ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z RAID 0 SSD Windows 8 BSOD

[Shoofuss]

I've spent far too much time mucking with setting up a RAID 0 with two Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD drives (CSSD-F180GBGT-BK) on an ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z.

It seems that setting up the RAID on my ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z was straightforward enough but I kept getting these random blue screens (In Windows 8 no less with the frowny face) with any number of messages.

This was always on a fresh install of Windows 8.

It always seemed relatively stable to the point that I thought it was some software issue causing the blue screens (but I wasn't using any software I wasn't using previously on a single SSD). Then once I found one of these blue screens cropping up on a fresh reinstall before I had even tried installing any software...

When I use the SSDs as two separate drives, I don't get any blue screens so I figure there's just something odd with sticking two together in a RAID on this hardware.

So, this is just a general question. Is setting up two SSDs as a RAID 0 just flaky business, or is there some trick to it? Does anyone have any experience with this board and these drives?

The closest information I've found is here:http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175314

...but deep down I'm just curious if RAID-0-ing these SSDs is worth the time if it's going to spaz like this.

 

[Y0GI]

I've spent far too much time mucking with setting up a RAID 0 with two Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD drives (CSSD-F180GBGT-BK) on an ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z.

It seems that setting up the RAID on my ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z was straightforward enough but I kept getting these random blue screens (In Windows 8 no less with the frowny face) with any number of messages.

This was always on a fresh install of Windows 8.

It always seemed relatively stable to the point that I thought it was some software issue causing the blue screens (but I wasn't using any software I wasn't using previously on a single SSD). Then once I found one of these blue screens cropping up on a fresh reinstall before I had even tried installing any software...

When I use the SSDs as two separate drives, I don't get any blue screens so I figure there's just something odd with sticking two together in a RAID on this hardware.

So, this is just a general question. Is setting up two SSDs as a RAID 0 just flaky business, or is there some trick to it? Does anyone have any experience with this board and these drives?

The closest information I've found is here:http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175314

...but deep down I'm just curious if RAID-0-ing these SSDs is worth the time if it's going to spaz like this.

I'm sorry that you're having problems. I can't speak to the issues with that particular MB but, in general, RAID 0 with SSDs is not worth the effort and data risk: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

Although the RAID array will give awesome benchmarks, in real life usage, the difference is minimal.

Yogi

 

[cin19]

You are better to use single SSD for the OS win8, when you use the raid 0 with 2XSSD, you only can get the high benchmark scores, but you will get some kind the problem later like one of them dies then you will lost all the data, who know when it will happen.

But any way, back to your question, that is the raid driver. You need install the AMD raid driver first, during the win8 installation. Download the AMD raid driver from amd website, also the manual from asus. Go to the page 5-7 section : 5.2.3 installing the raid driver during the windows OS installation.

AMD raid driver: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx

 

[Shoofuss]

Yeah, I tried installing Windows 8 to the RAID both with the AMD drivers and without them. (I guess Windows 8 must come bundled with some sort of RAID drivers since it did install to the drive without me loading anything else. I can't remember if it's possible to just install to a hardware RAID without drivers.)

...and with or without the AMD drivers the system was equally unstable. I'm not sure what the deal was.

Either the driver support is bad or Windows 8 just didn't like SSDs in a RAID 0 or who knows what. From what I've read Windows 8 does seem to be a little flaky with SSDs in RAID 0, I just can't figure out a definite cause for what's happening in my case.

Looking back, I noticed I had my optical drive plugged into the same set of SATA ports I had the RAID functioning on, and perhaps this was confusing the RAID controller or something weird.

Regardless, I've just decided to use the SSDs as separate single drives and the problems are gone.

I would have liked to have the RAID since it's a little nicer and I do all of my backups to a separate drive anyways. Though, you're probably both right. I doubt I'd notice the difference unless I was copying giant files to the drive all day...

I'll just keep them as two separate drives. Maybe I'll muck with this in the future, but I don't have the patience/interest to deal with this now. =)