Intel Raid or Separate Card on Rampage IV Extreme?

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mikecLA

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Jan 20, 2011
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I'm building an LGA 2011 box, OS on SSD, Data on separate Drive, each connected to an Intel 6gbs port. One of the two ASMedia ports will go to my optical drive.

That leaves the 4 3gps SATA ports open, and if I use them, I would like to have 2 RAID 0 volumes, one will be used solely for Black Magic Intensity capture and the other as a scratch disk for CS5.

Looking to get over 200gbs sustained xfer on the capture volume with 2 Hitachi 7K drives in Raid 0.

If I went with a separate card, I could go to 4 drives to pretty much "lock in" my sustained transfer rates on the Capture Volume, would still only need 2 drives for the scratch disk. Would it be overkill, or is the performance difference that huge on a separate card as opposed to setting it up via BIOS? If it's worth it, what card would you recommend that can do a min. of 6 drives with two separate Arrays?
 
Would be overkill. Onboard Intel raid ports work pretty good for RAID0.

If you were thinking RAID5, i would consider the card.
 
I posted this in the Intel MOBO forum as well: If I can't mix Raid and AHCI, I may need a controller card. I really don't want to have my OS and Data drives in Raid mode, as recovering data in the future might be a problem if I ever have to pull the drive and stick it in another box.

I have my Rampage IV nearly built, OS is on an SSD plugged into SATA6G_1, 3TB Data Drive plugged into SATA6G_2.

I am trying to add a RAID0 Array to the SATA3G connectors, but the BIOS option seems like it will make changes across every SATA port (there is only one option, either AHCI, RAID, IDE, or Disabled for all ports).

Since I already have my OS and the data drive installed, I'm hesitant to change a global setting in BIOS that may wipe my existing drives. How do I add a RAID0 array (maybe 2) to the 4 3gbs SATA ports and leave everything else alone?
 
In the end, your intel controller needs to be in RAID mode. Any single disk will act as it's in AHCI.

Problem is if you change it in BIOS, you'll blue-screen on boot. You have to make some registry changes to your existing boot volume to allow it to boot when in RAID mode. Do a google search on "change from AHCI to RAID blue-screen" or something - I don't have the info on-hand. Pretty easy change though. Do not buy a separate card for RAID0.
 
For now, I used Windows Disk Management to Stripe the drives and left the rest of them alone. Getting 465MB/s write speeds across 3 drives. Any downside in keeping it this way?
 
mikecLA said:
For now, I used Windows Disk Management to Stripe the drives and left the rest of them alone. Getting 465MB/s write speeds across 3 drives. Any downside in keeping it this way?
Click to expand...

As you already know, keeps backups of that data.
 
Brahmzy said:
As you already know, keeps backups of that data.
Click to expand...

The Array is strictly used for HD video capture from my Blackmagic Intensity card. It needs high transfer rates to capture 10bit 4:4:4 raw video right off the camera. After it does it's job, the file is copied over to a secure drive for editing, and backed up to my QNAP NAS system.

As long as it doesn't crash while I'm recording, I'm in business.

Heck, I may be able to setup a 16gig Ram Disk to do it, but that's scarier.
 
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