[SOLVED] M.2 970 EVO plus in RAID 1?

[buxaerys]

Hi, i'm looking to build a new system from scratch.
I'm getting the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Xlll.

TECH SPECS:

Supports 4 x M.2 slots and 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports


Intel®11th &10th Gen Processors

M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110


- Only Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode, this slot will be disabled for other CPUs


M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280**


- Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode


- Intel® 10th Core™ processors support PCIe 3.0 x4 mode


Intel® Z590 Chipset

M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 3.0 x4 mode)

M.2_4 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 3.0 x4 & SATA modes)*

6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

Raid function for PCIe mode SSD in Intel® Rapid Storage Technology is available with either 1. Intel® SSDs installed in both CPU-attached and PCH-attached slots, or 2. any other 3rd party SSDs installed in PCH-attached slots.


*When M.2_4 is pupulated, SATA6G_56 will be disabled.



**M.2_2 shares bandwidth with PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2. When M.2_2 is enabled, PCIEX16_1 will run at x8 mode and PCIEX16_2 will run at x4 mode.

My question:

Can i run M.2 970 EVO plus in RAID 1?
If so, what's the optimal configuration?


Thx in advance!

 

[mdd1963]

RAID 1 should be supported within the mainboard's onboard RST, but, is a bit of a waste of money and prime NVME storage for most folks....(If you have both NVME drives, great, use the other one where high speed storage is advantageous, and. in the unlikely event of a main drive failure, you can reinstall your recent backup image to it within 10 minutes and be back up and running anyway)

RAID 1 on boot/OS drives ensures system will boot in the very rare event of an SSD failure...; if that is worth it to you, proceed.

 

[USAFRet]

What are you looking for the RAID 1 to do for you?

A RAID 1 only helps in the case of physical drive fail, AND you need the uninterrupted uptime.
For anything else, a true backup routine is far preferable, and better protection for your data.

Indeed...any business that needs to run a RAID 1 for that uptime concept also has a good backup routine (or they should).

 

[buxaerys]

RAID 1 should be supported within the mainboard's onboard RST, but, is a bit of a waste of money and prime NVME storage for most folks....(If you have both NVME drives, great, use the other one where high speed storage is advantageous, and. in the unlikely event of a main drive failure, you can reinstall your recent backup image to it within 10 minutes and be back up and running anyway)

RAID 1 on boot/OS drives ensures system will boot in the very rare event of an SSD failure...; if that is worth it to you, proceed.

Isn't NVME much faster compared to SATA? I'll be using my pc for 3d modelling and rendering. Is NVME storage going to improve my workflow speed, or am i only going to notice when moving large files etc..

What are you looking for the RAID 1 to do for you?

A RAID 1 only helps in the case of physical drive fail, AND you need the uninterrupted uptime.
For anything else, a true backup routine is far preferable, and better protection for your data.

Indeed...any business that needs to run a RAID 1 for that uptime concept also has a good backup routine (or they should).

I'm not saying i need the uninterrupted uptime, but it's always a pain when you got downtime...
So yes i need it and no i don't need it that much...

My current system is based on a RAID 1 with dual SSD 860 EVO, just in case one drive fails...
Before that is was a RAID 1 with two 3.5 inch disks.. none ever failed though over the last 6 years...
I have a backup routine, but it's still all manual work.
Maybe NAS is a better solution? Then i would not need a RAID setup?

 

[USAFRet]

My current system is based on a RAID 1 with dual SSD 860 EVO, just in case one drive fails...
Before that is was a RAID 1 with two 3.5 inch disks.. none ever failed though over the last 6 years...
I have a backup routine, but it's still all manual work.
Maybe NAS is a better solution? Then i would not need a RAID setup?

With a proper backup routine, recovery from a physically dead drive is no more than an hour away.

Of all the ways to 'lose' data, physical drive fail is pretty far down the list.
A true backup routine also protects the actual data. Ransomware, accidental delete/format, malware, virus, any other type of corruption.

And backups should be automated.
All my house systems run automated backups to my QNAP NAS. Frequency depends on the system.

My main system, all 7 physical drives (incl the OS drive), gets an incremental every night. Direct tot he NAS, all hands off.
My HTPC, once a week.

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

You can set up a schedule in Macrium Reflect, all hands off.

And yes, I've had to use it to recover from a physically dead SSD. 1TB SanDisk.
Put in a new drive, click click...all 605GB recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning.

 

[USAFRet]

Isn't NVME much faster compared to SATA? I'll be using my pc for 3d modelling and rendering. Is NVME storage going to improve my workflow speed, or am i only going to notice when moving large files etc..

An NVMe certainly won't hurt. But you'll not see a monumental difference. Unless transferring large sequential data between two of them.

