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Bluecow · ‎12-08-2017

I just received the Z370 ROG Code board and will be starting my new 8700k build soon. I plan to have two 6TB drives in a RAID1 configuration for long-term file storage, but I was also planning to have a SATA SSD for an intermediary storage drive (I will have a M.2 SSD for OS as well). In the manual I read this:

"Due to chipset limitation, when SATA ports are set to RAID mode, all SATA ports run at RAID mode together."

If there are 6 SATA ports, what exactly does that statement mean? Can I have a RAID1 configuration for 2 of the ports and a standalone drive in a 3rd port? Also, will I be able to have multiple RAID1 arrays? I'm thinking about making a RAID1 array for that intermediary SSD storage in addition to the long-term storage 6TB RAID1 array.

verrotten · ‎12-08-2017

You can still mix raid and standalone drives. In my case i got 1 hdd raid0, 1 ssd raid0, 2 standalone hdds and one m.2 drive.

"Due to chipset limitation, when SATA ports are set to RAID mode, all SATA ports run at RAID mode together."
All drives will show up in the raidmanager but you dont need to bind them together.

Bluecow · ‎12-08-2017

OK, that's what I'm seeing when I did more searching around the internet. I first setup RAID arrays about 10 years ago and then I hadn't really done a hardware RAID array since then, so I forgot some of the details. I do remember that older motherboards used to have separate controllers for different SATA ports (Marvell on some and Intel on others and only some ports could do RAID while others could not). What happened with that was it was better to connect different drives to different ports depending on what the drives would be used for. Will it matter which SATA ports I connect to on this motherboard or will they all behave the same and have the same bandwidth?

Bluecow · ‎12-08-2017

Also, it says when the M.2 socket is in PCIe 3.0 x4 mode (which I assume I'll want to do, right?), it disables SATA ports 5 and 6. That means I would only have 4 SATA ports. That could be a bit of a problem if I have 2 RAID1 arrays plus say a SATA CD-drive too. Hmmmm....

verrotten · ‎12-08-2017

Bluecow wrote:
Also, it says when the M.2 socket is in PCIe 3.0 x4 mode (which I assume I'll want to do, right?), it disables SATA ports 5 and 6. That means I would only have 4 SATA ports. That could be a bit of a problem if I have 2 RAID1 arrays plus say a SATA CD-drive too. Hmmmm....

This is only for the second m.2 Slot.

Bluecow · ‎12-08-2017

verrotten wrote:
This is only for the second m.2 Slot.

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for your quick help.

verrotten · ‎12-08-2017

They all behave the same. But after you bind them toghter dont switch the Sata cables on your mainboard.
This will corrupt your raid. Put a mark on each hdd with sata port numbers and never change them.

Barefooter · ‎02-28-2018

Bluecow wrote:
I just received the Z370 ROG Code board and will be starting my new 8700k build soon. I plan to have two 6TB drives in a RAID1 configuration for long-term file storage, but I was also planning to have a SATA SSD for an intermediary storage drive (I will have a M.2 SSD for OS as well). In the manual I read this:

"Due to chipset limitation, when SATA ports are set to RAID mode, all SATA ports run at RAID mode together."

If there are 6 SATA ports, what exactly does that statement mean? Can I have a RAID1 configuration for 2 of the ports and a standalone drive in a 3rd port? Also, will I be able to have multiple RAID1 arrays? I'm thinking about making a RAID1 array for that intermediary SSD storage in addition to the long-term storage 6TB RAID1 array.

Hey Bluecow, I was searching around on doing this same thing when I found this thread. I have a Rampage VI board that has six sata ports on the same controller. I want to put two hard drives in RAID zero on two ports, and then use the other four ports for SSDs.

Is that still working ok for you?

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