RAID on Ryzen?

[artkingjw]

Hello, 

 

I just ascended to the master race today. Need help getting RAID set up on my system if possible? A friend and I tried my best today but it wasn't cooperating. This is my FIRST build. Please go easy on me. 

 

My system:

Ryzen 7 1700x, ASUS B-350 Prime Plus (BIOS Version 0609 {it is the latest}), ASUS Strix 1070, Samsung EVO 850 (250Gb), 2 X WD Blue  4TB HDD, 2 x 16GB G.Skill Fortis 2400Mhz, CM Hyper 212 Turbo LED, Corsair RMi750, some cheapo ASUS Dvd drive... Windows 10 64bit Pro

 

The SSD is set as boot drive, and the 2 4TBs have not been initialized yet. Installed Windows 10. Tried installing AMD_RAID_driver_Win7-10_V81026 - but it refused to install. I have attached a screenshot showing the relevant dialogue box. Tried installing the various versions they gave, same error. Tried setting RAID (as opposed to AHCI) before installing Windows, however in RAID mode, SSD was detected, but could not be selected in the boot order, and when installing Windows, the drives could not be detected. We gave up and defaulted back to AHCI, and W10 installed normally. 

 

What I want:

the SSD as a boot drive, and the 2 x HDDs in RAID 1. I hope this intended set up is not flawed/impossible. 

 

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. 

[Blebekblebek]

you need to reinstall the os with raid driver at first installation, so the partition/drive on raid can be a boot drive.

if anyone knows different method, feel free to share.

[PineyCreek]

If you want to use RAID on the board, you have to add the drives to a RAID in either the BIOS or RAID BIOS (not sure what it is these days) but if you're using Windows 10 it is just as easy to do something like Windows Storage Spaces which is baked into Windows 10.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12438/windows-10-storage-spaces

 

 

[PineyCreek]

In regards to the driver warning, it seems to be complaining that the driver isn't coded/supported for Windows 10, if I'm reading that right.

[PineyCreek]

Most likely you have to change your storage drives to RAID mode (for the specific ports you're using for those drives) and then a new prompt will appear when you boot your system (like CTRL + C to enter RAID Configuration) for example.

 

Or you can just use Storage Spaces.  I don't think onboard RAID's a tremendous advantage over software RAID in most cases.

[artkingjw]

32 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

Most likely you have to change your storage drives to RAID mode (for the specific ports you're using for those drives) and then a new prompt will appear when you boot your system (like CTRL + C to enter RAID Configuration) for example.

 

Or you can just use Storage Spaces.  I don't think onboard RAID's a tremendous advantage over software RAID in most cases.

ooo that's a pretty good idea. I'll wait to see if anyone knows more about hardware RAID first. But yea, good idea, not a bad compromise for me I think... Thanks. 

[PineyCreek]

2 hours ago, artkingjw said:

ooo that's a pretty good idea. I'll wait to see if anyone knows more about hardware RAID first. But yea, good idea, not a bad compromise for me I think... Thanks. 

Really the best way to go if you have to RAID is a dedicated hardware card with battery backup, but you'll be looking at hundreds of dollars for a good one.  The difference between software and onboard RAID is where you want to put the processing overhead in.  Between those two I'd say it's really negligible.  Onboard RAID in most cases is really software RAID in the background anyway.  The Windows Storage Spaces gives you a bit of flexibility in this case as well I think.

[0x1e]

7 hours ago, artkingjw said:

<Snip>

 

For hardware raid you'll need to go into the bios and change AhCI to RAID.

Save and exit,

You may have to tell the bios which sata ports are going to be used for raid.

save and exit.

Then there should be a new window AFTER post but before Windows saying something about raid.

At this point you would need to press CTRL + X (on ASUS , may differ on other boards)

Put the 2 x 4TB into RAID.

Untick bootable.

SAve and exit.

Back into bios.

Set SSD as boot drive.

Save and exit.

 

Reinstall Windows.

Initialize raid drives (should be seen as one drive from the start)

 

 

Software raid is much easier but I personally don't like it.

Quick reasons:

It's slower with big continuous files.

Other software could break the raid, but it's rare.

After a format you have to remake the raid, and you could lose everything.

 

Hardware raid:

It's slightly faster,

everything happens in the background,

Takes next to no CPU cycles,

You keep the raid and everything on it if you format. Even if you switch OS's.

It will never break the RAID unless you experience hardware failure.

[artkingjw]

On 5/22/2017 at 4:09 AM, 0x1e said:

 

For hardware raid you'll need to go into the bios and change AhCI to RAID.

