How to configure raid on intel board 【step by step】 ⭐️

Currently, users have at our disposal a large number of configuration options thanks to the UEFI BIOS, and one of them is RAID technology. Here we will see how to configure RAID on an Intel board step by step and in the most complete and simple way possible. In this way it is possible to create RAID 0 configurations that double the read and write speed of our units working as a team, or RAID 1, 5 or 10 with strong replication for our most sensitive data.

We are going to create RAID 0 with two 2 TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 / 4.0 Corsair MP600 drives, and we will see its performance under PCIe 3.0. On this RAID we will install Windows 10.

Index of contents

Benefits of RAID technology

For those of you who do not know what a RAID is, it is a term that comes from " Redundant Array of Independent Disks " or said in Spanish, redundant array of independent disks. It consists of creating a system to save data using multiple storage units among which the data is distributed or replicated. These storage units can be either mechanical or HDD hard drives, SSD or solid state drives.

By simply buying a relatively current motherboard we will have the opportunity to create one of this. RAID technology is divided into configurations called levels, through which we can obtain different storage results depending on what we are looking for.

The most common is to use two or more HDD or SSD drives identical in capacity and specifications:

• If we want to get a single drive that performs twice as much as the two independent drives, then we will create a RAID 0. But of course, here the data is saved as if it were a single hard disk, for example 2 1 TB HDDs could form a single 2 TB. And if we want to have the data safe with replication (repeated) so that, if one drive breaks we have this data in the other healthy one, then we will create a RAID 1, 10 or 5. For this we need 2, 3, 4 or more disks, in which the repeated data is stored or in blocks distributed with parity (RAID 5 with 3 hard drives) to never lose them.

Behind this there is much more, and we developed it in our article on RAID technology

RAID on Intel motherboards

We already have the theory well developed above, so let's go to the practical part of learning to configure RAID on an Intel board. Which means this procedure will be the same or similar on all supported Intel chipsets:

• Z270Z370 and H370Z390X299

All of these chipsets support RAID configurations thanks to Intel RST technology for SATA and PCIe storage. And we must distinguish between the two configurations, since if we use drives in the SATA ports we can create RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. And if we use the M.2 slots then we can create RAID 0, 1 and 5.

In fact, Intel currently markets the VRock controller that enables the ability to create advanced RAID configurations on X299 and Workstation boards.

Configure RAID on Intel Board

After the brief introduction and the possibilities we have, we will see step by step how to do this. In our example we will use a board with an Intel Z390 chipset, but the procedure is extensible to all kinds of boards with a compatible Intel chipset and with UEFI BIOS.

Specifically, it is the Asus ROG Maximus XI Formula board that we use in one of the test benches. These are its storage specifications:

• 6x SATA III to 6Gbps ports, 2x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slots, SATA 6Gbps compatible, Intel Optane and Intel RST compatibility.Uses used: 2x Corsair MP600 Gen4 2TB.

We must also read well the limitations of each board when it comes to shared PCIe lanes. For example, in this case we must know that if we use slot M.2_1 with a SATA SSD, the SATA_2 port will be disabled. This will avoid strange behaviors or units stop working by surprise.

First steps and preconfigurations

From now on, we strongly recommend disconnecting any other storage drives from the computer so that they do not interfere with the RAID configuration.

Well, we started the configuration not without first reviewing and modifying some important parameters so that all the functions later correctly. While it is true that on Intel boards it is a simpler and more direct process than on AMD boards, which we also covered in another article.

On the main BIOS page we must first verify that we have Intel Rapid Storage technology activated. So this must be "ON".

After this we will access the advanced mode by pressing F7 and we will go to the " Advanced " menu. This we must go to the " PCH Storage Configuration " section and press Enter to access its contents.

If what we are trying to do is a RAID with SATA, we must ensure that in "SATA Mode Selection" the function "Intel RST Premium With Intel Optane Sytem Acceleration (RAID)" is selected, with it we will ensure the RAID support of the BIOS in storage connections.

And if what we want is to create a RAID from the SSD MVMe as is our case, in addition to this configuration, we will also touch the next two or three in case we have 2 or 3 M.2 slots. In " M.2_x PCIe Storage RAID Support " we will activate the option " RST Controlled ". This is necessary for the RAID configuration wizard to correctly detect drives installed on the board.

