So how can I get two nvme drives in raid 0? x370 mobo

[Enten]

Google is giving me mixed answers. Some say the x370 boards don't support nvme raid, and that only x99 boards do. Other users claim they got it to work on their boards. 

 

I hold ctrl+r to get into the raid utility, and only my hard drive shows up. The two m.2 nvme drives are not listed. They do show up in bios though, and I can boot from them individually. 

 

My motherboard is the x370 asus crosshair vi extreme. Bios version 3502 x64

 

I can't find "raidxpert" anywhere in bios either. CSM on or off, no difference. I just want to raid those two sticks and do a clean install of windows. 

 

[Derrk]

putting 2 nvme drives into raid 0 really wouldn't make a noticeable difference, so i'd say it isn't worth it

[Enten]

4 minutes ago, Derrk said:

putting 2 nvme drives into raid 0 really wouldn't make a noticeable difference, so i'd say it isn't worth it

Speed isn't really the priority. Size is. 

I have software that takes up literal terabytes of space, and doesn't work if you try to install it on a slave drive. Has to be the same volume no matter what, so raid 0 is pretty much my only option. Until higher capacity nvme drives come out... 

[Derrk]

7 minutes ago, Enten said:

Speed isn't really the priority. Size is. 

I have software that takes up literal terabytes of space, and doesn't work if you try to install it on a slave drive. Has to be the same volume no matter what, so raid 0 is pretty much my only option. Until higher capacity nvme drives come out... 

hadn't thought of that, i assume both your drives are 1tb then?

 

have you tried setting up raid through the bios?

[Enten]

2 minutes ago, Derrk said:

hadn't thought of that, i assume both your drives are 1tb then?

 

have you tried setting up raid through the bios?

Aside from setting the sata mode to RAID, and entering the raid utility, what else can I do? The nvme drives don't show up for some reason? Only the hard drive does 

[Derrk]

1 minute ago, Enten said:

Aside from setting the sata mode to RAID, and entering the raid utility, what else can I do? The nvme drives don't show up for some reason? Only the hard drive does 

you mentioned they're showing up in bios but do they show up in windows?

you may have to initialize the drives in disk management 

[Enten]

4 minutes ago, Derrk said:

you mentioned they're showing up in bios but do they show up in windows?

you may have to initialize the drives in disk management 

You mean, boot into windows first? That disk management? 

I'm really confused. One of those drives already has win10 installed and I can boot from it easily. So it must be initialized? The 2nd nvme drive also shows up as (E:) but blank, obviously. 

 

I plan to completely wipe both since I'll be raiding then, but I can't seem to get that far. 

[Enderman]

20 minutes ago, Enten said:

Speed isn't really the priority. Size is. 

I have software that takes up literal terabytes of space, and doesn't work if you try to install it on a slave drive. Has to be the same volume no matter what, so raid 0 is pretty much my only option. Until higher capacity nvme drives come out... 

First of all, there is no software that takes up terabytes of space. That would be impossible to load and run on any kind of modern computer.

 

Second, you can buy sata SSDs that are 4TB large so you should use that instead of raid, which is crap.

 

Third, you don't need NVME.

[Derrk]

Just now, Enten said:

You mean, boot into windows first? That disk management? 

I'm really confused. One of those drives already has win10 installed and I can not from it easily. So it must be initialized? The 2nd nvme drive also shows up as (E:) but blank, obviously. 

 

I plan to completely wipe both since I'll be raiding then, but I can't seem to get that far. 

if both drives are already formatted an appear in windows, then i'm sorry but im not sure whats causing them to not show up in raid

[Enten]

9 minutes ago, Enderman said:

First of all, there is no software that takes up terabytes of space. That would be impossible to load and run on any kind of modern computer.

 

Second, you can buy sata SSDs that are 4TB large so you should use that instead of raid, which is crap.

 

Third, you don't need NVME.

Well it's really a couple of suites of software. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have never successfully been able to install visual studio on a slave, or have my working files point to the correct directory with autodesk. I've spent at least a dozen hours trying to get it working, and I can't. 

