Sooo close... just need to get mobo RAID working

[KCmetro]

I have an Asus Z170-PRO ATX LGA1151 motherboard with RAID capabilities. I just built a new computer, it works great, but I'm not quite finished with the in-between steps.

 

Hardware installation went fairly well, except a hiccup with securing the backplate for the Corsair liquid cooler for CPU, and had to move memory sticks from 2&4 to 1&3.

 

Next up, motherboard setup, that's where I'm hitting a road block.

 

So I went ahead and installed the operating systems - just base installations, nothing else - on the OS disks and attempted to create a RAID volume on the motherboard to be recognized by the two systems, but when I set the mobo to RAID mode, it basically "breaks" the 2 OSs, and when I set RAID back to AHCI, suddenly both systems work again.

 

I'm using a physical disk for one OS, another physical disk for the other OS, and 2 more physical disks for the RAID.

 

I'm going for RAID 1, and the systems are Windows and Linux.

 

I'd like for both systems to actually work when the motherboard's in RAID mode.

 

At that point, I can proceed with setting up partitions on the RAID.

 

How do I get the mobo RAID working?

 

Edit - OS 1 (Windows) is on M2 SSD, OS 2 (Linux) is on SATA SSD. Both RAID disks are HDDs.

 

[Drak3]

I don't think you will get it working.

You could look into a PCIe add in RAID card.

The alternative solution is working the lack of RAID into an advantage (file organization, basically treat each HDD as a folder).

[ARikozuM]

You can't make RAID with two separate formats.

[KCmetro]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

I don't think you will get it working.

You could look into a PCIe add in RAID card.

The alternative solution is working the lack of RAID into an advantage (file organization, basically treat each HDD as a folder).

I used RAID for the two OS types before but it was soft/mdadm, I'd like to use motherboard's RAID this time. It's gotta be possible.

[KCmetro]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

You can't make RAID with two separate formats.

Formats?

[ARikozuM]

Just now, KCmetro said:

Formats?

If one drive is NTFS and the other isn't, it won't work.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

You can't make RAID with two separate formats.

I believe they want to just RAID the two HDDs, and leave the SSDs to the operating systems.

[KCmetro]

Just now, Drak3 said:

I believe they want to just RAID the two HDDs, and leave the SSDs to the operating systems.

Yeah. SSD1=windwos, SSD2=lnuxi, HDD1+2=radi1

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

I believe they want to just RAID the two HDDs, and leave the SSDs to the operating systems.

I just figured that out.

 

Have you checked your boot priorities?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, KCmetro said:

I used RAID for the two OS types before but it was soft/mdadm, I'd like to use motherboard's RAID this time. It's gotta be possible.

You have to set it to raid mode before installing the os's. Changing between ide,ahci, and raid will normall make it so you can't boot form it.

 

So 

 

set it to raid

 

Make the raid 1.

 

Install the os's

[ShadySocks]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

I believe they want to just RAID the two HDDs, and leave the SSDs to the operating systems.

That is my interpretation too. In that case, you should RAID it using your motherboard's drivers.

[KCmetro]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

I just figured that out.

 

Have you checked your boot priorities?

 

Yep, and on a side note I love the new bios/uefi. I'm used to ancient BIOS screens/configs. Anyway, so I adjusted the boot priorities to put linux first, and it gives me grub for picking either windows or linux, and it boots fine, and each even detect HDD1+2... when RAID is disabled and AHCI is enabled... but once I enable RAID neither system boots.

 

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

You have to set it to raid mode before installing the os's. Changing between ide,ahci, and raid will normall make it so you can't boot form it.

 

So 

 

set it to raid

 

Make the raid 1.

 

Install the os's

 

I tried setting to RAID mode before installing but it wouldn't even recognize the 1st OS disk (the M2 SSD), although it did recognize the 2nd OS disk (SATA SSD). I only did a base install of each OS, and they installed extremely fast, so I can just do another one, overwriting the OS disks.

[KCmetro]

2 minutes ago, ShadySocks said:

That is my interpretation too. In that case, you should RAID it using your motherboard's drivers.

Do I have to manually install the drivers? How do I do that?

 

I'm going to give another go with the 1,2,3 Elec.Wiz. provided:

1. set raid

2. make raid 1

3. install os;s

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, ShadySocks said:

That is my interpretation too. In that case, you should RAID it using your motherboard's drivers.

I'm thinking that the mainboard doesn't want to recognize the M.2 NVMe SSD if the other disks are in RAID and are AHCI.

Hence why I suggested looking into a RAID card.

