Greetings,
I came across this site trough some of Fernando’s very conclusive articles in the german WinLite forum.
I’ve bought myself two brand new WD Red 3TB drives and just learned, that my chipset does support large drives,
but the Matrix Storage ROM version of the latest vendor’s BIOS doesn’t.
I can see both 3TB Volumes in the Intel RST and the Windows Management Console (Win7 Pro x64) but besides creating a software RAID, i cannot get the controller to bind them as a RAID0 array from inside a running OS, right?
The Intel MSM-ROM shows only two 746.5 GB drives and when creating a smaller sized Level 0 or 1 Array on those,
it shows no effect under Windows or the Intel RST Console (still displayed as two independent 3TB drives).
I suspect, that no initialization has been applied to the drives at all - the MSM does remember the configuration, however.
I found another thread explaining this issue here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1621792
The last BIOS Release for my MSI x58 Pro (7522v8F) is from 2011-03-19 (Version 8.F).
Vendor’s BIOS Link: http://de.msi.com/product/mb/X58-Pro.html#/?div=BIOS
The Matrix Storage Manager option ROM of this BIOS version is v8.5.0.1030 driving a ICH10R/D0 Chip in RAID mode. I’ve been running 3 x 500 GB WD Black as a RAID 5 Array for years on it without any sign of trouble so far.
Do you think it’s possible to mod the original BIOS files with a compatible Intel MSM ROM module?
In the BIOS Settings i have an option to enable a LAN option ROM feature for network booting.
Would you advise to provide a specific ROM via network boot first (to ensure compatibility)?
I’ve also read something about enabling SLI on a similar MSI x58 Pro board by flashing the BIOS from its SLI-enabled counterpart, though i’m not sure, if that’s any help with the MSM-ROM version, since its last update (7522v89) is from 2010-02-08.
To be honest, I’ve never modded a BIOS file myself before, but I studied IT and am quite familiar with coding (and my system). I’d be very thankful if someone with experience in this could advise me about my options and the risks, since i’d regret to lose my only mainboard supporting that other level 5 array.
I also considered buying an extra controller card or NAS, but if such a device fails, i’d have to buy another one just to get my data back :[
Thanks a lot,
mmember
@ mmember:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
If you want full support of HDDs bigger sized than 2TB, you will need an Intel RAID ROM v10.5.x.xxxx or higher within your BIOS (look >here<).
The update of the Intel RAID ROM is not difficult alt all. Please read my guides, before you start.
Don’t touch the LAN ROM. It is only important for the Wake-on-LAN function and an update of this module will not solve your problem.
The SLI configuration has nothing to do with the detection of big sized HDDs. Only the Intel RAID ROM is responsable for that.
Regards
Fernando