 

That means I need to buy more SSD's, but I already have 2 nvme drives. And unfortunately, FOUR of the sata ports on my mobo are DOA. I didn't bother with an RMA because I never planned to use any sata drives. Just my one backup HD and disc drive. 

 

I really rather get the nvme raid working if at all possible. Everything is hooked up, I just can't figure out how to do it. 

[ch3w2oy]

10 minutes ago, Enten said:

I really rather get the nvme raid working if at all possible. Everything is hooked up, I just can't figure out how to do it. 

Guess I can try to help.. I just did it for the first time on my X570, not even an hour ago (still testing things)..

 

You need this. This needs to be loaded on a USB drive so you can load it up when installing Windows. No special format or anything.. That is found here on AMDs website. Inside the Zip you will find a PDF. Read and follow that.

 

That PDF with this video is ALL I used to get my 2 1TB drives to become a 2TB array  

 

 

Tip, you need to enable Raid mode, in BIOS, first and then save and close BIOS, reopen BIOS and then you'll see the RaidExpert at the bottom of I think the Advanced tab. I played around with it to get it to work but doing this will delete all of your data. You need initialize the disks and create an array. If you want Windows on the array you need to load the drivers (from zip that I first linked) when you go to install Windows using this button:

 

[TheKDub]

26 minutes ago, Enderman said:

First of all, there is no software that takes up terabytes of space. That would be impossible to load and run on any kind of modern computer.

 

Second, you can buy sata SSDs that are 4TB large so you should use that instead of raid, which is crap.

 

Third, you don't need NVME.

There are even some that are around 8TB, but they're quite expensive. (Micro 5200 ECO is 7.68TB for $1053.23)

 

17 minutes ago, Enten said:

Well it's really a couple of suites of software. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have never successfully been able to install visual studio on a slave, or have my working files point to the correct directory with autodesk. I've spent at least a dozen hours trying to get it working, and I can't. 

 

That means I need to buy more SSD's, but I already have 2 nvme drives. And unfortunately, FOUR of the sata ports on my mobo are DOA. I didn't bother with an RMA because I never planned to use any sata drives. Just my one backup HD and disc drive. 

 

I really rather get the nvme raid working if at all possible. Everything is hooked up, I just can't figure out how to do it. 

What all do you have taking up PCIe slots?

 

That seems to explain PCIe lanes on Ryzen fairly well.

 

Assuming you have a GPU using up 16x PCIe 3.0 lanes, your second SSD is likely getting 4x PCIe 2.0 lanes from the Chipset, which could be why it's not working properly for RAID.

 

See if you can drop the GPU down to 8x, then try again with RAID.

[Enderman]

20 minutes ago, Enten said:

Well it's really a couple of suites of software. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have never successfully been able to install visual studio on a slave, or have my working files point to the correct directory with autodesk. I've spent at least a dozen hours trying to get it working, and I can't. 

 

That means I need to buy more SSD's, but I already have 2 nvme drives. And unfortunately, FOUR of the sata ports on my mobo are DOA. I didn't bother with an RMA because I never planned to use any sata drives. Just my one backup HD and disc drive. 

 

I really rather get the nvme raid working if at all possible. Everything is hooked up, I just can't figure out how to do it. 

Visual studio is not even near a terabyte.

You could literally install EVERY IDE or programming suite and not do more than a few hundred GB.

 

Visual studio should be installed to your C drive, not a secondary drive.

Buying huge drives does not fix problems like this.

Clean install windows and install your software properly on the same drive and it will work.

Just use a single large drive, sata or PCIe, doesn't matter.

[Enten]

Thank you!! I was finally able to get raidxpert2 to show up! But the drive list is still blank and I can't select "create array". Did you have this issue? Do you remember what to click on/change to get them to show up? 

 

Or do I begin booting from the windows install disc and select the raid drivers during installation? Will that create the array, during windows installation? 

[Enten]

11 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

There are even some that are around 8TB, but they're quite expensive. (Micro 5200 ECO is 7.68TB for $1053.23)

 

What all do you have taking up PCIe slots?

 

That seems to explain PCIe lanes on Ryzen fairly well.

