[SOLVED] Raid Controller doesn't detect drives

Nov 28, 2018
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Hi everyone,

i'm currently failing at building a Small Office Server for my friend.

The raid controller cant find any drives.

The controller has two mini-SAS HD SFF8643 connectors and I'm using a mini-SAS to 4x SATA adapter to connect the drives.

Steps i tried:


  • reboot :)
    connected the drives to the MB - they show up in MB BIOS
    connected other known good drives to the raid controller
    changed mini-SAS port on the controller
    used different SATA connectors from the mini-SAS to SATA adapter
    pulled the raid controller out, booted the system, and put it back.

System specs:


  • Intel Xeon E5-2620v4
    ASUS Z10PA-U8 Motherboard
    Intel RS3WC080 Raid Controller
    16 GB KIngston regECC
    2x Samsung SSD 860 Pro 1TB
    500W PSU

All the components are new.

As far as i can tell, all the components should be compatible with each other.

Any help is appreciated.
 
Solution


Yes, the drives are connected to power :)

When I connect the drives to the motherboard sata, they show up in the Bios. I don't have a spare Raid Controller or sas-sata cable, so i can't test them.
I never used a sas-to-sata adapter cable, and i'm wondering if all the components are compatible and should work together?
 
you have a builtin sata raid controller. the drives will be limited by the sata interface anyway, the sas controller wont make the raid array any faster anyway

i'd say plug them in sata ports, configure the builtin controller as raid and use that isntead of the sas option
 


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that the board has a Raid Controller. The asus spec page mentions Windows only software raid, LSI® MegaRAID cards and Asus SAS controller, but no OnBoard Raid Controler.

And I plan on installing VM Ware ESXi on the server, which has no Software Raid support.
 
Let me correct my self here :)

In the Manual, starting at page 117, it's described how to create a RAID with the Onboard controller. I don't know why they call it a Software RAID ...

Thanks for the help.

 


The thing is, I can't get it to work with ESXi.
I changed the BIOS settings created a RAID1 Virtual Drive (also shows this during boot) but in the os I still have two separate disks.

I don't quite understand what LSI MegaRAID is. I can't find much documentation about it, and it's always described as software raid and that you have to install drivers in the OS, but whats the point then of having it on a chip on the motherboard?!

I might be able to get my hands on an other raid controller over the weekend, so i could do some more testing and trying.

FIY: As the Inter Controller is new, i also created a support ticket with intel, maybe they have an idea.
 
Solution