Save and exit,

You may have to tell the bios which sata ports are going to be used for raid.

save and exit.

Hey man, really appreciate this effort you put in. I'll give this a go when I get the time. However, I have already tried messing with the BIOS to try to get RAID to work, and as I said in my OP, basically, as soon as I selected RAID, the SSD could not be used, I could not put the SSD in the boot order, and only my DVD, USB, and 2 4TB drives could be arranged in the boot order. 

 

Is there a way to TRY this (ie the steps you have proposed above^) WITHOUT harming my CURRENT install of Windows and all its files and programs? I currently have a lot of files and programs already set up. If this doesn't work, I don't have the time (nor internet bandwidth) to reinstall Windows and re set up everything, not for the next few weeks at least.  

 

On 5/22/2017 at 4:09 AM, 0x1e said:

Software raid is much easier but I personally don't like it.

Quick reasons:

It's slower with big continuous files.

Other software could break the raid, but it's rare.

After a format you have to remake the raid, and you could lose everything.

 

Yea something like this is what I am worried about...

 

I suppose IF I can't try to steps mentioned in the first quote, then I'll just have to wait until the next time I get enough free time to do all of this again.  

 

Thanks. 

[MysticalRainXIV]

25 minutes ago, artkingjw said:

Hey man, really appreciate this effort you put in. I'll give this a go when I get the time. However, I have already tried messing with the BIOS to try to get RAID to work, and as I said in my OP, basically, as soon as I selected RAID, the SSD could not be used, I could not put the SSD in the boot order, and only my DVD, USB, and 2 4TB drives could be arranged in the boot order. 

 

Is there a way to TRY this (ie the steps you have proposed above^) WITHOUT harming my CURRENT install of Windows and all its files and programs? I currently have a lot of files and programs already set up. If this doesn't work, I don't have the time (nor internet bandwidth) to reinstall Windows and re set up everything, not for the next few weeks at least.  

 

Yea something like this is what I am worried about...

 

I suppose IF I can't try to steps mentioned in the first quote, then I'll just have to wait until the next time I get enough free time to do all of this again.  

 

Thanks. 

you cannot run a raid array alongside a single boot drive as far as I know on a single controller on the motherboard. The board I use has two separate controllers, one being the intel chipset and the other a 3rd party, so I have my raid drives on the intel controller with my boot drive on the 3rd party controller, allowing it to boot with one and run the raid on the other. When you set your controller to raid it cannot use the single drive because it was set up in AHCI mode, and your only option to have raid would be to set it up in the operating system as a striped volume in windows disk manager.

[Thomaxius]

Hello and thank god for this thread. I recently bought a AM4+ motherboard and such, and I can't get my existing RAID to work. All drives show up as legacy in raidxpert2 and in the amd raid control thingy (meaning they must be 'initialized' in order to use them in raid, according to raidxpert2..), and I even tried formatting the SSD and initializing, that used to be the boot drive with no results. Windows just totally fails to detect any drives in RAID mode.

 

As with the OP, I'm unable to install the raid drivers. It says they're not supported or something, even though it says they're for WIN 10 64-bit. If I load them during windows install, I have to untick the 'hide incompatible drivers' (or whatever) -box.

 

Again, even if I initialize the drive in the raid configuration, it doesn't show up in windows. My next step to try would be installing windows in AHCI mode and loading the drivers, but I don't know if that'll be of any use?

 

Oh and also, I don't see any sata or achi drivers installed in the device manager, just some generic sata driver by windows.

 

My problem is the same as here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3395597/setting-raid-ryzen-asus-crosshair-hero.html

 

Any ideas?

 

Specs: 

Asus b350 prime plus

240gb kingston SSD

2x 2TB RAID0

1x Storage

[artkingjw]

21 hours ago, MysticalRainXIV said:

you cannot run a raid array alongside a single boot drive as far as I know on a single controller on the motherboard. ...

ahhh... bugger... so unless I get another dedicated RAID controller, the one 'built' into my Mobo won't give me the set up I desire then? This is my understanding now, am I correct? 

 

If this is the case... I think I will give up and just stick with Storage Spaces. I can't afford to put much more time and money into my build haha. I just need it to work now. 

[Ryujin2003]

Good luck on setting up. I had RAID on my Ryzen machine. Windows started random BSOD. Found it was the RAID. Windows needs some tweaking. I haven't seen this issue with Linux, but I could be wrong.

[Thomaxius]

8 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Good luck on setting up. I had RAID on my Ryzen machine. Windows started random BSOD. Found it was the RAID. Windows needs some tweaking. I haven't seen this issue with Linux, but I could be wrong.