 

Assuming you have a GPU using up 16x PCIe 3.0 lanes, your second SSD is likely getting 4x PCIe 2.0 lanes from the Chipset, which could be why it's not working properly for RAID.

 

See if you can drop the GPU down to 8x, then try again with RAID.

Yeah... not really in my budget right now... Wow that's pretty pricey. Wish I had one of those!

 

I have two Vega 64's running in x8 each... You think I need to unplug my 2nd Vega for this RAID thing to work? I'm guessing if so, I won't be able to use it again later after the RAID is set up...

[ch3w2oy]

2 minutes ago, Enten said:

Or do I begin booting from the windows install disc and select the raid drivers during installation? Will that create the array, during windows installation? 

Ya no, you have to create the Array before Windows installation.. I'm not sure what I clicked or did honestly, I just followed the video and PDF I linked above.. Don't follow it word for word, I just took what I needed from it and figured it out myself..  It was my first time so I can't recall lol.

 

I initialized the disks. I created an array. I had to go to SATA Configuration and put into RAID mode as well and change a few other settings.. The directions are all there, those are the only two pieces that helped me so use them!

 

I've only done it once so I'm unable to help you any further.. You need to just skip through all the junk and get the info you need if you don't want to watch the entire video..

 

Wish I could help more but I promise you the information I just provided should get you into windows with a RAID 0 setup, assuming it's similar to my boards BIOS..

 

Good luck!

[Enten]

2 minutes ago, ch3w2oy said:

Ya no, you have to create the Array before Windows installation.. I'm not sure what I clicked or did honestly, I just followed the video and PDF I linked above.. Don't follow it word for word, I just took what I needed from it and figured it out myself..  It was my first time so I can't recall lol.

 

I initialized the disks. I created an array. I had to go to SATA Configuration and put into RAID mode as well and change a few other settings.. The directions are all there, those are the only two pieces that helped me so use them!

 

I've only done it once so I'm unable to help you any further.. You need to just skip through all the junk and get the info you need if you don't want to watch the entire video..

 

Wish I could help more but I promise you the information I just provided should get you into windows with a RAID 0 setup, assuming it's similar to my boards BIOS..

 

Good luck!

Looks like I gotta do some digging, and wearing out my DEL key haha. 

Thank you for the sources though! I wasn't able to come across these when I googled around, for some reason. 

 

Glad you got it working though, still gives me hope. Thanks!

[ch3w2oy]

Check out the pre-installation steps in the PDF, that is in the zip file from my first link. It practically walks you through it.. You need to go to SATA config under Advanced tab in BIOS and change ACH to RAID and a couple other things.. It's all there in that PDF, I just used the Video I linked so I understood where everything was located..

[Enten]

11 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Visual studio is not even near a terabyte.

You could literally install EVERY IDE or programming suite and not do more than a few hundred GB.

 

Visual studio should be installed to your C drive, not a secondary drive.

Buying huge drives does not fix problems like this.

Clean install windows and install your software properly on the same drive and it will work.

Just use a single large drive, sata or PCIe, doesn't matter.

VS gives you the option to install to a secondary drive, but it always fails during installation for me, so main drive it is. 

 

Then there's the pointer issue I have with Autodesk. It's not uncommon to have working folders that are 80-110GB each. I tried moving them to external drives and pointing to the new directory, but nope. Autodesk is a complete @$$ about that. 

 

...then there's this game I have with a 914GB mods folder... game itself is like another 100GB+. Again, won't work off a slave drive. And I don't have it on Steam so I can't just create a new library under another disc. Can't think of any way around this either. 

 

I have a 6TB WD drive, but god is it slow. I can hardly do anything on it. Takes literal minutes to perform actions in photoshop. 

[Enderman]

6 minutes ago, Enten said:

VS gives you the option to install to a secondary drive, but it always fails during installation for me, so main drive it is. 

 

Then there's the pointer issue I have with Autodesk. It's not uncommon to have working folders that are 80-110GB each. I tried moving them to external drives and pointing to the new directory, but nope. Autodesk is a complete @$$ about that. 

 

...then there's this game I have with a 914GB mods folder... game itself is like another 100GB+. Again, won't work off a slave drive. And I don't have it on Steam so I can't just create a new library under another disc. Can't think of any way around this either. 

