Aurora R8, setting up a RAID 0? advice please

Question

Hi guys, Long story short, I wanted to (correctly) set up a RAID0 between two SSD’s I’ve added since buying my R8. Shipped with 512gb boot NVMe SSD and a 2tb HDD and SATA mode set to AHCI in BIOS. I’ve physically installed the two samsung pro 850’s and everything works under AHCI as separate drives. Not a problem there. Not sure if I’ve done this right thus far, but everything seems to work. I’d appreciate some input if what I’ve done was correct or needs redoing etc etc. Here’s what I’ve done... Went into BIOS and changed SATA from AHCI to RAID ON. Rebooted and was expecting a non-boot situation as the OS was installed under AHCI - to my surprise, it booted to desktop without any sign of an issue. No sign of any ‘enter RAID settings using CTRL&I’ during boot so I went to Intel and downloaded and installed RST and was able to configure the RAID 0 array between the two Samsung’s as I wanted. All appears to be working fine, installed steam onto the new array, OS drive appears to be functioning normally, as does everything else. I was really expecting to have to reinstall the OS, didn’t expect it to boot after making the changes. Have I done this correctly or have I missed anything in the process? - tried to find a guide but couldn’t. I’d appreciate any input on this subject, if I’ve made any errors or done it the wrong way, I’d appreciate info on the best way to have done this. Thanks in advance guys.

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Hi,  It sounds like you followed the correct steps, let us know if you experience any issues. You can use this guide for reference.

steviejones133 · Answer

Thanks for that Rodrigo.

Thing is, I don’t see any splash screen at BIOS to view/change RAID settings via Intel RST - I set up my RAID whilst in Windows via RST, not during boot via BIOS.

As mentioned, I was expecting to have to reinstall Windows after changing SATA mode, but didn’t have to - my boot NVMe still seems to be working normally, but I’m thinking that maybe there should be some registry entries that won’t be right.

How do I get to see the RST menu during boot?

savvy2 · Answer

so you have goal what is it , my guess, 2 SSD drives running in RAID 0 Software RAID for SPEED.

Speed only and not the boot drive ( a key fact)

so there is no RAID HW card here, only what Intel gives you in the Z370 chip set.

pure intel hardware, and win 10? software RAID. Is that correct?

Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST ) is 100% Intel.

with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10.

"intel RST is the software side of the raid functions (and caching) built into intel ICHNR motherboards, so it is software raid in that the calcs are not done on dedicated hardware, but it is not pure software raid in that it exists below the level of windows, unlike storage spaces and mirroring in disk management."

did you first bench mark the RAID 0 drive? (it must show up as single drive (SSD x2 RAID 0)

and must run faster than one drive, or all this is wasted effort, if slow.

steviejones133 · Answer

As you can see, the array between my two 850 pro 512gb’s is working fine....just no splash at bios boot to enter raid configuration&#xa0;

XANDERG72 · Answer

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/X51-R2-SSD-RAID-0/m-p/7681514/highlight/false#M31794 This is for X51 R2, but it should work!!!

Alienware Desktops

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