Enable Raid 0 in Optiplex 755 SFF?

Did you read the Optiplex 755 User's Guide, pages 19-23 which discusses "Creating a RAID Level 0 Configuration"?

Sounds like we should have released a manual for SFF and USFF to notate the RAID differences.

The difference is notated buried on page 9,10,11 in the BIOS SETTINGS OPTION.  The hard drive needing to be specific Western Digital or Samsung Drive is also known for the SFF and USFF.

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_optiplex_desktop/optiplex-755_user%27s%20guide_en-us.pdf

You do not EVER get BIOS SATA OPERATION Raid options on the SFF and USFF models.

Thanks to you both-  It's always in my nature to wonder why?  I know the SFF is only set up for one hard drive, so something isn't enabled for raid because of that.  But is it a chipset limitation that doesn't allow the Bios option?  Everything else being equal (bios, etc), what part of the machine says, oh...this is a DT, not a SFF and I'll allow the raid option?

Hey there JohnBen :)

As the guys pointed out, the specific model doesn't really support hardware RAID options.
You could check Disk Management and see if you have the option to make your secondary drives Dynamic and set up a software Striped array as your OS should support Simple JBOD, Spanned, Striped and Mirrored arrays on Dynamic drives. :) 

Captain_WD.

Thank you all for your help.  I'll try the Windows 7 software striped solution, and see if I can open the Phoenix bios to enable trim (per Fernando).  FYI, I have a Samsung 850 evo booting no problem with Windows 7, so the A22 bios apparently isn't as picky with SSD's.   Best to  you all-  jb

Happy to help :) Feel free to post back if you happen to have other questions!

I'd take a closer look at the differences between hardware and software RAID arrays and see if any of them would have a direct impact to your work or the goal that you are trying to achieve.

Cheers!

Captain_WD.

There is No such thing as enable or disable TRIM in bios.

Thanks Captain- I would get a hardware card in a heartbeat, but it's my understanding that the Sata 2 speed in AHCI would be faster than raid 0 speeds from a card in the bottom PCI slot. Is this your understanding? I'm also trying to learn all I can from Fernando's site about enabling trim in this old chipset.  Without trim, wouldn't that start to negate any speed gains from Raid 0?  I'm also reading conflicting things about whether trim is passed through on Windows 7 software striping.  My goal for this machine is video rendering, and to play around with Raid 0 since I have less than $100 dollars invested so far (and before I decide to use one of my leftover SSD's for something else).  Trying to learn all I can which will help me make decisions when upgrading to something modern-  Appreciate everyone's help-

Or even better...modify bios to allow trim to pass through raid with older chipsets. 

----

I've been doing some more light reading about how Dell crippled raid options for 755 SFF.  The ICH9DO obviously supports raid:

Intel® I/O Controller Hub 9 (ICH9) Family Datasheet

197

Functional Description

5.16.6 Intel® Matrix Storage Technology Configuration (Intel®ICH9R, ICH9DH, ICH9DO, ICH9M and ICH9M-E Only)

The Intel® Matrix Storage Technology offers several diverse options for RAID (redundant array of independent disks) to meet the needs of the end user. AHCI support provides higher performance and alleviates disk bottlenecks by taking advantage of the independent DMA engines that each SATA port offers in ICH9.

• RAID Level 0 performance scaling up to 4 drives, enabling higher throughput for data intensive applications such as video editing.

• Data security is offered through RAIDLevel 1, which performs mirroring.

• RAID Level 10 provides high levels of storage performance with data protection, combining the fault-tolerance of RAID Level 1 with the performance of RAID Level 0. By striping RAID Level 1 segments, high I/O rates can be achieved on systems that require both performance and fault-tolerance. RAID Level 10 requires 4 hard drives, and provides the capacity of two drives.

• RAID Level 5 provides highly efficient storage while maintaining fault-tolerance on 3 or more drives. By striping parity, and rotating it across all disks, fault tolerance of any single drive is achieved while onlyconsuming 1 drive worth of capacity. That is, a 3 drive RAID 5 has the capacity of 2 drives, or a 4 drive RAID 5 has the capacity of 3 drives. RAID 5 has high read transaction rates, with a medium write rate. RAID 5 is well suited for applications that require high amounts of storage while maintaining fault tolerance.

Note:Intel® Matrix Storage Technology RAID functionality not supported on ICH9M base component. By using the ICH9’s built-in Intel Matrix Storage Technology, there is no loss of PCI resources (request/grant pair) or add-in card slot.

Intel® Matrix Storage Technology functionality requires the following items:

1. ICH9 component enabled for Intel Matrix Storage Technology (see Section 1.3)

2. Intel Matrix Storage Manager RAID Option ROM must be on the platform

3. Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers, most recent revision.

4. At least two SATA hard disk drives (minimum depends on RAID configuration). Intel Matrix Storage Technology is not available in the following configurations:

1. The SATA controller is in compatible mode.

5.16.6.1

Intel® Matrix Storage Manager RAID Option ROM

The Intel Matrix Storage Manager RAID Option ROM is a standard PnP Option ROM that is easily integrated into any System BIOS. When in place, it provides the following three primary functions:

• Provides a text mode user interface that allows the user to manage the RAID configuration on the system in a pre-operating system environment. Its feature set is kept simple to keep size to a minimum, but allows the user to create & delete RAID volumes and select recoveryoptions when problems occur.

• Provides boot support when using a RAID volume as a boot disk. It does this by providing Int13 services when a RAID volume needs to be accessed by DOS applications (such as NTLDR) and by exporting the RAID volumes to the System BIOS for selection in the boot order.

• At each boot up, provides the user with a status of the RAID volumes and the option to enter the user interface by pressing CTRL-I

So it all has to do with the Matrix Storage Manager RAID Option ROM apparently---

A little light reading-  Thanks, SpeedStep

www.win-raid.com/t202f28-TRIM-in-RAID-possible-for-all-Intel-chipsets-from-P-ICH-R-up.html

I should have made myself a little clearer-  Modifying bios to enable trim in raid with older chipsets-

I would say it would depend on the card. SATAII would give you a maximum of 300MB/s per port which no current HDD can fully saturate but a regular SSD would most probably be bottle-necked. I'd benchmark the SSDs' speeds on a SATAIII port and see what they are capable of and how much will they be limited on a SATAII port. Having two regular SSDs in a Striped array on SATAII ports should give you speeds of about 550MB/s to 600MB/s for the whole RAID array. I'd check what would a RAID card be able to do on the specific PCI port and then see which would be the better option. :)

Captain_WD.

Thanks, Captain- The one leftover PCI slot is 1.0, and specs say that's 250 MB/sec.  So according to my not-so-well-informed calculations, the Windows 7 striped array would theoretically give me the highest speed possible (like you said, 550MB/s to 600MB/s- Is my reasoning correct?) since Dell won't let me enable the Matrix Storage Manager RAID Option ROM for my SFF project!  (but that still gets me at or close to Sata III speeds)

Now my final question is about trim, which seems to me would make this whole exercise pointless if it can't be passed through in raid. I'm hearing conflicting things about whether it is passed through with a Windows 7 striped array. I know it is not with a bios-enabled raid. Some sites I've read say yes, others the opposite.  Anyone have any experience with this? You've all been alot of help, and I appreciate it!  jb

The SFF has no RAID Option Rom and therefore the above statement is still in effect.

There are no Raid options in BIOS and therefore no roms to modify.

Dell does not have a separate rom and flash utility so I fail to see how this would EVER be accomplished on a DELL Bios.

INTEL RST Option Roms and INTEL BIOS are not Optiplex Bios or option roms.