 

I have a 6TB WD drive, but god is it slow. I can hardly do anything on it. Takes literal minutes to perform actions in photoshop. 

Ok see the thing is neither autodesk nor the game are "terabyte programs"

The programs themselves are very small, it is the files and documents that are large.

You should look into fixing your autodesk so that you can work on files on other drives, because that's very basic functionality.

A clean install would fix it.

 

Second, just buy a 4TB or 8TB SSD as your primary C drive and problem solved.

[TheKDub]

1 hour ago, Enten said:

Yeah... not really in my budget right now... Wow that's pretty pricey. Wish I had one of those!

 

I have two Vega 64's running in x8 each... You think I need to unplug my 2nd Vega for this RAID thing to work? I'm guessing if so, I won't be able to use it again later after the RAID is set up...

Possibly. Or if your BIOS gives control over PCIe lanes, you could try to set them to 4x to free up some lanes.

[Enten]

17 hours ago, Enderman said:

Ok see the thing is neither autodesk nor the game are "terabyte programs"

The programs themselves are very small, it is the files and documents that are large.

Well maybe not individually, but together all of my software easily exceeds 1.5 terabytes. Working files, textures, other directiories, etc. are another 1-2 terabytes. 

Then there's my game that's just over 1TB in size after mods, and that's only one game. It takes 6-7 hours to load currently on my SSD raid 0 array, can't imagine loading times on a single SSD. 

 

"You should look into fixing your autodesk so that you can work on files on other drives, because that's very basic functionality."
"Clean install windows and install your software properly on the same drive and it will work."

 

Hahahaha...ha.. I really hope you say this only because you've never worked with autodesk products. Their forums are filled to the brim with users having the absolute most mundane issues that are unresolvable. You have to jump through freaking hoops just to launch their software. Once you are able to start it up and work in it, you don't touch it!! Or you'll end up in an endless loop of troubleshooting again. It is impossible to do a "clean" install, as their software blocks you from removing it 100%. There are always leftover registry entries and background apps that even Revo can't get rid of. 

 

"Second, just buy a 4TB or 8TB SSD as your primary C drive and problem solved."

> just buy

> buy

 

There's my problem. A decent 4TB one is in the ~$500 range, and an 8TB double that. That's more than the cost of my entire PC + peripherals. 

The whole reason I got these two nvme drives is because they were super cheap! Much cheaper than an SSD of the same size. 

 

I don't want to do it the hard way, but I have two nvme drives, and a motherboard that supposedly supports nvme raid. I'd like to work with what I already have before going out and getting new hardware, wish me luck. 

[Enderman]

7 hours ago, Enten said:

Well maybe not individually, but together all of my software easily exceeds 1.5 terabytes. Working files, textures, other directiories, etc. are another 1-2 terabytes. 

Then there's my game that's just over 1TB in size after mods, and that's only one game. It takes 6-7 hours to load currently on my SSD raid 0 array, can't imagine loading times on a single SSD. 

 

"You should look into fixing your autodesk so that you can work on files on other drives, because that's very basic functionality."
"Clean install windows and install your software properly on the same drive and it will work."

 

Hahahaha...ha.. I really hope you say this only because you've never worked with autodesk products. Their forums are filled to the brim with users having the absolute most mundane issues that are unresolvable. You have to jump through freaking hoops just to launch their software. Once you are able to start it up and work in it, you don't touch it!! Or you'll end up in an endless loop of troubleshooting again. It is impossible to do a "clean" install, as their software blocks you from removing it 100%. There are always leftover registry entries and background apps that even Revo can't get rid of. 

 

"Second, just buy a 4TB or 8TB SSD as your primary C drive and problem solved."

> just buy

> buy

 

There's my problem. A decent 4TB one is in the ~$500 range, and an 8TB double that. That's more than the cost of my entire PC + peripherals. 

The whole reason I got these two nvme drives is because they were super cheap! Much cheaper than an SSD of the same size. 

 

I don't want to do it the hard way, but I have two nvme drives, and a motherboard that supposedly supports nvme raid. I'd like to work with what I already have before going out and getting new hardware, wish me luck. 

