3TB drives in Intel RST RAID, solved yet?

D

dpajur

n00b
Joined
May 15, 2001
Messages
28
Hi folks,

I'm building a new system to house my HTPC and act as a "sort-of" NAS. Basically I want some level of redundancy for all my media, so I'm looking to set up a RAID5 array with Intel's RST (H77 chipset).

I've read all the problems people have with 3TB drives and I'm not really sure if that's been solved yet. Can you use 3TB drives in RAID5 on Ivy Bridge, or are you still stuck on AHCI?

I want to use Windows 7 for the MCE, so there's no software raid.
 
Well, a lot depends on your hardware and software. For larger volumes I would recommend using GPT vs MBR partition schemes. If you plan on booting from this array you will need to be running an x64 version of Windows 7. What particular motherboard are you using, and what rev of UEFI code are you running on it?
 
I plan on using Asus P8H77-I, my current system is Win7 x64 and I'll probably keep it on the SSD they way it is now, but I'm just not sure what drives to get for the intel rst raid-5.

In the features the Asus board just mentions UEFI, doesn't say what version it is.
 
The P8J77-I is an H77 Express based board, which fully supports 3TB drives (in or out of RAID). Most of the problems with Intel Software RAID are of drives that are desktop-oriented and non raid-oriented (In essence how long the drive tries to recover from an error). Unfortunately, there is often contention with how long the drive thinks it should try and how long the controller thinks it should try (and whos should be responsible for it), which leads to drives that would otherwise be ok dropping from the array (do a search on TLER and you can get more info). My first suggestion would be Hitachi 5K3000 or 7K3000 drives, though the 5K are not available generally anymore. Next would be WDC RE drives, and lastly we are starting to look at the Seagate ST3000DM001 which are showing good results in HW RAID6. If you have the $$$ and are looking to do RAID in windows, I would recommend an inexpensive HBA (ebay has lots) where you can do RAID6 (can support 2 failures instead of R5 which can only stand 1) and will likely do it MUCH faster than RST R5.
 
Hm that's interesting, here's another thing I didn't know. I was planning on using WD greens and Seagate greens (the 5900rpm version). I'm not made of money, and I'd just like some basic redundancy for my media, which is why I intended to use RAID5.

I thought RE vs Green drives was nothing but marketing and a few adjustments in the firmware, similar to the "consumer" and "professional" graphics cards. (Fire GL vs Radeon)

I had a quick search for TLER, but it seems that Intel's RAID controller (the pseudo-software one built into the chipset and depending on Intel RST software) completely ignores this feature and just drops the drive after 7-10 seconds.

I wasn't planning on going for a separate RAID controller simply due to the fact that I'm looking for build a packed mini-ITX system and I have room for one PCIe card, which will be the graphics card at least until Intel sort out their HD graphics. If HD4000 plays nice in a HTPC I can get a free slot again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top