AMD X399 Supports SATA RAID, But Not NVMe RAID

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It means having 2 of them in RAID 0 wouldn't work for booting your OS. Which will likely be remedied if deemed necessary. The issue in this article isn't an issue for most, just saying.
 


Checked PCPartpicker, chose a threadripper 1950X, added 2 x 960 Pros (also 2 x 960 EVOs) & nothing flagged for compatibility. No compatibility issues at all from merely choosing NVME M.2 SSDs and pairing them with an AMD Threadripper CPU & x399 mobo.

Looking further into PCPP, however, it wouldn't allow me to pair any M.2 SSD with one particular X399 motherboard (aorus). A quick look elsewhere revealed no complaints re Aorus x399 g7 (REV 1) & M2 NVME SSDs so far. If you went with that board, just ignore PCPP for now. It's among the most recent releases for x399 boards & PCPP's sys maybe didn't fully update for it yet.
 
This would likely result in me not getting an AMD processor.

Intels FakeRAID while not ideal (I'm not getting the X299 platform, if I have to I'll wait for Coffee Lake) does allow me to create a bootable RAID0 array with my 2x 1TB Samsungs 960 EVO M.2 drives. This is incredibly helpful as it allows me to just install programs without worrying about relocating them onto another drive (Many programs won't even grant you an install directory choice) not to mention the fact that I don't have to adjust group policy in order to allow it (The baseline GPOs work out of the box with applications installed in the Programs folders).

I don't want to go back to fighting with all that.
 
This article is not about you, open up a new thread and ask a question.

This article. M.2 not being bootable in NVMe raid on threadripper. And my question on this forum(where questions about articles are allowed) was would I be able to use my M.2 as I posted a SS showing pcpartpicker saying I cannot.

I'm sorry you feel offended but I'm allowed to ask a question.
 


I'm not offended its just that if someone is going to research and answer you it would serve the community if you opened up a thread. That way as others search for answers they will find it was already answered otherwise it will be buried under this thread and very few looking for it would ever see it.
 


Shotta, not really offended, though this really isn't the forum for your question. Also James makes a good point.

That being said: I just checked now, again, and as mentioned above, PCPP (out of the 5 X399 boards offered) again gave me the same results as when I last looked. In the meantime ignore the compatibility issue pcpp listed. Rely instead on Gigabyte's specifications for the board on it's site, check out Reddit, reviews (like the one on this site), etc.

Edit: Or, if you're determined to use that board, as well as PCPP, you may want to make them aware of the problem, or wait until the site is properly updated for that board.
 
Regarding booting from raid0, while I did not find a huge advantage with my over complex desktop, my MSI GT70 that came with two SSDs in a raid0 is quite impressive. It boots in a fraction of the time compared to my desktop, and opens apps like Photoshop CC in about four seconds. Smaller apps like Powerpoint open pretty much instantly.
 


Yes just boot from raid on NVME is the issue so the non-bootable raid as your secondary drive would be fine.
 


Thank you for clearing that up. Why don't they just say it that way to begin with. Not all of us are tech savvy, obviously or I wouldn't be here:] .
 
There is a related issue that often gets overlooked: to date, Intel motherboards with 3 x NVMe M.2 slots situate those slots downstream of Intel's DMI 3.0 link. That DMI 3.0 link has the exact same upstream bandwidth as a single NVMe M.2 socket. Every measurement on such a system tops out at about 3,500 MB/second, even with 3 x NVMe M.2 SSDs. We need to know the answer to these next questions: is the X399 chipset merely going to add bootable RAID support for existing M.2 ports on existing X399 motherboards? If so, are those ports controlled by the chipset, or are they wired directly to the CPU? -OR- is AMD working with an OEM supplier of an Add-In Card ("AIC") that uses an x16 PCIe 3.0 edge connector and that supports 4 x NVMe M.2 SSDs installed on a single AIC? The one that comes to mind is the Highpoint SSD7101A-1, but there are others e.g. by HP, Dell, and Kingston. The SSD7101A-1 is a good start, multiples can be installed in the same motherboard, and we are being told by their marketing department that Highpoint's engineers are working on making that AIC bootable. I believe an x16 AIC is a better approach, in the short term, chiefly because new motherboards will be needed to support all modern RAID modes with 4 x integrated U.2 ports.
 
Still trying to figure out why you'd need Raid'd boot NVMe drives in the first place. Storage, sure, the redundancy factor, but boot? With NVMe drives as fast as they are, there's so little gain to be had in raid arrays, it's almost pointless to use. The only place I can figure raid ssd is of any real benefits overall is in NAS, and that precludes the use of a boot drive, so I personally fail to see any real issues with not having bootable raid support for NVMe drives on any platform.
 
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