How to Enable and Configure SATA III RAID0 on the ASUS Rampage III Black Edition Marvell 88SE9182 SATA III Controller.
Pre-install Instructions:
1) Ensure you do not have a CD/DVD Drive hooked up to the Marvell Controller
2) DO NOT use an ICYDOCK or any other 2.5 to 3.5 HDD Converter device. Hook your SSD directly to the Marvell Port using a SATA III 6Gb/s cable of 18" or less. If you already have a SATA III cable, and you've been having issues I recommended that you swap it out.
3) Check your power & SATA III connections to ensure they are solid on both ends.
4) Update the firmware for your SSD drives. You must have the drives hooked up to an Intel SATA Controller to flash. Updating is critical especially if your drives have the SandForce 3 Controller in them. Click Here for Corsair Force GT Firmware Updates. I do not recommend any OCZ 3 series drive. Corsair Force GT or Intel SSD's only. OCZ firmware is no good. If you don't believe me go to their user forums for their 3 series drives. They have about a 54% BSOD rate among their users.
Note* If your SSD drives don't show up in BIOS check your firmware version again and follow the flash, secure erase clear CMOS steps as outlined by the drive manufacturer.
1) Download the Rampage III Black Edition BIOS 0602 from the Asus Website: http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=1&s=29&m=Rampage+III+Black+Edition&os=&hashedid...
2) Drop the BIOS file onto a secondary HDD or USB memory stick
3) Flash your BIOS using ASUS eZ Flash (located in your BIOS menu)
4) Reboot and re-enter the BIOS
5) Under Onboard Devices Enable and set the Marvell SATA III controller operating mode to RAID. Set the Intel SATA II, and Jmicron eSATA controllers to AHCI. (If you're also running RAID on the Intel controller that's fine)
6) Reboot again and after POST, press CTRL + M to access the Marvell Configuration Utility.
7) Create the desired array. The RAID options on the Marvell 88SE9182 controller include: RAID 0,1 ** Stripe Sizes of: 32KB, 64KB, 128KB ** (recommend 128KB for 2-4% better overall performance) Write Back Cache On/Off (recommend On for 5-10% higher performance).
😎 Reboot and re-enter the BIOS. Under Hard Disk Drives re-order the drives so that the newly created array is the first disk in the list.
9) Download the Marvell RAID/AHCI Drivers WHQL 1.2.0.1032 . Extract the folder and copy it to a USB memory stick. I do not recommend using oder version as your Read/Write performance will suffer.
10) Initiate Windows install
11) The install will not see the "disk" just created, click on "Load Driver" and browse the memory stick for the appropriate driver. During Windows install load the driver from this directory: \driver\SCSI storport driver\amd64
12) After the RAID0 is recognized by Windows, click on "Drive options (advanced)". Then click on "New" to create your new system partition. It should make a 100MB partition and the rest will be allocated for your system C drive. The system reserved 100MB partition must exist or Windows will fail install every time.
I performed all of the steps as outline above and was able to install Windows 7 Professional an all updates without any problems. I ran the Intel Burning Test and passed with flying colors. I also ran the ATTO Disk Benchmark application and was pretty happy with the results. Basically I was able to achieve 780MB/s Synchronous Read and 600 MB/s Synchronous Write using two Corsair Force GT SATA III 120GB SSDs in RAID 0. A huge improvement in RAID0 speeds over the 9128 controller and over using Intel's onboard SATA II controller which maxed out at 550MB/s Read and Write. I was expecting to achieve near 1000MB/s Read/Write, but I don't think that's possible with only a 2 Lane PCIe Bus which is the max PCIe Lane Utilization of the Marvell 9182 controller.
Note: The Windows TRIM command for SSD Optimization is not supported in RAID mode. After windows installation and all windows updates. Download and install Diskeeper 2012 Professional with Hyperfast. Right click on you C drive and select "SSD Volumes" indicate which drives are SSDs. The program can't tell if the drives are in RAID mode. After that right click on the C drive and select "Optimize". This is the best SSD optimizer program I was able to find. Run it once per week. Or if you install or remove large programs or files run it afterwards. It maintains drive performance and clears up lots of space.