We still have one last option that is not necessary but recommended. We will obtain it by pressing F9 and typing in the search bar " CSM ". In the Launch CSM option we will select "Enabled" to allow booting in compatibility mode with all types of units. It should already be activated previously, but with this we will ensure that we can install Windows from a USB, and then that the system boots from the RAID.

Create RAID in BIOS UEFI Intel

After these preliminaries we are going to configure RAID on the Intel board. For this we are going to help ourselves with the useful EZ Tuning Wizard function available at the top or bottom of the BIOS screen.

We will execute it by clicking on it, and we will immediately skip the first or second step. That is, we will go through the first if we have not yet activated the RAID mode on the board, which in this case we did.

In the second step we must select in which communication interface we are going to carry out the RAID configuration. In this example we will use the M.2 slots, so we will select PCIe. In case of having SATA SSD connected in the M.2 slots or normal SATA drives in the wired ports, we will choose the SATA option.

We pay attention to the warning that appears below, which communicates that changing the mode from AHCI to RAID could cause a boot failure in the drives that have data or installed operating system. Therefore, we recommend installing the system in the RAID that we create, and disconnecting the other disks in use to avoid losing data.

The next step should list the available drives to create the RAID. At this point, if we had not previously activated the “ RST Controlled ” function in the PCIe slots, these units would not appear in the list.

We also have two options:

• Easy Backup: in it we will have available RAID 1 (2 disks) and RAID 10 (4 disks) to create a replicated data store with recovery from drive errors - Super Speed: in this option we will have RAID 0 and RAID 5 available. First we only join two or more units to store data without replication. In the second, we combine simultaneous storage on multiple drives with parity replication, being the best RAID available, because it combines the benefits of both types of RAID.

We are going to choose the simplest RAID 0 configuration to unite the two SSDs and double their performance without file replication.

After this, it remains only to see the summary of our configuration and confirm to create the RAID 0 that we have chosen. We should not get any error notice if the drives are installed correctly, are the same and have the above options enabled.

Needless to say, all the data on these drives will be erased to create the RAID. So we press F10 to save changes and restart the computer.

Installing Windows on a RAID

After creating the RAID, what we would have to do is have a flash drive ready with the operating system ready to install on our computer.

In case you do not know how to do it, we leave the article on creating bootable USB with Windows 10

Without further ado, the Windows installation wizard should start as there is no system in any drive. Click on Install now and continue with the steps as normal.

We got to the drive selection screen for Windows 10 installation, after selecting advanced installation on the previous screen. We can see that the system perfectly detects the newly created drive in the BIOS as a single 4TB (2 + 2) hard drive. It only remains to select it and continue normally with the system installation.

The positive aspect of creating a RAID under the Intel platform is that we do not need to install drivers as we should with AMD, so its use will be more intuitive for a user without too much knowledge about the technology.

Unmount a RAID

Again we recommend disconnecting all the drives that are not part of the RAID to perform this action

When we are tired of our RAID, it will be time to delete it, something that is not done simply by configuring the default BIOS parameters, since the RAID is an independent tool.

What we are going to do is access once again the EZ Tuning Wizard function, in which we will now see our created RAID volume and the instructions to remove it. For this we will have to access the " Advanced " and " Intel Rapid Storage " section. There we can deactivate the volume.

After this, we will have to put "SATA mode" back into AHCI to be able to boot an operating system installed on a normal SSD or HDD. Or better, we go back to the factory settings of the BIOS if we want to be faster.

Conclusion on configuring RAID on Intel board

As we see the procedure is not too complicated on this Intel platform, thanks in large part to the good integration of Windows with the blue giant and with its drivers implemented in the BIOS. With the steps we have marked and with the correct initial configuration we should have no major problems.

An important element will be knowing what units we can install on our motherboard, how many and how it will influence the configuration of PCIe lanes, since there are almost always slots that share the bus with others.

Now we leave you with some interesting tutorials:

If you have had any problem with the RAID installation, just ask us in the comments. We will try to help in any way we can. Which one and what will you use a RAID for?