How do I do a RAID Configuration?

[Alexpho]

Hi There. Newbie here again. Currently, I have a recently built system with one 1TB Hard Drive, which has the Windows 7 installed and " some " of my programs and files. My Asus M4A87TD EVO I believe supports a RAID config.

 

I then went out and bought two new identical hard drive.

 

How do I manage a RAID config from what I have so far ? My original hard drive is a different vendor.

 

I can reinstall Win 7 but want to avoid if possible.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Alex

[smduff]

Hi There. Newbie here again. Currently, I have a recently built system with one 1TB Hard Drive, which has the Windows 7 installed and " some " of my programs and files. My Asus M4A87TD EVO I believe supports a RAID config.

 

I then went out and bought two new identical hard drive.

 

How do I manage a RAID config from what I have so far ? My original hard drive is a different vendor.

 

I can reinstall Win 7 but want to avoid if possible.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Alex

 

 

There are a few different ways to go about it do you want a software raid threw the OS (easy) or a hardware raid which requires additional hardware and depending the type of raid you will see significate performance increases over the software.

[Speedway]

Your ASUS EVO absolutely supports RAID 0/1/5/10 - So now yo have to decide which RAID you want to run. Google each and you will learn what the differences are. But, in a nutshell RAID 0 / RAID 1 are the 2 most popular. RAID 0 is for speed/performance, and RAID 1 is for data protection....here is how it works:

 

RAID 0 Example- 2 identical 500GB drives are going to show up as 1 1TB drive on your computer. The read/write access times on the RAID 0 array will be higher than either drive by itself, which translates to faster file transfer times.

 

RAID 1 Example - 2 identical 500GB drives are going to show up as 1 500GB drive, with one drive just doing a routine copy of the other, to ensure that if one drive fails, then all of your data is still backed up.

 

I think this is accurate on the RAID 1 side, with the way the drives show up on your pc, but I run RAID 0 for performance so not 100%

 

BUT, to run RAID the drives have to be identical, so you can put the 2 identical drives you just bought in a RAID configuration, but if they are different than the drive you are currently running your OS on, then you can't use that drive in the RAID array. However you can use a program called Acronis (which is free from Western Digital, if you have a WD drive on the computer) to copy your OS to the RAID array you setup using the 2 identical drives. If you don't want to reinstall your OS!

 

To setup RAID, bo into your BIOS and enable RAID, i believe on the ASUS bios the default is IDE, change it to RAID, F10, and exit. Now when your computer reboots there will be a new screen that says hit CTRL I (if I'm rem correctly, maybe CTRL L, but something like that) and that will take you to a very easy RAID setup menu, pretty simple from there! After you setup the RAID, that is when you can copy your OS drive to your new RAID array to avoid having to reinstall!

[Alexpho]

Your ASUS EVO absolutely supports RAID 0/1/5/10 - So now yo have to decide which RAID you want to run. Google each and you will learn what the differences are. But, in a nutshell RAID 0 / RAID 1 are the 2 most popular. RAID 0 is for speed/performance, and RAID 1 is for data protection....here is how it works:

 

RAID 0 Example- 2 identical 500GB drives are going to show up as 1 1TB drive on your computer. The read/write access times on the RAID 0 array will be higher than either drive by itself, which translates to faster file transfer times.

 

RAID 1 Example - 2 identical 500GB drives are going to show up as 1 500GB drive, with one drive just doing a routine copy of the other, to ensure that if one drive fails, then all of your data is still backed up.

 

I think this is accurate on the RAID 1 side, with the way the drives show up on your pc, but I run RAID 0 for performance so not 100%

 

BUT, to run RAID the drives have to be identical, so you can put the 2 identical drives you just bought in a RAID configuration, but if they are different than the drive you are currently running your OS on, then you can't use that drive in the RAID array. However you can use a program called Acronis (which is free from Western Digital, if you have a WD drive on the computer) to copy your OS to the RAID array you setup using the 2 identical drives. If you don't want to reinstall your OS!

 

To setup RAID, bo into your BIOS and enable RAID, i believe on the ASUS bios the default is IDE, change it to RAID, F10, and exit. Now when your computer reboots there will be a new screen that says hit CTRL I (if I'm rem correctly, maybe CTRL L, but something like that) and that will take you to a very easy RAID setup menu, pretty simple from there! After you setup the RAID, that is when you can copy your OS drive to your new RAID array to avoid having to reinstall!