Pre-install Instructions:
1) Ensure you do not have a CD/DVD Drive hooked up to the Marvell Controller
2) DO NOT use an ICYDOCK or any other 2.5 to 3.5 HDD Converter device. Hook your SSD directly to the Marvell Port using a SATA III 6Gb/s cable of 18" or less. If you already have a SATA III cable, and you've been having issues I recommended that you swap it out.
3) Check your power & SATA III connections to ensure they are solid on both ends.
4) Update the firmware for your SSD drives. You must have the drives hooked up to an Intel SATA Controller to flash. Updating is critical especially if your drives have the SandForce 3 Controller in them. Click Here for Corsair Force GT Firmware Updates. I do not recommend any OCZ 3 series drive. Corsair Force GT or Intel SSD's only. OCZ firmware is no good. If you don't believe me go to their user forums for their 3 series drives. They have about a 54% BSOD rate among their users.
Note* If your SSD drives don't show up in BIOS check your firmware version again and follow the flash, secure erase clear CMOS steps as outlined by the drive manufacturer.
1) Download the Rampage III Black Edition BIOS 0602 from the Asus Website: http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=1&s=29&m=Rampage+III+Black+Edition&os=&hashedid...
2) Drop the BIOS file onto a secondary HDD or USB memory stick
3) Flash your BIOS using ASUS eZ Flash (located in your BIOS menu)
4) Reboot and re-enter the BIOS
5) Under Onboard Devices Enable and set the Marvell SATA III controller operating mode to RAID. Set the Intel SATA II, and Jmicron eSATA controllers to AHCI. (If you're also running RAID on the Intel controller that's fine)
6) Reboot again and after POST, press CTRL + M to access the Marvell Configuration Utility.
7) Create the desired array. The RAID options on the Marvell 88SE9182 controller include: RAID 0,1 ** Stripe Sizes of: 32KB, 64KB, 128KB ** (recommend 128KB for 2-4% better overall performance) Write Back Cache On/Off (recommend On for 5-10% higher performance).
😎 Reboot and re-enter the BIOS. Under Hard Disk Drives re-order the drives so that the newly created array is the first disk in the list.
9) Download the Marvell RAID/AHCI Drivers WHQL 1.2.0.1032 . Extract the folder and copy it to a USB memory stick. I do not recommend using oder version as your Read/Write performance will suffer.
10) Initiate Windows install
11) The install will not see the "disk" just created, click on "Load Driver" and browse the memory stick for the appropriate driver. During Windows install load the driver from this directory: \driver\SCSI storport driver\amd64
12) After the RAID0 is recognized by Windows, click on "Drive options (advanced)". Then click on "New" to create your new system partition. It should make a 100MB partition and the rest will be allocated for your system C drive. The system reserved 100MB partition must exist or Windows will fail install every time.
I performed all of the steps as outline above and was able to install Windows 7 Professional an all updates without any problems. I ran the Intel Burning Test and passed with flying colors. I also ran the ATTO Disk Benchmark application and was pretty happy with the results. Basically I was able to achieve 780MB/s Synchronous Read and 600 MB/s Synchronous Write using two Corsair Force GT SATA III 120GB SSDs in RAID 0. A huge improvement in RAID0 speeds over the 9128 controller and over using Intel's onboard SATA II controller which maxed out at 550MB/s Read and Write. I was expecting to achieve near 1000MB/s Read/Write, but I don't think that's possible with only a 2 Lane PCIe Bus which is the max PCIe Lane Utilization of the Marvell 9182 controller.
Note: The Windows TRIM command for SSD Optimization is not supported in RAID mode. After windows installation and all windows updates. Download and install Diskeeper 2012 Professional with Hyperfast. Right click on you C drive and select "SSD Volumes" indicate which drives are SSDs. The program can't tell if the drives are in RAID mode. After that right click on the C drive and select "Optimize". This is the best SSD optimizer program I was able to find. Run it once per week. Or if you install or remove large programs or files run it afterwards. It maintains drive performance and clears up lots of space.
