[SOLVED] Cloning M.2 to SSDs in RAID 0 (and boot from the RAID disk)

[GeoGroen]

Hello gurus

Currently running:
OS: Windows 10 x64
Mobo: Asus Prime A320M-K
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen 3
Storage: Western Digital Blue M.2 SATA 500GB

Recently installed three Western Digital Blue 2.5" SSD SATA 1TB drives and went into Disk Management to set up a new striped volume. This seems to be working as intended and testing shows I'm getting the additional speed expected from a three-drive RAID 0 SATA setup.

The goal is to transfer all data from M.2 to the SATA drive, remove the M.2 drive and run my system using only the SATA RAID drive, including booting from it.

Initially, I tried to clone the M.2 drive to the RAID drive but when I try to use Macrium Effects or AOMEI Backupper, I am unable to select all the partitions of the original M.2 for cloning. Not sure if this is because I set up the RAID drive using Windows Disk Management tool.

Then I spent two days trying to figure out how to create the RAID volume in the BIOS - maybe the cloning software would work then. But for some reason the BIOS on this particular ASUS motherboard is just not showing me any way to create a RAID setup. In the BIOS, when I change SATA mode from AHCI to RAID, nothing happens - I get no drive details and can't boot. I've updated the BIOS to ver. 5603 and updated the processor chipset thingy - basically everything I could find on the ASUS website. Still no luck.

Feels as if I might be wasting my time going down the wrong rabbit hole completely. Is it even possible to clone one SSD to multiple SSD's? Can my motherboard and processor combination even boot from a RAID 0 drive?

If so, could somebody please tell me what's the most efficient way to ditch this M.2 completely and just make the whole shebang boot and run from the 3x1028 RAID 0 drive?

I love you long time!

 

[GeoGroen]

A screenshot of Macrium Reflect on the cloning attempt.

I can drag and drop only a single partition to the source drive.

The destination drive is also highlighted orange, which from my youtube watchings, seems weird. I believe it should be grey, and then you can drag and drop multiple partitions. No idea why this happens.

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 0 + SSD shows huge benchmarks.
User facing benefit, not so much.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

RAID 0 for the OS drive?
Don't...just, no.

Cloning from an NVMe to a SATA III RAID 0?
Again, no.


Why are you going to cease using the NVMe drive?

 

[GeoGroen]

RAID 0 + SSD shows huge benchmarks.
User facing benefit, not so much.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

RAID 0 for the OS drive?
Don't...just, no.

Cloning from an NVMe to a SATA III RAID 0?
Again, no.


Why are you going to cease using the NVMe drive?

Thanks USAFRet but my M.2 is not NVMe, it's SATA only. So I'm only getting ~500MB/s transfer speeds from it.
See: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0B/dp/B073SBX6TY

I only have the one M.2 slot. And my immediate concern was increasing storage capacity, so I went for the 2.5" form factor SSDs. My plan was to eventually purchase a serious NVMe for that one M.2 slot and scrap the drive I currently have in there. But in the meantime the little RAID project would be fun and give me a speed boost (whether I notice it or not, granted).

I'm just looking to get the maximum performance out of the components I have. But you're saying it's more trouble than it's worth?

 

[USAFRet]

I'm just looking to get the maximum performance out of the components I have. But you're saying it's more trouble than it's worth?

Yes.
RAID 0 + SSD sounds like a good idea.
In practice? Not so much.
And RAID 0 was never meant for the OS drive, no matter what type.

Performance does not stack as it did with HDD. The near zero access time of the SSD negates almost all of the 'benefit' of the RAID 0 concept.