Please help with M.2 SSD installation in X399 board. Lost 3 years data switching SATA mode to Raid :(

[hitme987]

Hey guys,

 

I got a new M2 SSD as I needed some space for games and video rendering. The installation turned out to be a nightmare for me, lost 3 years data

 

I'm using a X399 board (MSI Gaming pro carbon AC) with Threadripper 2950x, I had a 2TB Seagate SSD with my OS installed and another 1 TB SATA HDD.
 

After I installed my M2 onto my PC, it was not showing up in the drives (though detected in Device Manager). Thought I need to enable bios settings to enable M2 and followed steps in this MSI official video for X399 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MClnWJ9mws

 

The video showed BIOS settings to enable "Windows 10 WHQL Support" and change SATA mode to "Raid" from AHCI. Little did I know doing this needs me to re-install my OS (as it involved deleting arrays and creating new array).

I ended up re-installing my Windows 10 in my new M2 SSD.

But, post OS installation, my SSD and SATA HDD are not getting detected.

 

I installed Raidxpert2 tool and found out my new M2 SSD is being red-flagged with type as "LEGACY". I have options to Create new arrays with my other SSD and SATA HDD. Now I have the below questions:

 

1)  Why is my M2 SSD red-flagged with type as "LEGACY", What went wrong here?

2) Creating new array from Raidxpert2 is giving an option to select array type as Volume(JBOD), RAID0, RAID1, which one should I choose? My primary use is gaming and video encoding/rendering.

 

 

If I choose Raid0/Raid1, its allowing a min of 2 drives to be selected and mixing SSD with SATA HDD isn't an optimal way right?

 

3) Do I really need SATA mode as RAID for M2 SSD to work with X399 ? Which one among RAID/AHCI would yield more performance?

4) Since, I started my win10 installation fresh, please let me know if there's a better way to format my drives and use them all together. I'm planning to add more M2 SSD's in the future and would ideally want a smoother onboarding.

 

PS: I have UEFI enabled in BIOS as well.

Thanks for reading through my long post and would appreciate any ideas.

Regards!

 

[Kilrah]

Sounds like you don't actually want any RAID.

AHCI or RAID mode shouldn't matter, as long as you don't create arrays all your drives will be available individually as normal. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

f I choose Raid0/Raid1, its allowing a min of 2 drives to be selected and mixing SSD with SATA HDD isn't an optimal way right?

 

yea dont mix hdds and sdds in a raid array.

 

11 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

3) Do I really need SATA mode as RAID for M2 SSD to work with X399 ? Which one among RAID/AHCI would yield more performance?

You should be able to use ahci nd use all your drive.

 

raid is ahci with raid features, so same performance

 

12 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

4) Since, I started my win10 installation fresh, please let me know if there's a better way to format my drives and use them all together. I'm planning to add more M2 SSD's in the future and would ideally want a smoother onboarding.

not really, just add more drives and mount then, unless you want to do some sork of rid, and in that case, use software raid, not the amd one.

 

 

[hitme987]

12 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Sounds like you don't actually want any RAID.

AHCI or RAID mode shouldn't matter, as long as you don't create arrays all your drives will be available individually as normal. 

I wasn't able to get it detected under drives. So, I enabled bios settings as per MSI's recommendation in the video link I shared. 

Do you suggest me to rollback to AHCI and do a re-install of windows and try to make it work this way?

[hitme987]

12 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yea dont mix hdds and sdds in a raid array.

 

You should be able to use ahci nd use all your drive.

 

raid is ahci with raid features, so same performance

 

not really, just add more drives and mount then, unless you want to do some sork of rid, and in that case, use software raid, not the amd one.

 

 

So, would you suggest me to rollback to AHCI, delete the current M2 SSD non-RAID array from BIOS and re-install windows in my M2 SSD? 

[Kilrah]

These instructions are for making a RAID of NVMes. If that's not what you want then that's not the right thing to follow.

 

 

[hitme987]

12 hours ago, Kilrah said:

These instructions are for making a RAID of NVMes. If that's not what you want then that's not the right thing to follow.

 

 

Thanks! What about the current array ? (M2 SSD non-RAID array on which my OS is installed) Should I delete it from BIOS, change SATA mode to AHCI  and re-install OS? 

[hitme987]

Thanks @Kilrah, was able to change to AHCI and reinstall my OS. Win 10 feels so much more faster on a M2 than SSD. Appreciate your support