[ShadySocks]

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-PRO/HelpDesk_Download/

 

It is under the "SATA" Tab

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, KCmetro said:

 

Yep, and on a side note I love the new bios/uefi. I'm used to ancient BIOS screens/configs. Anyway, so I adjusted the boot priorities to put linux first, and it gives me grub for picking either windows or linux, and it boots fine, and each even detect HDD1+2... when RAID is disabled and AHCI is enabled... but once I enable RAID neither system boots.

 

 

I tried setting to RAID mode before installing but it wouldn't even recognize the 1st OS disk (the M2 SSD), although it did recognize the 2nd OS disk (SATA SSD). I only did a base install of each OS, and they installed extremely fast, so I can just do another one, overwriting the OS disks.

Probably a issue with the pcie ssd and sata raid.

 

Your options are

 

- Get a hardware raid card, a dell h700 is about 60 on ebay and very good.

 

- Don't use raid, and just clone the drives or use a backup. Basically the same as raid, but done as a cron job or a task in windows. If you do it every 10 min you won't lose much data at all in a failure.

 

-Use softare raid. You can partition the disks in half, and have one half btrfs raid 1 in linux and the other half raid 1 in windows. 

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

-Use softare raid. You can partition the disks in half, and have one half btrfs raid 1 in linux and the other half raid 1 in windows. 

Linux can read NTFS and vice versa, though.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Linux can read NTFS and vice versa, though.

but its not just ntfs, its ntrfs in windows raid, which isn't supported in linux well or at all.

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

but its not just ntfs, its ntrfs in windows raid, which isn't supported in linux well or at all.

Would an extended/spanned volume or JBOD show up in Linux?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Would an extended/spanned volume or JBOD show up in Linux?

This is how id do it and it should work fine

 

Run it so both drive show up to the os(jbod)

 

Use the GPT partition table to split the drive in 2.

 

Then make a raid of the first pair or partition in linux with btrfs.

 

Then make a raid of the second pair or partition in windows with their software raid.

 

This should work just fine.

[KCmetro]

14 minutes ago, ShadySocks said:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-PRO/HelpDesk_Download/

 

It is under the "SATA" Tab

Okay I grabbed the driver, then...

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You have to set it to raid mode before installing the os's. Changing between ide,ahci, and raid will normall make it so you can't boot form it.

 

So 

 

set it to raid

 

Make the raid 1.

 

Install the os's

...I did that... but it looks like the driver is just for setting things up directly in Windows, a utility/app.

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Probably a issue with the pcie ssd and sata raid.

 

Your options are

 

- Get a hardware raid card, a dell h700 is about 60 on ebay and very good.

 

- Don't use raid, and just clone the drives or use a backup. Basically the same as raid, but done as a cron job or a task in windows. If you do it every 10 min you won't lose much data at all in a failure.

 

-Use softare raid. You can partition the disks in half, and have one half btrfs raid 1 in linux and the other half raid 1 in windows. 

2nd option is interesting, although would like to avoid that. hardware/card raid or software raid might be the way to go. would really like to just use the motherboard's raid and both system types to recognize the "single" disk.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, KCmetro said:

Okay I grabbed the driver, then...

...I did that... but it looks like the driver is just for setting things up directly in Windows, a utility/app.

2nd option is interesting, although would like to avoid that. hardware/card raid or software raid might be the way to go. would really like to just use the motherboard's raid and both system types to recognize the "single" disk.

Take a look at the last options. It would let you use the raid in both os's

 

Second methon is just rsync and a cron job.

[KCmetro]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

This is how id do it and it should work fine

 

Run it so both drive show up to the os(jbod)

 

Use the GPT partition table to split the drive in 2.

 

Then make a raid of the first pair or partition in linux with btrfs.

 

Then make a raid of the second pair or partition in windows with their software raid.

 

This should work just fine.

jbod's new to me, I'm curious about it {goes to google it}.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, KCmetro said:

jbod's new to me, I'm curious about it {goes to google it}.

JBOD is basically any drive that not in raid. I explianed the setup more here.

 

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

This is how id do it and it should work fine

 

Run it so both drive show up to the os(jbod)

 

Use the GPT partition table to split the drive in 2.

 

Then make a raid of the first pair or partition in linux with btrfs.

 

Then make a raid of the second pair or partition in windows with their software raid.

 

This should work just fine.

 

[KCmetro]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Take a look at the last options. It would let you use the raid in both os's

 

Second methon is just rsync and a cron job.

last option being:

"Use softare raid. You can partition the disks in half, and have one half btrfs raid 1 in linux and the other half raid 1 in windows. "

?