Z790 Hero Motherboard RAID Issue

[sexyjeep]

I have successfully setup multiple Raid's on this motherboard this week for several of my drives

I have: 

x2 512GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD's in a RAID 1

x3 2TB Samsung 780 Evo M.2's in a RAID 0

After the RAID's we're built, I unhooked both the x2 512GB SSD's and connected a spare 256GB SSD that I had purchased from Corsair 10 years ago into one of the same ports.  All I wanted to know/see was if the Corsair drive even worked anymore.  Knowing that the same Power & SATA cable works for the x2 512GB Samsung drives, is why I unplugged them to test the Corsair in their place.  The drive ended up not working, it's not even being see by the BIOS, and since I know all the cables & ports are good, I'll be discarding the drive. 

I then hooked my two original x2 512GB SSD's back up, using the same ports and cables where I had just configured them as the RAID 1 moments prior.  However, the BIOS now shows then as "Rebuilding".  I am assuming this is because when I unhooked them to test the other drive, it degraded the array, so now it has to rebuild - no biggie, I've been dealing with RAID using Intel for the last 15 years and 2TB mechanical drives in a RAID 1 usually rebuild within 4 hours.  Well, it's now been 14 hours and these drives are still "Rebuilding", so something is not right. 

I did some googling and found the following article via ASUS that basically says you can't recover the RAID from the BIOS, and either have to use the Intel Optane option (which doesn't apply to me), or boot it into Windows and recover/rebuild it using a Windows app.  https://www.asus.com/us/support/faq/1049716/

Well that sucks if you have to have Windows installed because I am going to be using this as a VMware 8.0 machine - it's going to be a VMware Host, not Windows.  It baffles me that they're saying there's no other option than to boot to Windows to get it to finish rebuilding!!!  Someone please tell me there's another easier way without me having to spin up a Windows VM and then trying to see if I can even link the software to the Host, or having to dual boot this thing!!?!?  The instructions on the link I found aren't anything like the Intel RAID Web Console 2 nor Intel's newer method where you connect directly to the Host IP with your preferred web browser to access the RAID and rebuild it.  I doubt you can make this work unless Windows is running right on the bare metal.

If there's truly no way other than having Windows run on bare metal or doing a dual boot where Windows is an option for fixing the RAID if it ever degrades, then the only type of RAID I would ever consider doing on these ASUS boards is RAID 0.  At least then I could get a performance jump, but still need some good backup software in case a drive ever fails.

Ugh...  If anyone has any ideas or insight, I would appreciate it! 

Thanks! 

Jeepy

[Vartanil]

There is another problem.
To configure RAID (IRST) you need to enable VMD. But the BIOS manual says that VMD can map either SATA or PCIE. You can't map SATA and PCIE at the same time.
I have the operating system on an NVMe drive, but I store important data in RAID Mirror on HDDs. To get around the VMD configuration problem, I built the RAID array on an additional PCIe card.

VMD, SATA, PCIe

[sexyjeep]

Yeah, the only other option I can think of to solve either of our scenarios is basically purchasing a PCIe RAID card that has a RAID BIOS to control it all.  I am not willing to do that though for a $699 motherboard that should have already taken care of me.

These types of issues/limitations for a top tier board are crazy.  I'll not be splurging for their ROG series again, and with the continued lack of good support and quality service, It might be my last ASUS board.

Sadge.

[JohnAb]

I've always taken the view that recovering a failed RAID which uses the motherboard could prove difficult in a disaster, so I use two strategies:

1) Simply backup to another drive (internal or external) using synchronisation software like FreeFileSync

2) Use a NAS - an expensive option of course, but you could use it for media streaming etc as well if you wish. I use the QNAP 464 and it's been excellent as a totally standalone solution with it's own OS. 

I actually use both of the above approaches, so even if the NAS totally fails I'm still OK, but at least I'm totally confident that I won't lose any data (unless the house totally burns down) so I also have a third backup in a fireproof safe. Easy to get carried away with backups, but good to do what you can and be confident that your RAID can be recovered if needed. 

As an aside, also good to encrypt your data drives and backups just in case the whole computer is stolen, but like I said, easy to get carried away, lol.  