And how did you set it up? Did you set up a new raid or had an existing one? 

[MysticalRainXIV]

14 hours ago, artkingjw said:

ahhh... bugger... so unless I get another dedicated RAID controller, the one 'built' into my Mobo won't give me the set up I desire then? This is my understanding now, am I correct? 

 

If this is the case... I think I will give up and just stick with Storage Spaces. I can't afford to put much more time and money into my build haha. I just need it to work now. 

you can still set up a raid, it would just have to be software raid managed by Windows, which I do NOT recommend at all due to poor RAID performance.

[MysticalRainXIV]

3 hours ago, Thomaxius said:

And how did you set it up? Did you set up a new raid or had an existing one? 

I would suspect he had a motherboard with two SATA controllers as thats the only way to get it to work.

[Ryujin2003]

4 hours ago, Thomaxius said:

And how did you set it up? Did you set up a new raid or had an existing one? 

 

38 minutes ago, MysticalRainXIV said:

I would suspect he had a motherboard with two SATA controllers as thats the only way to get it to work.

 

I have 1700x paired with MSI X370 Carbon. I used the drivers provided by the manufacturer for my board and set up a new RAID Array via SATA inputs on my MB. Had BSOD approximately 2 times a day. This array was originally a RAID 0 for 2 SSDs NOT used for OS, but instead several larger games. I set the RAID through the MB controller. After having issues starting the same date I installed the RAID, I uninstalled the drivers from Device Manager, but the default drivers didn't work with any RAID configuration. W10 recognized the drive, but couldn't let me format it or anything. I continued to experience BSOD. BSOD finally ended after I deleted RAID and uninstalled the device drivers again.

[MysticalRainXIV]

Just now, Ryujin2003 said:

 

 

I have 1700x paired with MSI X370 Carbon. I used the drivers provided by the manufacturer for my board and set up a new RAID Array via SATA inputs on my MB. Had BSOD approximately 2 times a day. This array was originally a RAID 0 for 2 SSDs NOT used for OS, but instead several larger games. I set the RAID through the MB controller. After having issues starting the same date I installed the RAID, I uninstalled the drivers from Device Manager, but the default drivers didn't work with any RAID configuration. W10 recognized the drive, but couldn't let me format it or anything. I continued to experience BSOD. BSOD finally ended after I deleted RAID and uninstalled the device drivers again.

So you didnt successfully set up a raid?

[Ryujin2003]

Just now, MysticalRainXIV said:

So you didnt successfully set up a raid?

No I did not. I didn't see the point in using software. I had RAID successfully installed on my FX setup, but wasted nearly a week with this and gave up on it. I don't think W10 and Ryzen compatibilities are completely worked out.

[MysticalRainXIV]

1 minute ago, Ryujin2003 said:

No I did not. I didn't see the point in using software. I had RAID successfully installed on my FX setup, but wasted nearly a week with this and gave up on it. I don't think W10 and Ryzen compatibilities are completely worked out.

I always say just get a controller or motherboard with multiple sata controllers

[Thomaxius]

OK progress here.

- I turned raid on in the BIOS

- I turned the compatibly-boot thing on (the 3-letter combination, CBS or something)

- Went to install windows, had the b350 raid drives on my USB

- Clicked on the 'load drivers' (or whatever) -button:

1. I loaded the driver in the PT_RAID\RAID_bottom\WT64A -folder. At this point no drives were detected.
2. I loaded the driver in PT_RAID\RAID_driver\WT64A -folder. Now it detects all drives, but incorrectly shows my old RAID0.*
3. I loaded the driver in RAID_Configuration -folder.
4. Installed windows on my SSD

Remember to do it in that order! It didn't work before cause I think I loaded the driver first, and then the bottom one.

 

So now I have succesfully installed windows on raid mode.. but I don't know how I'm going to solve my existing raid0 not being detected. Maybe I'll have re-assemble my old system and backup my raid to a new 4tb drive..

 

*EDIT: apparently It's not possible, which probably many knew. I didn't, cause I had previously successfully transferred raid0 over am3+ mobo's, but that was cause they had the same controller, i guess.

[cholotoast]

On 21/05/2017 at 12:49 PM, PineyCreek said:

If you want to use RAID on the board, you have to add the drives to a RAID in either the BIOS or RAID BIOS (not sure what it is these days) but if you're using Windows 10 it is just as easy to do something like Windows Storage Spaces which is baked into Windows 10.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12438/windows-10-storage-spaces

 

 

Thanks for the option of Windows 10. I will be trying it soon