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Storage setup for reinstall?

Tags:
  • Controller
  • Dual Boot
  • Intel
  • Motherboards
  • Systems
Last response: in Systems
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July 6, 2014 5:41:37 PM

Hello

My Motherboard is:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z68_DELUXE/specifica...

I'm about to reinstall my system to dual boot Win 7 and Win 8.1
As you can see on the Z68 intel chipset I have 2x 6GB/s + 4x 3GB/s sata ports. I also have another 2x 6GB/s ports on a Marvell PCIe 9128 controller.

Here's the rub. I read people advice NOT to install the Operating system on the "extra" controller, but have the OS on the chipset controller. I also see people not being able to find the controller or drivers for it during install of Win 8 on the controller. (Not sure about that)

At the moment I have Win 7 on a 80GB SSD in one of the intel 6 GB/s ports and 4x 1TB disks in raid-5 for storage on the 4x 3GB/s ports on the intel controller. And I have 2x 500GB in raid 0 for gameinstalls and such on the Marvel controller 6 GB/S.


What I wanted to do now was remove the 2x 500gb disks and add 2 new "Kingston SSDNOW 300" 128gb SSD disks I've bought.

I want to put Win 7 on one of of the Kingstons and Win 8 on the other. And use the 4x 1TB disks for both installs and storage (still in raid-5) and use the 80GB SSD for Intel® Smart Response Technology.
In order to use Intel® Smart Response Technology, both the HDD's and the SSD used for Caching have to be on the Intel controller leaving me one port short for the 2 OS disks.

I was planning on setting the 2 OS disks on the Marvel controller to get the 6 GB/S transfer rate, but from what I've read this is not adviceable.

How would you set up this system. The 4 HDD's is a given. They will go on the 4x 3 GB/s ports. If I use the 2x 6GB Intel ports for the 2 OS disks the Intel Smart Response capabillity goes out the window as the last SSD have to go on the Marvell controller.

Or is what I've read about installing the OS on the marvel controller being bad/troublesome just BS?

What would be perfect for me was putting the 2 Kingston 128GB for win 7 and win 8 on the marvell controller, then put the 80GB SSD on a 6 GB/s port used to cache the files on the 4x 1TB HDD's on 3GB/s ports. Is it "safe"? Or even doable? I have seen several people saying they are not able to install Win 8 on disks attached to the Marvell controller on this Motherboard.

Or would you perhaps set up the system totally different. I will use the 2x 120GB SSD's, the 80GB SSD and the 4x 1TB sata3 HDD's.

Any tips appreciated. Hope my english was understandable since its not my main language.

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July 6, 2014 5:50:53 PM

There is no point using smart response AND an SSD . One would just be caching the other

If you have the OSes on two separate drives each attached to intel SATA 6Gbits ports , and the hard drives on the intel 3Gbits ports [ so you can RAID] .
I'd put peripherals on the marvell ports ... like the DVD

Hopefully you have a BIOS that lets you select a boot device as you start . That will simplify things since you wont need a boot loader
July 6, 2014 6:01:28 PM

I'm going to cache the 4 HDD's on the 80 GB SSD. I'm not caching the the other SSD's.
I don't use DVDs, I use USB connected memory cards, and virtual drives with HDD stored Iso images
!