How to install Asus RAID driver?

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

Yesterday I asked about my new build PC with RAID running ridiculously slow...

I reset it to run normally and.. it ran normally. however I don't want to give up on RAID just yet (after all, I bought a new motherboard for RAID, then had to buy a bigger case, then a PSU...)

Thing is, last night I didn't get around to installing any drivers, just got frustrated and puzzled (that's a polite word!) that the machine was running like frozen treacle. So today I've reset to RAID and reinstalled Windows...

On the ASUS CD there are various drivers that can be installed, and I'm installing every single one of them.. However it has a separate button on the CD software marked
"ACHI/RAID Driver"

But unlike all the others it doesn't install, there is no .exe, it simply gives the PATH to where the drivers are. In that folder, under "64" there are a bunch of files designated as "system files", "setup information" and "security catalog" but nothing I can actually run.

Under hardware manager it shows 2 devices with the warning triangle:

PCI Simple Communications controller
SMI bus controller

If I try to point either of those at the RAID drivers it just says "cannot find drivers for this device"

My understanding is that RAID should be pretty much invisible to Windows, so what or where or how do I use the RAID driver files on the CD?

Any help appreciated!

Windows 7 Home Premium
Asus H97 Pro Gamer board, with RAID ability. It's set in BIOS for RAID and configured OK, far as I can tell
Nvidia geforce 210

JackNaylorPE · Mar 18, 2015

The instructions are in the MoBo manual, usually Chapter 5 on Asus boards

I did RAID 0 w/ two 256 GB SSDs and RAID 1 with two 2TB SSHDS...... was very disapppointed and broke the arrays after 3 months time.

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

Thank you but I'm afraid the manual tells me nothing, other than "SATA mode selection" and "Set to RAID mode when you want to create a RAID configuration from the SATA hard drives" - which I already did, obviously.

RAID is working, but how to install the drivers for it? I presume they have to be installed, else why give me a CD with the drivers on? And why am I getting warning triangles that drivers are not installed for the PCI and SMI controllers?

JackNaylorPE · Mar 18, 2015

I just opened the manual for the Asus Hero and there's 8 pages of instructions. RAID driver get installed during the OS installation process.

Creating the disk and installing the driver covers a full 2 pages (5-7 and 5-8). Since the PDF is copy protected, I can't just copy paste the instructions in here for you.

The RAID driver get installed during the OS installation process. The instructions provided are detailed and ez to understand.

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

At no point did Windows ask for a RAID driver during install.

At which point during your installation did it ask for such a thing, or did you have to do something or what?

And your manual is not much help to me, I only have my manual and it says nothing other than how to set RAID (already done) and how to use the CD to load drivers - already done, apart from the driver that doesn't HAVE an .exe which is why I'm asking.

I've installed Windows twice on this system now, it doesn't ask for any drivers during install.

JackNaylorPE · Mar 18, 2015

I don't have a Hero, but since you haven't yet named your board, I picked that one because it's one of the most popular.

Win 7 has the drivers it needs for RAID..... unless it doesn't recognize the array than you have to use F6 and tell it to.... I haven't had to do that in years. If this was XP, you'd need the driver.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/285813-new-raid-array-clean-install-win7hp-help-raid-driver-install.html

McHenryB · Mar 18, 2015

CopywriterAlan :

Neither of these devices has anything to do with RAID.

My understanding is that RAID should be pretty much invisible to Windows

That is incorrect. Without RAID drivers Windows will be unable to see your disks. Windows 7 will have installed the Intel RAID drivers when you installed Windows. They are as good as anything you will get on a CD.

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

JackNaylorPE :

I did mention it, it's a Asus H97 Pro Gamer board

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

If windows already has such drivers then why is it so freaking slow and unusable under RAID?

I can understand it being slow to write but it's slow for everything.

When installing Windows on a RAID setup, does it install on both disks at once or only one disk and then start copying over? Because I keep reading about "building the array". Is that a separate process after Windows install or should it already be fully built upon the first boot?

