Booting windows from AHCI SSD & having raid 1 array also

CodeMonkeySpace · Jun 27, 2015

I have a Asus P8Z77-V motherboard with a Samsung 830 SSD drive I use to boot the system from.

Everything works fine but I now want to add a raid 1 storgae array with two new 1TB WD black.

I changed BIOS mode from AHCI to raid and then set up the raid array.

As soon as I do this windows 8.1 fails to boot and the samsung 830 no longer appears in the UEFI boot priority.

The board has 6 sata ports. 2x 6gbs and 4x 3gbs.

I have the SSD plugged into the 6gbs port and the WD blacks plugged into port 1&2 of the 3gbs ports.

Is it possible to make the system boot off SSD in AHCI and use hardware raid 1 for the two WD drives?

SuperSoph_WD · Jun 30, 2015

Hey there, CodeMonkeySpace!

Yes, it is possible to setup a configuration with a booting SSD and RAID 1 for data storage. However, you'd need to unplug the HDDs and install the OS on the SSD first, without having any other storage devices connected to the SATA ports, otherwise you might encounter an OS confusion. Once you've installed Windows onto the SSD and have setup everything there, you can plug the WD Black HDDs and start configuring the RAID 1 array.
I'd recommend you to take a look at @popatim's answer in this thread: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1822655/properly-set-ssd-2x1tb-hdds-raid.html
He properly explains the step-by-step to doing such a storage setup. (The only difference is that the OP there is doing a RAID 0, however the steps to configuring it are the same).
Here's another link to an article from our KB that explains how to create the RAID 1 array using the two WD Black drives: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=rYR3h3

Keep me posted with the setup and if you have further questions!

Hope this helps!
SuperSoph_WD

CodeMonkeySpace · Jun 30, 2015

SuperSoph_WD :

Hey there, CodeMonkeySpace!

Yes, it is possible to setup a configuration with a booting SSD and RAID 1 for data storage. However, you'd need to unplug the HDDs and install the OS on the SSD first, without having any other storage devices connected to the SATA ports, otherwise you might encounter an OS confusion. Once you've installed Windows onto the SSD and have setup everything there, you can plug the WD Black HDDs and start configuring the RAID 1 array.
I'd recommend you to take a look at @popatim's answer in this thread: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1822655/properly-set-ssd-2x1tb-hdds-raid.html
He properly explains the step-by-step to doing such a storage setup. (The only difference is that the OP there is doing a RAID 0, however the steps to configuring it are the same).
Here's another link to an article from our KB that explains how to create the RAID 1 array using the two WD Black drives: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=rYR3h3

Keep me posted with the setup and if you have further questions!

Hope this helps!
SuperSoph_WD

Thats what I did. Installed OS with just SSD connected. Then connected WD and enabled raid. If raid is enabled then it won't boot from SSD.

SuperSoph_WD · Jun 30, 2015

Hi again, CodeMonkeySpace!

What about TRIM? Do you have it enabled on the SSD? Most probably setting the ports to RAID have changed the SATA mode for the SSD as well. :/
I'd recommend you to check if you have the latest Intel Rapid Storage Tech drivers. Another way to try to resolve this issue would be to re-install Windows on the SSD (with the HDDs unplugged again), only this time you might want to leave the SATA mode for the SSD in RAID mode. Afterwards, it should boot properly. TRIM is supported in RAID mode as well with the latest RST drivers. Maybe you could give it a try.

Hope it helps. Keep me posted though!

SuperSoph_WD

Search

Booting windows from AHCI SSD & having raid 1 array also

CodeMonkeySpace

Reputable

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious

CodeMonkeySpace

Reputable

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page