ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe - RAID and SSD

[Pop Pop Pete]

My new build will be the first time I've used an SSD for my boot drive. In addition to the SSD (180GB), I plan to use a 4-disk RAID 10 configuration with WD Caviar Black 6 Gb/s drives. Before settling on the ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe MB, I want to be sure it will support this.

Can anyone help? I'm still very new at this!

Thanks!

 

[Dereck47]

Yes, that motherboard supports RAID-10, so you should have no issues with your build.

 

[jtennison]

If you will be using Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) for the Raid 10, be sure to install the latest drivers/software from the Intel download site, since you have the Z68 chipset. Earlier versions have problems with z68.

 

[jaquith]

I wouldn't recommend 'WD Caviar Black 6 Gb/s drive' since they lack TLER support. Instead Hitachi, Seagate, or Samsung which support their versions of TLER. There's no point in SATA3 Interface and simply look for 7200RPM and 16MB or larger cache.

Take a few minutes to read over -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery

 

[Pop Pop Pete]

That's great information... THANKS! I'll go ahead with the MB I selected and avoid The WD Caviar Black in favor of drives that allow time for the RAID to handle errors.

 

[jaquith]

The SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB are a good bet for the money and speed - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

Good info -> http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/high_end_drives.html

 

[Pop Pop Pete]

Would there be any concern about using these in my RAID 10 configuration? I just read about SAMSUNG's Command Completion Time Limit (CCTL) in the reference provided by jtennison.

Thanks.

 

[jaquith]

The Samsung's are perfectly fine for any RAID. RAID 10 is a very good choice with redundancy, low CPU usage, and since it lacks parity it's fine for onboard RAID.

edit after the first boot into Windows verify Start values = 0 -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 and verify registry -> http://i1013.photobucket.com/albums/af254/Jaquith/AHCI_Start_0.jpg

 

[Pop Pop Pete]

I ordered 4 HD's (1TB). Since the SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3R was the same price as the F3, I went ahead and got that one.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Pop Pop Pete]

Best answer selected by Pop Pop Pete.