ROG Zenith Extreme problem with RAID and DVD

[g051051]

I have a ROG Zenith Extreme with firmware 0902 that I want to set up as follows:

1. 2 M.2 SATA in RAID 1 configuration for my C:\ drive.
2. 5 2 Tb drives as a Windows 10 storage space.
3. 1 SATA DVD drive.

When I turn on RAID on the MB, the DVD drive vanishes and the device reporting gets weird. As in, one of the M.2 drives starts getting reported as being attached to whatever SATA6G port the DVD is plugged in to. This also blocks booting from the DVD for an installation of Windows, or attaching a copy of my old system on a SSD and booting from it. If I turn off RAID, then the DVD boots fine, but I lose my M.2 RAID.

My old Gigabyte motherboard had options specifically to solve this kind of problem...8 total SATA ports, 2 of which were on a separate "G-SATA" controller, plus the ability to make 2 of the RAIDXpert ports non-RAID via the BIOS.

It seems incredible, but did they really make it so you can't use the SATA ports for anything except RAID when it's turned on? How are you supposed to install an OS without a DVD drive? Or if I want to rip my CDs, play media, install video games, etc.?

[Wobbler]

Where is the DVD drive connected? I have no such issues with my Blu-Ray drive connected to the 6th SATA port, with 4 HDD and 1 SSD in the others, with 2 M.2 NVMe drives in RAID 0.

Are you using the SATA raid instead of ACHI or just NVMe raid? What AMD raid drivers are you using?

and if you mean "Storage Spaces", that wont require sata raid in bios, since it's software based.

[g051051]

Wobbler wrote:
Where is the DVD drive connected? I have no such issues with my Blu-Ray drive connected to the 6th SATA port, with 4 HDD and 1 SSD in the others, with 2 M.2 NVMe drives in RAID 0.

Are you using the SATA raid instead of ACHI or just NVMe raid? What AMD raid drivers are you using?

and if you mean "Storage Spaces", that wont require sata raid in bios, since it's software based.

What on earth are you talking about? Did you even read my post?

[FlyingBear]

I have a similar issue on my Zenith Extreme: 2x1TB 970 Pro RAID 0 as boot drive. 2TB 970 Evo as the third NVMe drive. When SATA RAID is turned on, the 4TB 960 EVO in SATA 1 disappears. It reappears in AHCI mode.

I only have 3 SATA drives (2x4TB 960 Evo plus Blu-Ray) so I have an easy workaround: not using SATA 1. Hopefully a BIOS fix. I’m on 1003.

[FlyingBear]

FlyingBear wrote:
I have a similar issue on my Zenith Extreme: 2x1TB 970 Pro RAID 0 as boot drive. 2TB 970 Evo as the third NVMe drive. When SATA RAID is turned on, the 4TB 960 EVO in SATA 1 disappears. It reappears in AHCI mode.

I only have 3 SATA drives (2x4TB 960 Evo plus Blu-Ray) so I have an easy workaround: not using SATA 1. Hopefully a BIOS fix. I’m on 1003.

I should add a little more information: the single 2TB 970 Evo has to be a "legacy non-RAID" array under RaidExpert2 to show up in Windows, i.e. it can't be a standalone drive, and hence can't use the Samsung NVMe driver or Samsung Magician, despite not being part of a RAID array. If you delete the "array" (which it isn't), the drive vanishes from Windows. A bummer.

The BluRay drive shows up just fine as a SCSI device in Device Manager and Windows. RAIDExpert2 can't see it.

On the good news side, the 970 Pro array benchmarks in ATTO (current version) at ~5GB/s write and read. The sole 970 Evo sits at ~2.4GB/s, and the 860 Evo array at ~1GB/s. Not bad.

[Wobbler]

FlyingBear wrote:
I should add a little more information: the single 2TB 970 Evo has to be a "legacy non-RAID" array under RaidExpert2 to show up in Windows, i.e. it can't be a standalone drive, and hence can't use the Samsung NVMe driver or Samsung Magician, despite not being part of a RAID array. If you delete the "array" (which it isn't), the drive vanishes from Windows. A bummer.

