[SOLVED] Can't setup Raid using NVME drives on Aorus Master (x570)

[bbsmitz]

Hi Guys,

So I'm building a new system with a Ryzen 5600x and a 3090. I used Q-flash Plus to update the bios to F31o which seems to be the latest revision and can get it to POST. My current issue is that I am trying to set up my boot drive as being a Raid 1 using two Samsung Evo 970+ drives. I followed the instructions in the manual (enable NVME raid mode, disable CSM), but when I go to the RaidXpert2 Config Utility and click on Array Management, it doesn't give me the option of 'Create Array' like it should according to the manual. It's greyed out. If I click on 'manage array properties' each drive shows up as its own array, so I know the BIOS is seeing them, but for some reason I can't create a raid array from them. Anyone with experience with this sort of board have any ideas on why?

Cheers in advance.

-bbsmitz

 

[USAFRet]

WHY RAID 1?

Why......

 

[bbsmitz]

Mainly because I'm building an identical system for my Dad and he really wanted Raid 1 so that if one drive goes down he doesn't need to worry about losing his data. So I'm trying to get it working on mine first.

Edit: But the instantaneous and plaintive response cracked me up.

 

[Nemesia]

Mainly because I'm building an identical system for my Dad and he really wanted Raid 1 so that if one drive goes down he doesn't need to worry about losing his data. So I'm trying to get it working on mine first.

Edit: But the instantaneous and plaintive response cracked me up.

Hi. I totally understand that your dad doesn't want to lose his data but any data you don't want to lose should be backed up on many devices in case the worst happens like the whole computer burning down. What happens then?

 

[USAFRet]

Mainly because I'm building an identical system for my Dad and he really wanted Raid 1 so that if one drive goes down he doesn't need to worry about losing his data. So I'm trying to get it working on mine first.

RAID 1 is not data protection. It is only for physical drive redundancy and system uptime. It does not protect your data.

With a RAID 1, an accidental deletion results in a lost file.
Corruption, malware, ransomware....RAID 1 does nothing for any of that.

An actual backup routine, off to some other physical drive, is the way to safeguard the data.

I use Macrium Reflect for this.
Full /Incremental/Differential images, off to some other drive. An external HDD, for instance. Or, in my case, a QNAP NAS.

In case of physical drive death....swap in a new physical drive and easy recover.

 

[bbsmitz]

Sorry, I phrased that badly. Essentially it's more the system uptime concern; if the OS drive dies, he doesn't want to have to wait for a new drive to get shipped in for him to keep using his computer.

Edit: Thank you for the Macrium Reflect suggestion however. I will definitely be using that for my machine.

 

[USAFRet]

Sorry, I phrased that badly. Essentially it's more the system uptime concern; if the OS drive dies, he doesn't want to have to wait for a new drive to get shipped in for him to keep using his computer.

Edit: Thank you for the Macrium Reflect suggestion however. I will definitely be using that for my machine.

So buy a 1TB HDD, and stash it away.
In the exceedingly rare case of the NVMe drive dying, swap in the HDD, recover the system to that, just for temp use until a new NVMe arrives.
45 mins "downtime".

Which you'd have anyway, once the new drive arrives. Rebuilding the array with a replacement drive will be downtime as well.
Anyplace that runs a RAID 1 for 'uptime' also needs a strong backup procedure.

For my Macrium routine, this:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Scale up or down as needed.

 

[bbsmitz]

Thanks for the link to the Macrium routine.

I'll present your argument to my Dad, but he can be stubborn and just for that reason I'd like to figure this out as it might just be easier to set up the Raid 1 for him than talk him out of it. So with that said, anyone have some familiarity on setting up Raid on this board?

Cheers,

-bbsmitz

 

[bbsmitz]

After some more googling I found this video -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBM5OPEI0oE
which seems to do it step by step, so I'll use that if I need to when working on my Dad's comp. Thank you everyone for your feedback, and thanks in particular for the Macrium routine, as I finding a solution like that was going to be top of my list after I got my machine up and running.

 

[USAFRet]

Kudos for being proactive on the data protection.
Far far too many people only think about it 5 minutes after they need it.

That Macrium routine saved my bacon after a dead SSD.
100% of the data recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning.