Z68 SSD Caching from BIOS Interface?

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night_2004

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Quick question about the Z68 chipset here. In all the previous boards I have had Intel always makes it possible to set up and monitor RAID arrays in BIOS without the need for the Intel RST or MSM programs.

Is it possible to set up an SSD cache from the same pre-boot environment?

Because from what I can tell you have to have the 10.5 drivers installed in Windows to set this up in the OS, but the 10.5 driver is a pile of cow dung that is responsible for every system lockup I've experienced on two different Sandy Bridge chipsets.

I would try it myself, except I don't want to dish out the cache for a good Intel SSD without knowing that I can use it and not have lock ups.

Update to Question

Poking around a little bit tonight and I noticed there is a menu item in the Intel boot interface listed "Acceleration Options" that somehow I missed before. It sounds like that would be for the Z68 SSD caching but can anyone confirm you can set up a cache in through that menu item? I'm apparently not allowed to do anything with that item since I apparently don't have an SSD attached to the computer (further enforcing my thought that perhaps that is indeed what I am looking for).
 
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No, you cannot setup a cache through the BIOS. The acceleration options in the BIOS is only available after you have setup an accelerated volume with Intel RST driver. It won't do anything if you just have an SSD attached.
 
Two different opinions, two different posts. Any chance someone with a Z68 and an SSD can try disabling their cache and re-enabling it through the pre-boot environment?
 
Not an opinion. I have actually tried it. If you have read the other thread, deeppow wasn't able to set up a cache drive because it is incompatible with his RAID array.
 
My understanding is that the cache can work with HDD based RAID arrays if they run through the Intel chipset. It just has to be an array or single drive attached to the Intel controller.

I would expect a single SSD to only work with a single array (be it one or multiple drives, but the same single array).
 
Well if that's the case that you can't set it up without the 10.5 drivers, maybe another way to do this is set up a RAID recovery volume and specify the SSD as the master drive and set the recovery volume to be continuously updated?

Granted that bypasses the whole caching thing where it automatically tracks what should be in the cache, but this kind of setup might be doable without having to pay out the rear for two RAID1 SSDs (I refuse to run without RAID1).

Fun bit of this is that this idea should work on earlier chipsets as well but it requires two free SATA ports (SSD+HDD spare) instead of one (caching SSD).

Update

Jeep333 is right. No go on the SSD caching without the Windows drivers. Boo.
 
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Intel should have made ssd caching on a hardware level, not visible to the OS. I don't like this being a windows-only feature...
But it works together with an intel bios raid array? That's nice at least.
 
Well, if users have a chipset that supports IRRT one might be able to set up a "RAID1" array where the SSD is the primary drive, the HDD is the recovery drive, and the system set up for continuous backup.

It's a bit cheaper than a dual SSD setup but I'm not sure it accomplishes more than what a simple backup system does.

Stupid Intel.
 
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