OS: Win 10 x64 latest
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme 6 with latest BIOS (3.20) and CMOS wiped, set to defaults, and then customised to settings that should allow it
Driver/software package: Intel RST v14.8.0.1042_PV from ASRock website, shows up as “Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller” in Device Manager with correct driver 14.8.0.1042.
Disks: 2 x 6TB (RAID 1), system SSD, uninitialised 64GB SSD for cache use (wiped with DISKPART->CLEAN), all connected to Intel ports and all showing up correctly on Intel RST application
Partitions: Some websites say caching won’t work unless disks have space at the end. All disks have a few GB space at the end “just in case” but it didn’t make any difference.
BIOS settings: Completely as usual - main relevant settings are SSDs flagged as being SSDs, Intel SATA controller set to RAID, Cache SSD set to hotswap disabled (some websites say this helps)
I’ve done all I can think of, and never had such an issue before, but whatever I do, I cannot get the Intel RST UI to show me the option to use my SSD cache or acceleration.
If it matters, “Acceleration options” in the orom are also dimmed (I’m not sure if it can be set in the orom or only in the UI). Also an old caching device was used at one point and might not have been deleted in Windows registry (motherboard blew up and OS disk was moved to a replacement board; as a result the old cache disk was never formally removed before the new one was added). Again I’m not sure if that makes a difference and if so, how to clear it.
Any ideas how to get it working, or why it might not?
@Stilez :
Before I will try to help you, here are some questions:
- Why do you want to use the “Intel Smart Response Technology” instead of using an appropriate sized SSD as system drive?
- Which one of your Disk Drives will be used as system drive for the OS and the boot sector?
- Why did you install the old Intel RST(e) RAID Drivers & Software Set v14.8.0.1042 instead of the much newer v14.8.16.1063 one, which is available >here<?
1+2. This might be a misunderstanding. I have a dedicated SSD system drive, and 2 x 6TB HDD RST mirror + 64GB SSD for data. It’s the 2 x 6TB mirror I want to accelerate with the spare SSD, which holds my VMs. I’ve done this with these exact same 3 drives on my old workstation (X79) and it’s fine; I didn’t anticipate any issue getting it to work on this one.
3. I installed 14.8.16.1063 as the forum thread suggested, initially. I downgraded to the version off the ASRock website as part of troubleshooting, because I was running out of ideas and figured that at least their version should work, and I could then upgrade again. But it didn’t work either, so I haven’t upgraded back to 14.8.16.1063 yet.
@Stilez :
According to my knowledge it is impossible to use an already existing RAID array as basis for the Smart Response Technology. What you need is a single HDD and an SSD, both running in RAID mode.
Furthermore it doesn`t make much sense to speed up a RAID1 array (with a redundant Mirror) by using data caching. If you want a better performance for the data transfer, you should better create a RAID0 array.
This seems strange but possible. It could be that it actually will not give the cache acceleration option, unless there is a single HDD and empty SSD connected. But it can certainly accelerate a RAID1 mirror - I’ve been doing that for years right up to my X79 board, with never any problem. I will try to attach a single HDD and see if it thinks "aha, we can accelerate something now!" (I don’t think it will, but I will for sure try)
I will be pleased if it works, and I will try for sure right now.
As for "why", it makes a lot of sense in reality, this isn’t really relevant but it’s background 
I use RAID1 on my workstation in case of disk failure during day to day work (it’s all backed up to the NAS overnight). RAID0 would be faster but kills that, and RAID5 is slow on rebuilds with 6TB HDDs. It is also useful in handling VM work. VM snapshots must be written to both drives, and restored from them if one rolls back. If there is an SSD cache, the rollback is really fast because the entire 12GB of VM data is still cached from when it was written or loaded in the session. If there’s no cache, it has to load it from HDD each time. Taking snapshots is worse - if there is cache it only has to write to the SSD and it’s done. The rest happens in the background. Without cache, it has to write to both, and that slows everything down a lot, because I can’t load other VMs or "move on" to the next task. So for me, it works really well and I notice the benefit to my workflow.
@Stilez :
If you want to use one of the current RAID1 array members as a single HDD, you have to delete the RAID array from within the RAID Utility.
No luck. Seriously, I have now tried by rebooting with the system SSD, an uninitialised SSD, and a single non-RAIDed HDD. Even with a non-RAID HDD (with a partition on it) it’s not offering to accelerate it. If it’s suipporsed to allow it via the orom, it isn’t doing that either. It’s just not offering the acceleration option and I cannot find anything online to say why. I’ve removed and reinstalled drivers and software, set disks to non-hotswap, switched to AHCI and back to RAID, updated the software+drivers back to 14.8.16.1063, reinstalled the chipset drivers, tried a different SSD, tried Intel’s latest 15.x download, tried going back to 12.9.x… is there anything else to try, or do I RMA the board?