Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation and RAID Configuration 1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation...............................2 1.1 2. Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation.................2 Guide to RAID Configurations............................................3 2.1 Introduction of RAID..................................................3 2.2 RAID Configuration Precautions...............................6 2.3 Installing Windows® 10 64-bit With RAID Functions..7 2.
1. Guide to SATA Hard Disks Installation 1.1 Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Disks Installation Intel chipset supports Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks with RAID functions, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and Intel Rapid Storage. Please read the RAID configurations in this guide carefully according to the Intel southbridge chipset that your motherboard adopts. You may install SATA hard disks on this motherboard for internal storage devices. This section will guide you how to create RAID on SATA ports.
2. Guide to RAID Configurations 2.1 Introduction of RAID This motherboard adopts Intel southbridge chipset that integrates RAID controller supporting RAID 0 / RAID 1/ Intel Rapid Storage / RAID 10 / RAID 5 function with four independent Serial ATA (SATA) channels. This section will introduce the basic knowledge of RAID, and the guide to configure RAID 0 / RAID 1/ Intel Rapid Storage / RAID 10 / RAID 5 settings.
Intel Rapid Storage The Intel Rapid Storage technology supported allows you to create a RAID 0 and RAID 1 set using only two identical hard disk drives. The Intel Rapid Storage technology creates two partitions on each hard disk drive to create a virtual RAID 0 and RAID 1 sets. This technology also allows you to change the hard disk drive partition size without losing any data. RAID 10 RAID 10 is a striped configuration with RAID 1 segments whose segments are RAID 1 arrays.
RAID 5 RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more hard disk drives. Among the advantages of RAID 5 configuration include better HDD performance, fault tolerance, and higher storage capacity. The RAID 5 configuration is best suited for transaction processing, relational database applications, enterprise resource planning, and other business systems. Use a minimum of three identical hard disk drives for this setup.
1. 2. 3. Please use two new drives if you are creating a RAID 0 (striping) array for performance. It is recommended to use two SATA drives of the same size. If you use two drives of different sizes, the smaller capacity hard disk will be the base storage size for each drive. For example, if one hard disk has an 80GB storage capacity and the other hard disk has 60GB, the maximum storage capacity for the 80GB-drive becomes 60GB, and the total storage capacity for this RAID 0 set is 120GB.
2.3 Installing Windows® 10 64-bit With RAID Functions If you want to install Windows® 10 64-bit OS on your SATA / SATA2 / SATA3 HDDs with RAID functions, please follow the procedures below. STEP 1: Setting the BIOS RAID Items After installing the hard disk drives, please set the necessary RAID items in the BIOS before setting your RAID configuration. Boot your system, and press key to enter BIOS setup utility. Go to Advanced Storage Configuration and set SATA Mode Selection to [RAID].
2.4 Configuring a RAID array You can configure a RAID array using either UEFI Setup Utility or Intel® RAID BIOS setup utility, depending on the HDD capacity and the OS you are installing. Please refer to the table below to choose the corresponding RAID Utility. OS Windows 10 HDD Capacity Over 2.2 TB Under 2.2 TB Over 2.2 TB Under 2.
2.4.1 Configuring a RAID array Using UEFI Setup Utility STEP 1: Enter the UEFI Setup Utility by pressing or right after you power on the computer. STEP 2: Go to Boot CSM and set Launch Storage OpROM policy to [UEFI only]. STEP 3: Go to Advanced Storage Configuration and set SATA Mode Selection to [RAID], then press to save the configuration changes and exit setup. Then Enter Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology in Advanced page. STEP 4: Select the option Create RAID Volume and press .
STEP 5: Key-in a a volume name and press , or simply press to accept the default name. STEP 6: Select your desired RAID Level and press .
STEP 7: Select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array and press . STEP 8: Select a stripe size for the RAID array and press .