Thanks

McHenryB · Mar 18, 2015

I don't know the answer to your question as I have never bothered with the "fake RAID" supported by some motherboards, but I would imagine that it installed to both disks at once. I can't see any reason why it would do otherwise. As for the speed issue, I don't know but Googling shows that it is a common experience. It may (or may not) be related to the load that the RAID places on the CPU.

I have used RAID extensively on servers which had to be available 24/7, but this was always with hardware controllers that provide their own processor. I'd never bother with RAID on a home computer as, rather than waste the disk space, I just take an image of my system drive and daily backups of important data. I can afford the hour or so that it would take to restore the image to a new disk.

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

I tried Acronis once and when I needed it, it did nothing.

How does one create such an image, and more importantly, can I BOOT from such an image?

Thanks

CopywriterAlan · Mar 18, 2015

Well now it won't recognize that there are 2 disks!!

Tried undoing the RAID, which I did last night and it worked OK, but trying again today on a fresh Windows install it is only showing a single drive.

I tried putting it back as RAID, in order to wipe both drives and start again, then went back and put it to NOT raid, in the fancy red BIOS it shows SATA as "IDE" and when it tells you to press CRTL and I to configure raid have done so, setting it as NOT raid, it shows both drives, as not raid drives... but when I save, exit and reinstall Windows, there's only 1 drive showing?

This is just driving me crazy now

McHenryB · Mar 18, 2015

I guess it's possible that you have a failed drive (or a failed SATA port). The usual troubleshooting procedure here is to try different drives in the same port (to check if the drives are faulty) and a known working drive in different ports (to test the ports). You should expect to see both drives in the Windows install program but the installed Windows will only show (in Explorer) the install drive. What do Device Manager and Disk Management show?

JackNaylorPE · Mar 18, 2015

CopywriterAlan :

Again, windows has the drives for most situations but I have seen instances where it fails for whatever reason and the threads on sevenforums explain how to correct that including installing from windows. As for RAID, peeps read about the very limited instances of where it can be used for performance improvements and this is often inferred that adding RAID will make their systems go faster. Then after investing the time and money they are oft disappointed.

Hers' an old THG post from about 8-10 years ago.... I would guess many of the links are no longer active

===============================================

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/
==================================================

I decided to give it another try, as it had been a number of years since I last delved in, with my last personal build back in October 2013 .... I did two 256 GB Samsing Pros in RAID 0 and two 2TB SSHDs in RAID 1. After 3 months, I broke the arrays for both..... while it "gave good benchmark" , it showed absolutely now observable advantage in either case. Spend hours on phone with Samsung the end result of which was "we do not recommend RAID 0 on our SSDs as it reduces reliability and provides no observable performance increase on the desktop".

Sorry I missed the MoBo listing but had i known, I would have said I don't see a place for RAID or even an SSD on a H97 build. When budget limited, I generally suggest investing in GFX / CPU / MoBo before storage subsystems. I only go to an SSD if the build has 2nd tier GFX card and k series processor capability. That being the case, I have no experience with H97 and SSDs or RAID so can't go to personal experience to offer any assistance.

McHenryB · Mar 19, 2015

Just a quick note. I accidently selected the last post as "Best Solution", so immediately unselected it. No reflection on the post, but it's not my place to choose. Damn tablets!

CopywriterAlan · Mar 19, 2015

Jack, my interest in RAID was nothing to do with performance, I wanted it purely for the redundancy aspect.

The only reason I got the H97 board was because it was the only one they had in the shop which was capable of running RAID. I had heard that running RAID 1 via software would be slow, but with hardware it has little effect. So get a motherboard with it built into the hardware, right? But my first post was because doing that led to a machine so slow it couldn't really be used. I don't mean a bit sluggish, I mean you could click on something and then you had to wait 20 or 30 seconds for even a sign that the click had registered.

