Intel ICH8/9/10R, and RAID 1+0

[LiamC]

Has any had any experience with using the RAID 1+0 capabilities of the Intel southbridge?

I want to set up a Solaris/Oracle box for home and play with Oracles storage sub system. What I want to set up is RAID 1+0 with four Samsung SP2504C sata drives (recommendations??) and need either a motherboard that offers RAID 1+0 or a reasonably cheap SATA controller that can do it.

 

[Stereodude]

I use the RAID-1 with two Samsung 750GB drives capability of my Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4. It has the Intel ICH9R south bridge. It seems to be a genuine Hardware RAID solution. I can't comment on it's RAID-1+0 performance though. I'm also not sure about driver support for Solaris.

 

[Bozo]

I have a box setup with two hard drives in RAID 1 on an Intel motherboard with the ICH9R chip. Two things that bother me about the setup: one there is no monitoring software that will let you know when there is a problem with a hard drive. Two: Acronis does not see the RAID setup, it only sees two separate hard drives. This makes me think that this is software RAID.
I have switched to using 3Ware RAID cards.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Stereodude]

I have a box setup with two hard drives in RAID 1 on an Intel motherboard with the ICH9R chip. Two things that bother me about the setup: one there is no monitoring software that will let you know when there is a problem with a hard drive. Two: Acronis does not see the RAID setup, it only sees two separate hard drives. This makes me think that this is software RAID.
I have switched to using 3Ware RAID cards.

Bozo :joker:

And yet in my system this is not the case.

Acronis sees one drive (not two), and there is monitoring software (in Windows).

 

[Stereodude]

BIOS:


Acronis:


Intel Matrix Storage Console:

 

[MaxBurn]

Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 ICH8R, running a couple Seagate 750GB drives pretty much flawless except a crash and improper shutdown kicked off a rebuild, which completed no problem.

No experience with 0 or 0+1 on it though.

 

[Bozo]

And yet in my system this is not the case.

Acronis sees one drive (not two), and there is monitoring software (in Windows).

Correct, except if you boot from the Acronis recovery CD, it does not see the RAID array. V9 anyway.
Yes there is software monitoring, but no alarm messages if a drive fails. You must manually check the software to look for problems. Don't know what version I am using at the moment.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Stereodude]

Correct, except if you boot from the Acronis recovery CD, it does not see the RAID array. V9 anyway.
Yes there is software monitoring, but no alarm messages if a drive fails. You must manually check the software to look for problems. Don't know what version I am using at the moment.

Bozo :joker:

That screenshot was booted from the recovery CD. (It's not from Windows)

And the software has notified me when it wanted to rebuild. (due to improper shut down)

 

[Bozo]

That screenshot was booted from the recovery CD. (It's not from Windows)

And the software has notified me when it wanted to rebuild. (due to improper shut down)

The pictures failed to load for me...
What version of Acronis are you using?
What version of the Intel monitoring software.
Are you runnimg RAID 1?

Maybe I need to upgrade some of my software.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Stereodude]

The pictures failed to load for me...
What version of Acronis are you using?
What version of the Intel monitoring software.
Are you runnimg RAID 1?

Maybe I need to upgrade some of my software.

Bozo :joker:

Yes, I'm running RAID-1.

I'll have to check the versions when I get home from work.

 

[Stereodude]

I have Acronis True Image Home 11.0.8053. I still need to check on the Intel software. It's whatever was the latest as of a few months ago when I built my q6600.

 

[Bozo]

I am using Acronis V9 and the Intel software is at least two years old.

Guess I should upgrade.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Stereodude]

The Intel software is Intel Matrix Storage Console 7.6.0.1011.

 

[Clocker]

FYI the latest version is 8.2.0.1001. I just installed it today. Decided to make use of the ICH8R Raild-1 feature built into my DFI Infinity P965S. Seems pretty slick. Took about 3 hours or so to build a RAID-1 array. I had already installed everything to a single 640GB disk and then migrated to the Raid-1 array when I installed my 2nd 640GB disk today. Three hours seems like a long time to mirror the disk but whatever....

 

[MaxBurn]

I think if you just reboot it will do it on the fly in the background. You didn't have to wait on it for three hours.

 

[Clocker]

Correct. It said I could work on the computer and do whatever. Nonetheless, it seemed like 3 hours was a long time to do a disk mirror. Not that I have ever done it before.

 

[blakerwry]

I think if you just reboot it will do it on the fly in the background. You didn't have to wait on it for three hours.

That's an important point to make... many of the soft-raid/driver assisted raid cards (ala promise, highpoint, etc) required (and likely still require) rebuilding/replacing drives via the BIOS.

This necessitated 1) a reboot of the OS and 2) that one sit on the BIOS screen for an undetermined amount of time (potentially hours) while drives rebuilt.

For a server, many would consider this unacceptable. Which is why most of the server oriented cards (Adaptec, LSI, Mylex) provided configurations which 1) allowed automated rebuilding/replacing of drives and 2)software management within the OS.

It's nice to see Intel's software solution isn't half bad and could likely replace a hardware solution under many circumstances.

 

[MaxBurn]

My promise66 cards back in the day weren't hot swappable requiring a reboot to replace the disk, but they did rebuild in the background while you were running.

I would have to think their new SATA based cards would allow hot swap, maybe even hot spare on the upper end ones but I don't have direct experience with them, most boards I consider now have this built in like the intel solution.

 

[Stereodude]

FYI the latest version is 8.2.0.1001. I just installed it today

I installed it last night on my system. Didn't notice any differences, but I guess I'm up to date now.

 

[Stereodude]

It's nice to see Intel's software solution isn't half bad and could likely replace a hardware solution under many circumstances.

I'm pretty sure it's not a software solution. My PC with a ICH9R behaves just like my hardware 3ware card. It can rebuild in windows. It shows up to utilities as a single drive (like Acronis).

 

[MaxBurn]

I'm pretty sure it's not a software solution. My PC with a ICH9R behaves just like my hardware 3ware card. It can rebuild in windows. It shows up to utilities as a single drive (like Acronis).

IMO that just means its "software" is more BIOS/firmware level than OS level. There is no dedicated processor and memory for this RAID solution.