RAID1 in Asrock 79 Motherboards

[selas]

Hello,

Recently purchased an Asrock 79 Extreme. It comes with 4 SATA2 ports and 5 SATA3.
I wanted to setup an SSD OS drive plus 2 data drives in RAID 1 (the SSD would not be in RAID -- this is how I have configured previous machines).

The MoBo suggests keeping the boot drive in SATA3_0-1 or SATA2_0-3

However, if
SATA3_0 has the SSD and SATA3_1 and SATA3_2 have the data drives, I cannot set RAID (can't access Intel Raid setup)

or if
SATA2_0 has the SSD and SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 have the data drives, then the SSD cannot be recognized / used as the boot drive.

Any suggestions as to how to set up the cables to make this work?
Thanks!

 

[Dereck47]

You want your 3 drives connected to the Intel SATA ports in RAID mode.
See page 65 (Section 3.4.4) of your motherboard manual.

Connect your SSD to port SATA3_0 or SATA3_1. Connect your data drives to ports SATA2_0 and SATA2_1.
See page 12 for the location of the ports.

Since your SSD will not be part of your RAID-1 array it will automatically default to AHCI mode.

 

[selas]

Best answer selected by Selas.