STEP 9: Select Create Volume and press to start creating the RAID array. If you want to delete a RAID volume, select the option Delete on the RAID volume info page and press . *Please note that the UEFI screenshots shown in this installation guide are for reference only. The actual screen may differ by model on the RAID volume info page and press .
2.4.2 Configuring a PCIE SSD RAID Array Using UEFI Setup Utility Caution: Please use identical PCIE SSDs that are the same type and volume. STEP 1: Enter the UEFI Setup Utility by pressing or right after you power on the computer. STEP 2: Go to Advanced Storage Configuration and set SATA Mode Selection to [RAID] and set Launch Storage OpROM policy to [UEFI only], then adjust the M.2 slots that you’ve installed PCIE SSDs to [Enabled].
STEP 3: Enter Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology in Advanced page. STEP 4: Select the option Create RAID Volume and press .
STEP 5: Key-in a a volume name and press , or simply press to accept the default name. STEP 6: Select your desired RAID Level and press .
STEP 7: Select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array and press . STEP 8: Select a stripe size for the RAID array and press .
STEP 9: Select Create Volume and press to start creating the RAID array. If you want to delete a RAID volume, select the option Delete on the RAID volume info page and press . *Please note that the UEFI screenshots shown in this installation guide are for reference only. The actual screen may differ by model on the RAID volume info page and press .
2.4.3 Configuring a RAID array Using Intel RAID BIOS Reboot your computer. Wait until you see the RAID software prompting you to press . Press . Then, the Intel RAID Utility - Create RAID Volume window appears. In the Create Volume Menu, under Name item, please key-in a unique name with 1-16 letters for your RAID volume then press .
Use the up or down arrow keys to select your desired RAID Level. You may select RAID 0 (Stripe), RAID 1 (Mirror), RAID 5 or RAID 10 for your RAID level. Press , and then you can select Strip Size. Volume0 Volume0 If you selected RAID 0 (Stripe), use the up or down keys to select the stripe size for your RAID 0 array then press . The available values range from 8 KB to 128 KB. The default selection is 128 KB. The strip value should be chosen based on the planned drive usage.
Volume0 After setting up Capacity, please press . Volume0 Press under the Create Volume item. The utility prompts a confirmation message as below.
Press to complete the setup of RAID. After the completion, you will see the detailed information about the RAID that you set up. Please note that you are only allowed to create one RAID partition at a time under BIOS RAID environment. If you want to create an extra RAID partition, please use the RAID utility under Windows environment to configure RAID functions after you install OS.
3. Installing Windows® on a HDD under 2TB in RAID mode After the UEFI and RAID BIOS setup you may start installing Windows® 10 64-bit OS as usual.
4. Installing Windows ® on a HDD larger than 2TB in RAID mode Windows® 10 does not support HDD’s larger than 2TB. Please make sure to use Windows® 10 64-bit. After the UEFI and RAID BIOS setup, please follow the steps below. STEP 1: Copy Intel® RAID drivers into a USB flash disk You can download the drivers from ASRock's website and unzip the files into a USB flash disk or copy the files from ASRock's motherboard support CD. (Please copy the files under the following directory: 32 bit: ..\i386\Win7_Intel.
Start Windows® Installation. When you see “Where do you want to install Windows?” page, please click “Load Driver”. Plug the USB flash disk into your USB port; select “Browse” to find the RAID driver. Then choose the directory you have copied in the first step. Please keep the USB flash disk installed until the system's first reboot. Continue to install the OS by following the instructions.
If you install Windows® 10 64-bit on a large hard disk (ex. Disk volume > 2TB), it may take more time to boot into Windows® or install driver/utilities. If you encounter this problem, you will need to follow the instructions below to fix this problem. Windows® 10 64-bit: A. Please request the hotfix KB2505454 through this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2505454/ B. After installing Windows® 10 64-bit, install the hotfix kb2505454. (This may take a long time; >30 mins.) C. Reboot your system.