[sexyjeep]

JohnAb,

I can surely appreciate your approach, as those are good workarounds for anyone reading this who may be lost on what else they can do to still get a RAID without purchasing more hardware, but for me, I still require the RAID to be repaired/managed directly on the motherboard because I am trying to run VMware as the primary OS on bare metal in a RAID 1.  A software RAID like you mentioned setting up in TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault, or even a hardware RAID on a NAS wouldn't be possible because you wouldn't be able to select them as a 'boot device' on the bare metal.  Those would all be great things for everything after the OS running on the bare metal, but not prior too.

It just baffles me that there's no way to repair the RAID from the BIOS on this board - that's the root of the issue I have.  It seems like such a simple thing that they should have been able to develop for this board, but instead cut costs by not including it and passing the buck to Windows, of all things.  Sad....  It's not like anyone is asking for a separate RAID BIOS, a backup RAID battery (like a CMOS battery), or even a speaker built onto the board to alarm when/if a drive fails like what you get on a server grade board.  How hard would this have been to add such a simple thing as managing the repair of a degraded array, ugh...  I just expect more for a $699 motherboard.   The RAID on this board is a completely useless addition unless you're running Windows directly on your bare metal.  Perhaps they felt for a gamer grade board that even the most enthused users would always be running Windows.  For the rare 2% that want to use this board as a server board rather than a workstation board while running a Hypervisor on it, you're going to be cooked.

The only reason why this board is even being converted into a server board for me is because I fell victim to both the Intel 13th & 14th Gen processor issues that burned up on me.  Nearly 4 months later they've now identified the issue to be the microcode, but I wasn't willing to purchase a 3rd Intel processor and risk burning another one up so I switched to the AMD version of this z790 Hero.  I was then left with my z790 Intel board (I purchased it a year ago).  Rather than selling the Intel z790 Hero, I decided I would use it to build a spare PC and use it as a Hypervisor/Server since it could do RAID but not that's not working out so well now.

I want to be completely clear here as well for any readers who've stumbled across this thread - a RAID is not a backup, and I am not trying to advocate/use RAID as a backup in my setup either.  RAID is meant to help mitigate recovery time and Aid in your backup plan, but should never be treated like a backup.  As JohnAb mentioned, there are things you don't get with RAID like encryption, which are important to securing your data.  There's also no retention Window with a RAID to have options to recover from.  You should always have a backup on separate storage from your bare metal machine - whether that be an external drive, NAS, or cloud storage.  Your data should be encrypted during transfer and while at rest as well.  If you're not doing these things, then the RAID is only going to help you for a brief hardware failure, but again, not a backup.

In closing, if anyone finds themselves in my similar situation with this board, I recommend just doing a RAID 0 for everything - even for the Host OS drives (in my case VMware).  In doing this, you won't have any protection against a single drive failure of the Host/VMware OS, but you could still get backups of all the VM's running within VMware using a 3d party software and storing it in the cloud or on a device like a NAS or external drive as JohnAb had mentioned.  Worst case, if you have a single drive failure and the Host OS crashes, you could get VMware reinstalled in less than 15 minutes, and maybe spend an hour re-configuring it.  From there, you could then restore your VM's from your backup (assuming you had a backup of them) and within a few hours be back up and running.  Another option would be not using the RAID on this board at all, creating a VM within your Hypervisor that runs TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault, and using those VM's to create a software level RAID that can present some of your remaining storage to your Host via an SMB or NFS share to use for various VM's.  Whatever you don't present back to the Host, you could use as just a network location to store data on as well.  At least then you could manage your RAID, monitor it, etc... all from your preferred web browser.

Jeepy

[JohnAb]

Yes, I agree with you and I never fully investigated the possibility of a RAID repair from the BIOS because I just had the sense that it would prove to be too difficult and stressful if that was the only fallback. For me, backups are the priority and my most important single file, my password database is encrypted and is actually backed up in 7 different locations. I won't describe my backup system here, it's too complex and boring (although I like/enjoy it), but I've done all I can without relying on the cloud, which I do not trust. I did use the cloud for a password management service once and it was partially compromised, I didn't lose any data because of my own precautions, but never again. The only thing I use it for now is to hold a single copy of that database (securely encrypted) as a last resort. 

However, using RAID 0 for faster speed makes perfect sense and as long as there are backups elsewhere, all good.

Anyway, I hope you find a solution that works for you. I used to do a PC repair service for people, free of charge, and you'd be amazed how many people have no backups whatsoever. Over the years I've had 2 or 3 HDDs fail, it does happen and nothing is guaranteed to work forever.