I stumbled onto your site when looking for a Intel X79 RAID/RST solution, and first of all, I’d like to say thank you and give you big props for an amazing amount of work!
I am using Windows Server 2012 R2 (RTM) and an Asus P9X79LE motherboard. I have 2 SSDs in RAID 1 .
When I install 2012R2, the default driver version is 12.0.1.1019. The main problem that I have with this is that there is no notification for array errors. Despite it being a 12.x driver, I can’t seem to find RST that will install on 2012R2 / X79. Also, according to TrimCheck, TRIM is not working.
I can install RSTe 3.6.0.1090, and RSTe works. However, again, according to TrimCheck, TRIM does not seem to work.
So, this leaves me with a couple of questions:
1. Am I better off with 12.0.1.1019 or 3.6.0.1090?
2. Is there any way to get RST monitoring to work with the default 12.0.1.1019?
3. Is there any advantage to forcing 12.8 onto Server 2012 R2?
What I must have is a way of seeing if the RAID volume is degraded by way of some notification. I would love to have TRIM and would jump through some hoops to get it, but I’ve overprovisioned the 1TB drive down to an 800GB volume (when I create the mirror set, the maximum size is 887GB), so I think I’ll be ok for the life of this system.
Incidentally, I am using Samsung 840 EVO drives - two in RAID 1 and one out of RAID; in case anyone is curious, the Samsung toolbox correctly identifies both the RAID set and the lone drive, but it cannot perform optimization, firmware updates, overprovisioning, or set RAPID on the array or the drives in the array. For the non-array drive, all of the functions work, except setting RAPID – it’s offered, but fails.
If anyone has any words of advice with 2012R2 and X79, I’m eager to listen! Thank you in advance.
@ Talys:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
The answer depends on the question, if your BIOS offers besides the "normal" Intel RSTe RAID ROM v3.x.x.xxxx an additional Intel RST RAID ROM v11.x.x.xxxx or v12.x.x.xxxx. If the answer is "No!", I recommend to install the Intel RSTe Drivers & Software Set v3.x.x.xxxx (the latest is v3.7.3.1003).
Reason: As long as your Intel(R) C600 Chipset Series SATA RAID Controller is managed by the Intel RSTe RAID ROM v3.x.x.xxxx, you will not be able to get any Intel RST Console Software installed.
No, these are the generic Intel RST drivers of the OS, but there is no suitable Intel RST Console Software available.
You probably will get a better performance, but you will have to force the installation by using the "Have Disk" option.
Only disadvantage: You will not be able to get the Intel RST Console Software v12.8 installed, because X79 RAID systems are not supported by the RST drivers v12.8.
By the way: Only RAID0 SSD arrays are supported by Intel’s "TRIM in RAID" feature. So you have no chance to get TRIM activity within your RAID1 array.
Regards
Fernando
Fernando, thank you very much for the thorough answer!
Hi Talys,
I wanted to ask you a question regarding your install of IRSTe 3.6 onto server 2012r2. Did it allow you to install the software? I have found that enabling trim in a raid 1 volume causes problems. Unfortunately Intel website says that 3.6 IRSTe is not supported on server 2012r2. I have stress tested 3.8, 3.9, 4.1, 4.2 drivers with 2 ssds in raid 1 and the result is always the same, the volume falls apart and a parity check shows thousands and thousands of parity errors.
Yes, although the thread titles are different, the main topic seems to be rather similar.
@ Talys, @ StephenDone, @ billydv:
What do you think about the idea to merge both threads and to give it a titel like "Intel RSTe RAID driver problems with SSD RAID1 arrays running Windows Server Operating Systems"?