Required drivers to enable TRIM on an X79 RAID controller

Important Drivers Specific: Intel AHCI/RAID Drivers
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Soon I’ll be building a Rampage IV Gene X79 based system, using BIOS 4901, and the X79’s RAID controller with two Samsung 850 Pro’s in RAID 0.

I’ve read many posts (including the stickies) regarding the correct drivers required to enable TRIM on an X79 controller’s RAID array. I’ll admit I’m unsure whether I need the RST or RSTe drivers, and whether I even need modified drivers or not. I’ll be using this system with Windows 8.1 x64 in UEFI mode.

At a guess from looking at the stickies posts, I think I would need the “Complete Intel RSTe AHCI/RAID Drivers & Software Set v3.8.3.1016 for Win7/8/8.1” RSTe driver, but, is this enough to enable TRIM, or do I need a specific version of OROM in my BIOS to make it work?

Thanks.

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@ yekan968:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

This is what I have written within the start post of >this< thread:

Isn’t that clear enough?

This is correct.

You should check the SataDriver version of your mainboard BIOS. It should be v3.8.0.1029.
If there should be an older RSTe SataDriver version within the BIOS, I recommend to let the UBU tool update both Intel RSTe RAID modules (ROM and SataDriver) to v3.8.0.1029.

Regards
Fernando

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Ah great, thanks. Yes it’s clear enough now you’ve pointed it out; I was actually looking at all the links for the drivers then moved to the "Informations for SSD users regarding TRIM support" and "Additional informations regarding the newest Intel RST/RST(e) drivers" titled sections.


I’ll have a check when my board arrives. My first board didn’t power up so I’m waiting on the replacement arriving.

So from what I read, modded drivers aren’t required any more? I was reading that the RST drivers were used, along with a modified version of the RST client software with the DEV_ID for the C600 chipset added, so it’ll install? I was also reading your post on the Intel forum, very good reading.

Many thanks Fernando.

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This was only valid for X79 users, who had a RAID system and no possibility to switch the BIOS resp. the Intel SATA RAID Controller to RST mode.
Users with an X79 system, which is running in AHCI mode, still have the choice to use either the "normal" RSTe drivers or the RST ones.

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Dear Community, I have X79 chipset (Asus P9X79E-WS Board) and two SSDs in Raid1 as the system disk. The Bios OPROM driver is updated to 4.5 and the RSTe driver under Win10 Pro x64 is also 4.5. In contrast to many posts here the TRIM functonality in this RAID1 system does not work properly as Trimcheck reveals and also the write speed is quite low with 230 MB/s (read speed is 1000 MB/s!). The windows itself means that (fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify…) that trim is on, but it is not working properly.

I have some doubts, that the TRIM command passes through the RSTe driver when you use SSDs in RAID1 as system disk. Has anyone checked on a comparable system with X79 chipset that the Raid1 works correctly with TRIM checked by Trimcheck (not only by the simple FSUTIL behavior, which checks only if TRIM is switched on, but not if it really works…)?

Thanks for your kind help (especially Fernando for this extremely useful Win-RAID- Forum…)

Bernd

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@Bernd :
Hello Bernd,
welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

If you want a performant system, you should not put the system drive onto a RAID1 array.

The TrimCheck tool is not able to detect very low TRIM activities. That is why you should either trigger TRIM before running the TrimCheck tool or do a manual TRIM check by using an Hex Editor. For details please look into the start post of >this< thread.

Did you enable both Write-Caching options of the RAID1 array’s “Properties” > “Policies”? For details please look >here<.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

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Dear Fernando, first of all, thank you very much for your kind help! I am aware, that Raid0 gives better performance than Raid1, however in this case this the main company server, where some redundancy is of highest priority and RAID1 SSD Power gives both good performance (1000 MB/s readrate) and quite good data lost prevention.
However, I still guess, that the TRIM commands does not pass the driver. Also the manual triggering with “Anvil’s Storage” returns on the RAID1 volume that “all drives does not respond to the “TRIM” command”. The method with the HEX Editor I did not tried until now.

Is there a chance, if I switch to UEFI Driver IRST with version 15.0 to get TRIM working in this RAID1 SSD system disk?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Bernd

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It may not pass the Intel RAID Controller, the driver definitively supports TRIM.

This indicates, that TRIM indeed doesn’t pass the RAID Controller and isn’t active within the RAID array.

No. there is no chance to get TRIM in RAID1 support by using any Intel RST driver v9/10/11/12/13/14/15. They only do support TRIM in RAID0.