The BluRay drive shows up just fine as a SCSI device in Device Manager and Windows. RAIDExpert2 can't see it.

On the good news side, the 970 Pro array benchmarks in ATTO (current version) at ~5GB/s write and read. The sole 970 Evo sits at ~2.4GB/s, and the 860 Evo array at ~1GB/s. Not bad.

Actually you most likely can use Samsung driver for the single nvme drive, and you probably can delete the "legacy non-RAID", you will need to manually replace the amd bottom device driver(in storage controllers) that the single NVMe drive is using with the samsung driver (1 of the 3). The Samsung software won't work. There is a post by me of this issue, with sort of a workaround +amd driver install issue, with a PCIe slot NVMe drive getting somehow gripped in to the NVMe raid thingie. Access latencies do suffer with the amd bottom device drivers and the NVMe raid layer being in effect.

[FlyingBear]

Wobbler wrote:
Actually you most likely can use Samsung driver for the single nvme drive, and you probably can delete the "legacy non-RAID", you will need to manually replace the amd bottom device driver(in storage controllers) that the single NVMe drive is using with the samsung driver (1 of the 3). The Samsung software won't work. There is a post by me of this issue, with sort of a workaround +amd driver install issue, with a PCIe slot NVMe drive getting somehow gripped in to the NVMe raid thingie. Access latencies do suffer with the amd bottom device drivers and the NVMe raid layer being in effect.

Ah, yes, excellent idea. I'll give that a try. However, I've found that benchmark (maybe not real use) numbers for a single drive aren't that different between being a single drive controlled by AMD RAID, or with the Samsung NVMe driver. You mention latency, and that could be a big difference. Thanks!

[Anton_Unknown]

After change SATA-mode from AHCI to RAID, all SATA-devices disappears from SATA-device list and boot devices. In my case, RAID-setup for Windows say that NVMe is bootable, therefore it cannot continiue. Manual installation of drivers and RAID Xpert utility make devices available, but cannot create RAID array.
It turned out that for activation of RAID-utility in BIOS option "Boot from Storage Devices" in Boot -> Boot\CSM (Compatibity Support Module) should be changed to "UEFI driver first". By default it set on "Legacy only", that is wrong for UEFI driver and utility for RAID controller.

[FlyingBear]

Anton Unknown wrote:
After change SATA-mode from AHCI to RAID, all SATA-devices disappears from SATA-device list and boot devices. In my case, RAID-setup for Windows say that NVMe is bootable, therefore it cannot continiue. Manual installation of drivers and RAID Xpert utility make devices available, but cannot create RAID array.
It turned out that for activation of RAID-utility in BIOS option "Boot from Storage Devices" in Boot -> Boot\CSM (Compatibity Support Module) should be changed to "UEFI driver first". By default it set on "Legacy only", that is wrong for UEFI driver and utility for RAID controller.

Hi Anton, yes, you're right about that CSM setting. Without that, RaidXpert2 won't show up in the Advanced section of the BIOS, and you won't be able to set up your bootable RAID array. Obviously, you can't set it up from the RAIDXpert2 application in Windows when you're already running Windows in AHCI mode on one of the disks that you want to include in the RAID array.

In case you haven't gotten there yet, RAIDXpert2 is a UX only a mother could love, but a little trial and error gets you there in the end. They key is that you have to delete "arrays" that are really just single disks, convert disks to RAID mode, initialize them, and then create the array.

[Anton_Unknown]

FlyingBear
Hi. Now I know, that if I make SATA RAID I shoul be set NVMe to RAID mode too. Otherwise RAID utility show error "system boot from MVMe, you should boot from non-NVMe device and try again" (clearly, right?). Windows setup does't show NVMe if partition on it early was deleted. If don't created RAID array on NVME, Windows setup hangs while first reboot.

Clearly and usability 99lvl...