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T330 ACHI vs. RAID
Sorry if this is a newbie question, but I've not dealt with Dell servers a lot. That said, I have a new T330 with 4 SATA drives installed in the first 4 bays. In the System BIOS settings, the Embedded SATA setting currently says AHCI. Can I mirror two of those drives (as in RAID-1) or do I need to change that to RAID? If I select RAID, I get an warning that sounds as if the drives will be wiped/formatted/initialized in some way. Since I already have Windows Server installed on the first drive and have data on the 3rd and 4th drives, I don't think I want to do that. Can any experts on the T330 and its SATA settings/options provide some insight? BTW, I've searched the Dell site quite a bit and haven't been able to find much that explains AHCI versus RAID for that setting, what changing it actually does, etc.
Thanks!
DELL-Daniel My
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July 13th, 2017 15:00
Hello
If you set the SATA mode to RAID it will enable the S130 RAID controller that is embedded in the system board. If the SATA mode is set to either ATA or AHCI then the SATA controller will act a pass-through controller. You will have no RAID options with ATA or AHCI.
If you change the mode between ATA, AHCI, or RAID then any data already written to the drives will not be accessible. If you installed the OS while the SATA mode was set to AHCI you will receive a "no boot device found" message if you change the mode to RAID. The data will not be in the proper format for the S130 to see it.
Changing between the modes does not delete the data, but if you make any writes to the drives after changing the mode it will corrupt/overwrite the data.
Thanks
theflash1932
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July 13th, 2017 20:00
Do NOT use the S130 controller. It is garbage and unsuitable for ANY use case. Mirror the drives in the OS or order a real controller. The H730 will work for any use, but the H330 would be acceptable if the couple $hundred difference is important and performance is not a big consideration.
DaveFackler
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July 14th, 2017 05:00
Thanks or the assistance! Exactly the information I was looking for. Looks like have a server rebuild ahead of me if I want to switch to a RAID configuration... :-)
Dave F.
pcmeiners
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July 14th, 2017 09:00
Trust The Flash1932 recommendations concerning the raid adapter, the low end Percs are dangerous to use.
Dev Mgr
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July 15th, 2017 21:00
I'll second (or third) theflash1932 and pcmeiners; don't use a PERC S-series if you value even the littlest performance.
For raid 1 (mirror) a PERC H330 should be ok, but any other raid type (5, 6, 10, 50, or 60), get a PERC H730 or H730P.