 

 

Thank you so much for helping. However, I am still stuck and at this point, still do not have an answer to my question. Perhaps I am such a rookie at this, I may perhaps don't understand the concept of RAID in order to have an understanding of the setup process. I am starting to get the feeling that I need a driver, but how to include it and what driver maybe the answer. I really don't know.

 

Below is the exact detail of my problem that is posted on the ASUS help forum ( no reponses ), perhaps OCC is a better forum to get me on the right track. Here it is...

 

Hi guys. Newbie here ( again ). I am trying to setup a raid configuration on Asus board M4A87TD EVO and I am completely stuck. I will do my best to explain what I did and hope someone will have the answer.

 

Ok, I took an operational new build that has Win 7 installed on my hard drive and decided to do a RAID Setup.

 

1- Took out old hard drive. ( gonna use it for something else )

2- Bought two new identical hard drives.

3- Plug in hard drives to SATA 1 and SATA 4

4- Plug in optical drives to SATA 5 and SATA 6.

5- Went into BIOS menu and change Storage Config to Idle on SATA 5&6 and RAID / SATA 1 and 4 to RAID. I then hit F10 to exit and save.

 

Now this is when it gets confusing. After the BIOS reboots, hitting CTRL I gets me back to the BIOS Menu and CTRL 8 gets me to the Option Rom Utility, which has 4 options on parameters that seems to have nothing to do with RAID and very few options to change anything. As of now, the BIOS does recognize my two new drives.

 

Fine, lets install Win 7 disc. It wil then boot to the disc and initiate the install process. The problem now is that it " can not locate " a drive to install the OS system. I've looked thru the web for answers but nothing. The closest thing was some other Asus board with a different setup screen, something like an " intel driver utility ", where the option to change your hard drive to " o " and RAID config is located.

 

So now, I can't config the RAID nor install WIN 7. Fortunately, the old hard drive is still around.

 

What am I doing wrong? And if there is a driver utility for a RAID setup, where can I download it from and why wasn't in the manual for this board? So in theory, you can't setup RAID on all new builds because it does not have the driver. And the only way to get the driver is to download ( AFTER INSTALLING WIN 7 )?

 

Can I hook up the old hard drive and control the RAID setup that way? I was under the impression that I must have two identical HD to start a RAID process and the mother board and handle everything.

 

Please help.

 

Thank you.

 

Alex

 

Edit Edit Reply

[ebarone]

What BIOS revision do you have?

 

It looks like you got everything right except theres a major step missing. Within that "Option ROM" should be the ability to actually create the RAID- choose the member disks, set the stripe size, initialize the array, etc. It appears that the latest BIOS for your board has an update to the option rom, and a quick search online yielded a lot of posts of people having trouble with your particular board, getting the RAID to work properly, etc. Once you find a way to create your RAID, thats when it should show up in the list of available disks to install W7 to.

 

Its very possible that you'll need a driver though, and thats also a tricky process but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

 

Your first priority is to find a way to get into a RAID setup utility and create your array. Ensure you have the latest BIOS (version 0902) and scour that option ROM for the ability to do it. Post pictures if possible And good luck!

[wevsspot]

From within the main BIOS options page you must change your storage configuration to "RAID". It will be in the options where you can select IDE/ACHI or RAID.

 

Specifically;

Main Bios Page>Storage Configuration>OnChip SATA Channel (enabled)>SATA Port 1 - Port 4 (set this option to RAID)

 

Make sure that SATA Port 5 - Sata Port 6 is set to IDE if you plan on using SATA optical drives.

 

Once you change the SATA configuration to RAID, you will have the option at boot to press "CTRL+I" to enter RAID Bios Setup. In the RAID Bios Setup you will be able to select your disks, name the array, choose the array type, and set the stripe size.

 

To clarify a statement made by an earlier poster regarding using different types or sizes of hard drives. The drives DO NOT have to be identical. They can be from different manufacturer's or different sizes. The only caveat is that if you add a drive with less capacity, the larger drive capacity becomes the size of the smallest drive.

 

If you want to create a RAID volume from the BIOS you will have to reinstall the OS.

 

If you want to create a software RAID from within the Windows OS after installation that will work too. But of the two options I prefer a "hardware" RAID.

Edited August 3, 2010 by wevsspot

[MathemaTechnic]

I think I got stuck at same point. Weird thing for me was that after setting up SATA1-4 as RAID and 5-6 as IDE, you have to save and restart. Then I had to press F8 to display boot menu, then in the nano-second it was displayed, press CTRL+F to get the RAID menu to come up. 

 

Man was that *obnoxiously* well hidden. I had to find it myself as the manual doesn't even say (and I'm doing 10 years later, so all posts are long since buried.