RAID question?

[Lutfij]

Hello everyone!

My rig specs are :

Asus Rampage Extreme x48
Q9550 @ stock
Modded H50 w/ Push/Pull
Windows 7 Ultimate

Hard drives:
1x250GB Maxtor (Seagate) - OS+download
2x500GB WD Caviar Green - on the Speeding HDD as Superspeed mode - Games
1x250GB Hitachi - Games + backup

my question is, do i need to install drivers for the RAID controller on my mobo? I tried installing the drivers at windows installation but i screwed up along the way :S now i have the generic drivers for ICH9R. Will i need it to add performance to my drive setup i have now or am i good just the way it is? adding new HDD will not be any time soon and if i'm informed of the benifits of running the 2 WD's on the ICH9R instead of the Marvell controller (Speeding HDD) then the drives can migrate.

Furthermore, can i run individual HDD's while i have the raid drivers installed or will i have data wiped clean from them?

i hope i havent confused you all with my multiple questions.

I've made a clean install a fw days ago, to discover my drivers havent been properly installed - i've updated everything via windows update. Thus the concern of whether i need a raid driver setup.

Thank you!

 

[Emperus]

Why do you need to install RAID drivers if you are not planning on any sort of RAID config.? Furthermore, since everything is running fine, you don't need to perform any additional sorcery.. Just install the chipset drivers and you are good..

 

[Lutfij]

Thanks for the quick reply!

yeah i've installed everything(updates, chipset and drivers) but i overlooked the raid drivers...well it'd be neat to have the raid drivers installed and i could add some drives in the future. But i guess your telling me that theres no need for me to setup raid if i'm planning on running most of my HDD's in single mode (and not in RAID 0/1/5)...right?

incase i'd want to install raid on my rig do i need a clean install with the drivers emulated on a USB drive?

 

[MRFS]

Intel strongly recommends that you set your BIOS to RAID mode
for the ICH9R controller, even if you start out with all disks
running in JBOD mode (Just A Bunch Of Disks).

The reason for this has to do with the way the storage is initialized,
which makes it very difficult to migrate from IDE or AHCI modes to RAID mode
at a later point in time.

So, set your BIOS to RAID mode and load the RAID mode drivers
during initial installation of your OS.

If you intend to install your OS on a RAID array,
you will also need to launch the Intel Option ROM
in order to assign HDDs to that array: this of course
must be done before you begin Windows Setup.


Also, WD recommends their RAID Edition ("RE" ) HDDs for RAID arrays
because they support time-limited error recovery ("TLER"),
and the Caviar Greens do NOT support TLER.


MRFS

 

[MRFS]

p.s. Are you trying to install your OS on a RAID managed
by the Marvell controller?


MRFS

 

[Lutfij]

Intel strongly recommends that you set your BIOS to RAID mode
for the ICH9R controller, even if you start out with all disks
running in JBOD mode (Just A Bunch Of Disks).

The reason for this has to do with the way the storage is initialized,
which makes it very difficult to migrate from IDE or AHCI modes to RAID mode
at a later point in time.

So, set your BIOS to RAID mode and load the RAID mode drivers
during initial installation of your OS.

If you intend to install your OS on a RAID array,
you will also need to launch the Intel Option ROM
in order to assign HDDs to that array: this of course
must be done before you begin Windows Setup.


Also, WD recommends their RAID Edition ("RE" ) HDDs for RAID arrays
because they support time-limited error recovery ("TLER" ),
and the Caviar Greens do NOT support TLER.

Thank you for the insight MRFS!!!!

Nope i don't intend to do that. I've always installed the OS on a seperate disk. The Silicon Image SIL5723 controller is for the Speeding HDD's ( i think). Idon't know which ports are for the Marvell Controller...out of 8 ports - 6 (blue) are ICH9R - 2 (black) are Speeding HDD

The marvell 886121 controller is used for the parallel ATA...

with ever increasing storage choices - do i need to install my OS on a RAID array?
I'm looking at RAID arrays for gaming and backing up my rendered work/projects/photgraphs...

 

[MRFS]

RTFM (Read The "F"ine Manual -- not always "F"ine, however


MRFS

 

[Lutfij]

lol - the marvell is needed by the IDE and floppy - but in device manager it says I have a generic Marvell 61xx RAID controller installed and in one of its tabs has Hotplug feature