That seemed so incredibly stupid that I figured something must be wrong somewhere, hence posting on here to figure out what. However all I'm getting is "Don't bother with RAID" and I don't have the time or knowledge to figure it out myself. Thus I have reset it to run normally - but even that became problematic...

Via the BIOS I reset PCI storage to IDE, not raid, then via the RAID configuration screen also set both drives to non-RAID... But according to My Computer there was only one disk installed.

(

I didn't do anything technical, just kept rebooting and happily it now shows both disks.

What I'm thinking of doing is unplugging one disk, installing all drivers, updates, basic software and the files I use for work, then unplugging it and plugging in the other one, installing Windows on that and doing the same thing, get it up and ready to go, then unplug it again. The plan being if the first drive does die on my I can just open the case, unplug it and plug the other one in. Is that a feasible idea? Or will Windows throw a hissy fit at being re-activated on a drive with a different serial number?

McHenryB · Mar 19, 2015

The only reason I got the H97 board was because it was the only one they had in the shop which was capable of running RAID.

The thing is, these "RAID controllers" aren't really that. They just facilitate a form of software RAID and, paradoxically, usually make a worse job of it than proper software RAID. They are known as "Fake RAID". In terms of performance, proper hardware RAID is king, followed by true software RAID (if your OS supports it), followed - quite a way behind - by Fake RAID.

True hardware RAID controllers, as used in servers, probably cost twice what your entire motherboard did. If you run an OS that supports software RAID (I'm not sure which consumer versions of Windows do nowadays) any motherboard would do the trick. Some software RAID - such as the implementation in ZFS (as used on Solaris and FreeBSD) is reckoned to be better than true hardware RAID.

IMO, the much touted motherboard support for RAID is a big con trick.

CopywriterAlan · Mar 20, 2015

Update - I have FINALLY installed all my usual software, everything configured, activated and working OK.

A total of 22 software programs, from antivirus to my email client, PDF reader, Roboform, printer driver, Skype, everything.

When finally satisfied I had ALL my necessary software, and the usual files and folder arrangement I use for work, I then cloned the disk using Macrium Reflect. Did it work?

Yes, because I am now running with the cloned disk

The original one is in the case but power and data cables unplugged. Power surges or viruses can't get to it, and being an SSD it's not affected by knocks or magnets either.

If the PC becomes slow or unstable I can try putting that lovely fresh and clean SSD in. If it works then I know to buy another SSD, if it doesn't then I know it's the RAM or the motherboard or whatever. That alone is a big improvement.

I've also configured Word with a macro to save both to a local work folder and to my dropbox folder.... AND I bought Goodsync so anything put into my work folder is automatically copied over to a folder on a different PC, using wireless LAN.

Because I'm paranoid.

AND the machine is set to back up a mirror image to an external 500 GB HDD every Sunday.

When my wallet recovers I'll get another drive, make that one into a clone too, test it, then put it sealed up in my shed or somewhere physically away from my home office.

For the first time in 10 years I feel reasonably confident I have a backup that works - because I'm typing on it right now

Who needs RAID anyway?

JackNaylorPE · Mar 20, 2015

I came back to it and tried again.... doing the SSDs in RAID 0 on an expensive board to see if anything had changed. I also was interested in redundancy so I had the two SSHDs in RAID 1. I was coming of an Infrant NAS which I loved to Superstorm Sandy sent me a surge and took it out. Both RAIDs were a PITA and did nothing for me.

Now I have

OS and Programs on 256 GB SSD
Backup OS and Games on 256 GB SSD

All office data on 1st SSHD (4 partitions).... all officee machines store data here (file server)
All backups on 2nd SSHD

-Free software backs up the 4 partitions to the 2nd SSHD daily on a schedule. Starts at 4 pm w/ 1st partition and 1 every hour after that.

-All networked machines back up their stuff to the 2nd SSD weekly.

-Everything gets backed up to offsite storage weekly

If ya wanna try this route, I'm using Fbackup

How to install Asus RAID driver?

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