Windows 10: Single drive with RAID?

Discus and support Single drive with RAID? in Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade to solve the problem; Here are some benchmarks I did, Crystaldisk, for the Dell laptop (Toshiba NVMe/AHCI): [img] And for comparison, here is the one for my PC (Samsung... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade' started by antares, Jun 28, 2016.

  1. antares Win User

    Single drive with RAID?


    Here are some benchmarks I did, Crystaldisk, for the Dell laptop (Toshiba NVMe/AHCI):

    Single drive with RAID? [​IMG]

    And for comparison, here is the one for my PC (Samsung 950 PRO/AHCI):

    Single drive with RAID? [​IMG]

    So I guess that my Dell laptop in AHCI is performing well, no need for RAID
     
    antares, Jun 30, 2016
    #16
  2. fdegrove Win User

    Hi,

    Excellent performance.
    In theory a pair of the best SSDs in Raid 0 could come close to that too. *Smile
    But I suggest you'd better forget about RAID for now. LOL.

    Cheers, *Wink
     
    fdegrove, Jul 1, 2016
    #17
  3. antares Win User
    Yes, for sure it's faster than my previous WinXP PC with IDE drives *chuckle
     
    antares, Jul 1, 2016
    #18
  4. Railtech Win User

    Single drive with RAID?

    To the OP of this thread,

    The reason that you cannot boot your new install of Win 8.1 with the SATA storage mode set to RAID is because you did not provide the RAID drivers for the Windows installer to use when the installation was performed. Had you done that your machine would happily boot into Windows with RAID mode set in the bios

    The reason RAID Mode is set in the bios of the Dell laptops is simple. It is a matter of convenience for them for one thing as in doing so a single bios configuration can be used across product lines. Also note that some of the XPS line have capability to support 2 NVMe PCIe M.2 drives in RAID 0 array as the boot device. This would not be possible without the driver support of the Intel IRST drivers.

    Intel IRST drivers since version 13.0 have driver support for RAID, AHCI, and NVMe all in one driver package. NVMe is simply a new standardized interface connection for non volatile memory which is what these M.2 storage devices are made of. The NVMe standard provides for a single driver file for use which all OS platforms can use that can fully utilize the bandwidth that SSD's provide.

    Intel provides this single NVMe driver to manufacturers to embed in the UEFI firmware which controls boot of the storage device. Windows however has built in NVMe support using it's own drivers that adhere to the NVMe standard. When you straight install Windows 8.1 up the default Windows drivers are used and the result is a non RAID enabled installation.
     
    Railtech, Aug 4, 2016
    #19
  5. Kbird Win User
    Yes , Drives connected to a Raid Controller but not part of an Array , as in this case, automatically use AHCI instead , this is actually how Intel tells OEM's how to set things up. If you Go into the Raid Bios (Ctrl-I) you will see single disks labelled as Non Raid.

    In my case it is the Boot OS SSD , and a Raid0 Cache 60GB SSD that are non-raid ,while the 3 WD 640 Blacks form the 1.8TB RAID 0 array.
     
    Kbird, Aug 4, 2016
    #20
  6. Boot in AHCI ..
    In elevated CMD window.


    REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD
    REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD


    Reboot in bios and change to Raid..

    If no go ..
    Try a Clean OS re installation...

    Que : Why use Legacy ... XPS machines with give you optimum performance in UEFI.. Mode.
     
    manish9009, Aug 4, 2016
    #21
  7. Railtech Win User
    manish,

    Your suggestion will only work if the user first installs the Intel RST driver package in Windows.
     
    Railtech, Aug 4, 2016
    #22
  8. Single drive with RAID?

    I am using Dell XPS 8930, configured as RAID in BIOS. Is it possible to switch from RAID to AHCI without reinstalling Win 10 - the Win OS is installed on the booting drive, a 250 GB SSD.
     
    genetics73, Jan 18, 2018
    #23
  9. fdegrove Win User
    Hi,

    Welcome to the forum.
    Assuming the Win 10 installation is using Intel RST driver then yes you can switch to AHCI mode in Bios\UEFI without having to reinstall Windows.
    Basically with only one drive present you actually are running in AHCI mode.

    Cheers, *Wink
     
    fdegrove, Jan 18, 2018
    #24
  10. Kbird Win User
    fdegrove is correct...

    but I am curious why you think you need to switch it? ,if it so you can use Samsung's Magician , I don't think I'd bother.

    Iif you have only one Drive then you are using the AHCI Driver anyway AFAIK. Also if the SSD is NOT in a Raid ARRAY then it is not in RAID , it is simply using the RAID Controller as a Single Drive as my boot SSD does.

    IF you have 2,3,4 Drives in an Array , switching to AHCI WILL BREAK the Raid Array and you will lose all your Data if you simply switch the bios to AHCI. but there are ways to deal with that too .

    here is one post on the Forums a search on Raid to AHCI wiill find others....

    Attn. SSD owners - Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 10 installation. Solved - Windows 10 Forums

    KB
     
    Kbird, Jan 18, 2018
    #25
  11. fdegrove Win User
    Hi,

    You can fully use Samsung Magician with BIOS\UEFI set to RAID mode but it won't run on a RAID volume actually.
    Besides that, SM chews out impressive figures when benchmarked but that's about it so, yeah I wouldn't bother with it either.


    Cheers, *Wink
     
    fdegrove, Jan 18, 2018
    #26
  12. Kbird Win User
    Exactly *Smile it does Firmware Updates though ....but DO NOT install the latest Firmware especially on the latest 960 Drives , without Checking the Samsung Forums 1st ..... they are having to RMA Drives currently broken by the latest 3B7Qxxxx Firmwares.... these /firmware are only available though Magician not from the Download site currently.

    Memory & Storage - Samsung Community
     
    Kbird, Jan 18, 2018
    #27
  13. Single drive with RAID?

    Thank you for your replies - I appreciate them.

    It is not the Windows OS that I have concern with. That said, I should be more explicit as to my hardware.

    My SSD is a Toshiba, KXG50ZNV 256 GB NvMe drive, and in addition, there are 3 HDDs (Seagate and WD), all formattted as GPT. My intention is to keep SSD as Win10 OS, and use one of the HDDs for Linux installation(s).

    The problem is that Linux cannot recognize the SSD - my understanding is that it is because of RAID. I can easily install Linux after disabling Secure Boot and enabling legacy boot. The result is that the Linux shows in BIOS as the first to load, with Win Boot Manager second, and no way to change the order.) I can go back and forth between the OSes, but to switch, I must restart and use F12 boot mode. This is inconvenient - I would much prefer to have a booting menu available on one screen, as it used to be with GRUB and MBR.

    I tried the Samsung Magician, but with my SSD being Toshiba, the Magician's sorcery is not available to me. This is why I am thinking of switching from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS of my machine.

    Thank you for your comments and thoughts.
     
    genetics73, Jan 18, 2018
    #28
  14. lx07 Win User
    I'd install rEFInd in the ESP on your SSD then. It will automatically find most Linux distros on any other connected drive and the odd exception is well documented.

    You may have an issue with secure boot (but you can self sign - see here Secure Boot - ArchWiki) but you'll not have any issue with Windows boot loader assuming RAID.

    You could test it by installing the rEFInd boot manager on USB and booting from that to see if you like the look of it.
     
  15. Thank you - I will try your suggestion.
     
    genetics73, Apr 4, 2018
    #30
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Single drive with RAID?

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