1) the software itself does not, you're counting files and documents as part of the software, which is not how it works. Microsoft word does not count as 1TB of software if you have 1TB of word documents.

 

2) First of all, why use autodesk, get solidworks. Second, by clean install I mean clean installing windows, wiping everything and clean isntalling the programs.

 

3) $500 for a 4TB SSD is super cheap, that's how much I paid for my 240GB SSD years ago. You should also never cheap out on storage, which is what it sound like you're trying to do with your "cheap NVME SSDs"

 

4) if you want raid to be reliable so you don't lose your stuff, you should be spending hundreds or thousands on a good raid controller, not using shitty motherboard raid.

[Enten]

19 hours ago, Enderman said:

1) the software itself does not, you're counting files and documents as part of the software, which is not how it works. Microsoft word does not count as 1TB of software if you have 1TB of word documents.

 

2) First of all, why use autodesk, get solidworks. Second, by clean install I mean clean installing windows, wiping everything and clean isntalling the programs.

 

3) $500 for a 4TB SSD is super cheap, that's how much I paid for my 240GB SSD years ago. You should also never cheap out on storage, which is what it sound like you're trying to do with your "cheap NVME SSDs"

 

4) if you want raid to be reliable so you don't lose your stuff, you should be spending hundreds or thousands on a good raid controller, not using shitty motherboard raid.

1. If Microsoft word refused to open documents if they weren't saved on the same drive, and I need to be able to open them, then I'd consider that part of the same "installation" size since there's no way around it. Either way sure, I couldn't have worded that better but in reality if a software + working files = X drive space, then I still need X drive space no matter what. 

 

2. Solidworks does not support Corona Renderer, no substance/marvelous designer/unreal pipeline, and afaik there's no way to create the models and animations I need. I'm not an engineer. Even if it was capable of handling my current pipeline, it would involve spending several dozen hours relearning that software, and converting all my working files to whatever extension Solidworks supports, if that's even possible at all. I can't even get 3DS Max to accept Maya files, and they're both owned by Autodesk. 

 

3. I know. I spent $180 each for four 256gb SSD's to raid0 back in... 2013? That only gave me 1TB for $800 after taxes. I think I'm still paying interest on that. The 660p's are by no means crappy drives. Excellent bang for the buck, and since I did in fact get the raid to work on these nvme drives after updating my stubborn motherboard, I am getting 2,239 MB/s sequential speeds. Sure I don't expect it to be this fast 100% of the time, but that's still a huge upgrade from the 731 MB/s on average I was getting before raid0, and worth it to me. 

 

4. No worries there. I run full backups every other day, and all my file history is copied over to google drive. I have about 13TB of files saved there, but again, there's no way I can install software and run it from gDrive so I have to have a large enough "disk" off the cloud. Another option would have to been to not bother with the raid array and just boot off the 2 nvme drives separately when I needed to run specific software installed on said drive, but that's a huge nuisance. I can't think of any other solution that doesn't involve buying new hardware. 

 

I am however running into issues with my GPU's now, since the 2nd slot if sharing bandwidth with the 2nd M.2 drive, so I guess I have to make a new thread about that? The motherboard manual is completely useless, or I am just dumb. Or both. 

[Enten]

On 7/12/2019 at 2:02 AM, TheKDub said:

Possibly. Or if your BIOS gives control over PCIe lanes, you could try to set them to 4x to free up some lanes.

Can't seem to find any instructions on how to do this. 2nd GPU is not showing up under device manager, but it is taking power. I guess either:

 

1. Crossfire/Dual GPU setup is not possible with a populated 2nd m.2 slot

2. I need to weak setting in my bios and I don't know where to begin without screwing up, can't find a guide for it and the manual doesn't give instructions. How would I look this up?

 

Attached pics are what the manual says. Is this good or bad news in regards to a dual GPU setup? x16/x8/x4 etc. doesn't matter as long as both GPU's "work" with windows. Highlighted are the PCIE/M.2 slots I have populated. 

 

Sadly, I cannot fit my 2nd GPU in the bottom-most PCIE slot. Case only provides one I/O bracket of room, and GPU takes two.