,
Phil

dwgsuperman · Jun 26, 2013

Pinhedd :

Same problem - windows won't boot. Have any suggestions?

dwgsuperman · Jun 26, 2013

Ok I'll give this a shot. Will letcha know.

liquidsnaske :

Hi Mark,

I've never done this myself for Windows 8, but I have achieved it a couple of times with 7 which ended up involving some registry editing. It looks like microsoft have put up a KB about this which is a worthwhile read http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2751461 and I've found a second work around http://blog.rolpdog.com/2012/03/enabling-ahciraid-on-windows-8-after.html . Essentially what you are looking to do here is re-configure windows 8 to run in Raid mode then switch the bios setting over to raid and create the raid partition for your hard drives. One note is I don't beleive the raid software will format your drives for you, so you may have to look in disk manager inside of windows to find them the first time. Let me know how it goes.

Edit: Just spotted your question, no you don't need additional software for this.

Hope that helps,
Phil

dwgsuperman · Jun 27, 2013

OK So for future people's note, with Windows 8, all I had to do was install the HDDs (leaving AHCI on!) load windows, go to disk management, then select the HDDs I wanted to set up as "Striped", format, and bam, RAID 0. I'm getting upwards of 220 MB/s write speeds which is not too shabby with 72000 RPMs (though I did get the 64mb cache WD drives)

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