In my own use case of Adobe Lightroom, I cannot tell the difference between a Samsung 860 EVO and Intel 660p.

 

[buxaerys]

An NVMe certainly won't hurt. But you'll not see a monumental difference. Unless transferring large sequential data between two of them.

In my own use case of Adobe Lightroom, I cannot tell the difference between a Samsung 860 EVO and Intel 660p.

So it's mainly a mind thing then when using NVME ^^

 

[buxaerys]

With a proper backup routine, recovery from a physically dead drive is no more than an hour away.

Of all the ways to 'lose' data, physical drive fail is pretty far down the list.
A true backup routine also protects the actual data. Ransomware, accidental delete/format, malware, virus, any other type of corruption.

And backups should be automated.
All my house systems run automated backups to my QNAP NAS. Frequency depends on the system.

My main system, all 7 physical drives (incl the OS drive), gets an incremental every night. Direct tot he NAS, all hands off.
My HTPC, once a week.

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

You can set up a schedule in Macrium Reflect, all hands off.

And yes, I've had to use it to recover from a physically dead SSD. 1TB SanDisk.
Put in a new drive, click click...all 605GB recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning.

Why do you need 7 drives in your sysytem setup? Spreading data across multiple SSD's?
I actually read the article this week, that's why i started looking into NAS..
What type of SSD do you use? Do you recommend NVME?
I could go for dual M.2 NVME 970 EVO Plus, maybe add another SATA 2.5 870 EVO?

 

[USAFRet]

So it's mainly a mind thing then when using NVME ^^

Well, they are "faster".

A SATA III sequential speed might be 550MB/s (850/850 EVO)
NVMe sequential might be 3500MB/s (970 EVO)
Further, PCIe 4.0 might be 7000MB/s (980 Pro)

So people assume that the user experience is 7 or 15 times faster.
It is not. The whole rest of the system comes into play.

This video refers to gaming and not your specific use case, but it is quite representative of the speed difference.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4

 

[USAFRet]

Why do you need 7 drives in your sysytem setup? Spreading data across multiple SSD's?
I actually read the article this week, that's why i started looking into NAS..
What type of SSD do you use? Do you recommend NVME?
I could go for dual M.2 NVME 970 EVO Plus, maybe add another SATA 2.5 870 EVO?

Why those drives?
They were acquired over time, replacing HDD space. And almost certainly when they were significantly price reduced at that moment.
For instance, the 1TB Intel 660p. I didn't need it, but at $88 for a 1TB NVMe in July 2019 was too good to pass up. Was on sale for 1 day.

This system is SSD only. As are all my house systems. The spinning drives all in or attached to the QNAP NAS.

Each has its own basic use case.
Video
Photo
Games
One of the older 840 EVO is scratch space for photo/CAD/video applications.
And of course the OS has its own drive.

The list of drives is in my sig line below.

 

[buxaerys]

Why those drives?
They were acquired over time, replacing HDD space. And almost certainly when they were significantly price reduced at that moment.
For instance, the 1TB Intel 660p. I didn't need it, but at $88 for a 1TB NVMe in July 2019 was too good to pass up. Was on sale for 1 day.

This system is SSD only. As are all my house systems. The spinning drives all in or attached to the QNAP NAS.

Each has its own basic use case.
Video
Photo
Games
One of the older 840 EVO is scratch space for photo/CAD/video applications.
And of course the OS has its own drive.

The list of drives is in my sig line below.

What would you recommend if not that setup?

 

[USAFRet]

What would you recommend if not that setup?

1 drive for the OS and applications.
Another drive for everything else. Working files and projects, games, docs, whatever.

We're coming close to price parity with SATA III SSD, so given a compatible motherboard, NVMe becoming less of a monetary impact.
The 970 EVOs are a good choice.

 

[buxaerys]

Well, they are "faster".

A SATA III sequential speed might be 550MB/s (850/850 EVO)
NVMe sequential might be 3500MB/s (970 EVO)
Further, PCIe 4.0 might be 7000MB/s (980 Pro)

So people assume that the user experience is 7 or 15 times faster.
It is not. The whole rest of the system comes into play.

This video refers to gaming and not your specific use case, but it is quite representative of the speed difference.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4

Not that much of a difference... what drives are you using?

 

[USAFRet]

Samsung 840/850/860 EVO
Sandisk Ultra
Intel 660p.

But we're rapidly chasing diminishing returns.
The jump from HDD to SATA III SSD was huge.
From SATA III SSD to NVMe, not so huge.

Lets postulate a user facing diff of 2x.

2 seconds to 1 second is noticeable.
1 sec to 0.5 sec, not so much.
0.5 sec to 0.25 sec....what? There's a difference?

When I got the 660p, I did some testing in my specific use.

5 RAW files from my Fuji camera, multiple intensive edits to each.
Adobe Lightroom.

Writing out to some of the above drives - 15 seconds each time.
Even though the 660p benchmark number is 3x that of the Samsung EVOs.

And this was with a full reboot in between, so nothing was cached.
Interestingly, the 6 year old 840 EVO was the same speed as a 6 month old 860 EVO, and the same as the brand new (at the time) 660p.

The rest of the system (CPU/RAM) also comes into play.

 

[buxaerys]

Samsung 840/850/860 EVO
Sandisk Ultra
Intel 660p.

But we're rapidly chasing diminishing returns.
The jump from HDD to SATA III SSD was huge.
From SATA III SSD to NVMe, not so huge.

Lets postulate a user facing diff of 2x.

2 seconds to 1 second is noticeable.
1 sec to 0.5 sec, not so much.
0.5 sec to 0.25 sec....what? There's a difference?

When I got the 660p, I did some testing in my specific use.

5 RAW files from my Fuji camera, multiple intensive edits to each.
Adobe Lightroom.

Writing out to some of the above drives - 15 seconds each time.
Even though the 660p benchmark number is 3x that of the Samsung EVOs.

And this was with a full reboot in between, so nothing was cached.
Interestingly, the 6 year old 840 EVO was the same speed as a 6 month old 860 EVO, and the same as the brand new (at the time) 660p.

The rest of the system (CPU/RAM) also comes into play.

Indeed the difference between HDD to SATA is huge, i noticed a massive increase in speed overall.
I plan to build my new system like this:

i9 10900k
ASUS Maximus Hero 13
2x 16 GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200
RTX 3080 OC (when i find one)
Corsair HXi 1000
Corsair H150i Elite Capellix

 

[USAFRet]

Indeed the difference between HDD to SATA is huge, i noticed a massive increase in speed overall.
I plan to build my new system like this:

i9 10900k
ASUS Maximus Hero 13
2x 16 GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200
RTX 3080 OC (when i find one)
Corsair HXi 1000
Corsair H150i Elite Capellix

Sure. In a new system in 2021, the only reason to NOT go NVMe is price.
Depending on size and budget needs, a mix of NVMe and SATA III SSD is also not unheard of.

My next system in the coming year will have a mix.
NVMe for the OS and applications, other drives as needed. And almost certainly, some of these current SATA III devices.


But, circling around back to the original topic....a good backup routine crushes a RAID 1 for safety and usability.

 

[buxaerys]

Sure. In a new system in 2021, the only reason to NOT go NVMe is price.
Depending on size and budget needs, a mix of NVMe and SATA III SSD is also not unheard of.

My next system in the coming year will have a mix.
NVMe for the OS and applications, other drives as needed. And almost certainly, some of these current SATA III devices.


But, circling around back to the original topic....a good backup routine crushes a RAID 1 for safety and usability.

Thx for time and advice!

 

[USAFRet]

Thx for time and advice!

Good luck with your new system!

 

[Karadjgne]

Generally speaking, Sata is 5x faster than hdd. NVMe is 2x faster than Sata. But. Both are faster than the cpu can process the data. So for small file use like what games use almost totally, there's little to no difference between NVMe and Sata. Where NVMe makes a considerable difference is in large file transfers, like opening up an entire hour long video to edit, compile, save etc. That's when the transfer speeds actually bear fruit.

NVMe in Raid 1? Kinda pointless unless you Are doing a Lot of large file transfers, where every second lost is costing $$$.

Every backup I've done that I can remember, I just check the little box to shut down the pc when done, and go to bed, so time is irrelevant for that.

 

[buxaerys]

Generally speaking, Sata is 5x faster than hdd. NVMe is 2x faster than Sata. But. Both are faster than the cpu can process the data. So for small file use like what games use almost totally, there's little to no difference between NVMe and Sata. Where NVMe makes a considerable difference is in large file transfers, like opening up an entire hour long video to edit, compile, save etc. That's when the transfer speeds actually bear fruit.

NVMe in Raid 1? Kinda pointless unless you Are doing a Lot of large file transfers, where every second lost is costing $$$.

Every backup I've done that I can remember, I just check the little box to shut down the pc when done, and go to bed, so time is irrelevant for that.

You are right, RAID 1 was just a failsafe for me, but it never actually provided any benefit for me since my first pc build 6 years ago.
I'm now looking into NAS and macrium to setup an automated backup process.
Thx for your contribution!

 

[buxaerys]

You can set up a schedule in Macrium Reflect, all hands off.

What type of license would you recommend?

 

[USAFRet]

What type of license would you recommend?

For most people, the Free version is fine.

I have the paid version on my main PC, Free on all the others.

The Free version does Fulll and Differential images.
Paid adds Incremental.