RAID on GA EP45C UD3R

[terroralpha]

Hello. I'm trying to set up a RAID 5 array on this board. I looked all over the internet and these forums for a solution, but have come up dry.

Here is what I have:
Vista Business SP1 32bit
Intel E6300
2x 1GB Crutial Ballistix
1TB Caviar black for OS
3x 500GB Seagate 7200.12
MSI 7600GT

I enabled RAID in Bios.
Got the latest drivers from Gigabyte and installed.
Tried Gigabyte's tech support (USELESS)
Did a clean Vista install.
Even tried this: http://drnathan.teamhackaday.com/2009/03/27/follow-up-how-to-enable-intel-ich-raid-after-installing-windows-vista/

Everytime I try to install Intel matrix RAID software and drivers, It keeps saying my computer doesn't meet minimum requirements. (WHY?)

**Edited post to eliminate some spelling errors.

 

[terroralpha]

OK. Figured it out. There are two RAID options that an be enabled. One is for The ICH10R the other is for the onboard JMicron raid chip. They are both in the "Integrated Peripherals" menu in the BIOS.

Switching the "SATA RAID/AHCI Mode" option to "RAID" enables RAID on ICH10R

Switching the "Onboard SATA/IDE Control Mode" to "RAID" enables RAID on the JMicron chip.

It took me a while to figure this out because my instruction manual is missing a few pages. It goes from page 76 to 85. Those are the pages with the RAID instructions.

TAKE NOTE!!!

Enabling both RAID options made my computer restart over and over at random times, not giving me enought time to even enter the BIOS. Changing BIOS had no effect on the situation. I tried F1, F2, F3, F4 (comes with board but not availbable for download), F5c (beta) and F5d (beta). All did the same thing. I also unplugged all USB devices and removed all PCI cards except graphics, also tried USB and PS2 mice/keyboard.

RAID 5 performs best with 32K strips on this chip set. If you use 5 or more drives, I think it would be best to use 16K.

You CAN, I repeat, CAN have multiple RAIDs on this single controller. Just use the Intel Matrix RAID tool to configure everthing.

 

[huron]

Thanks for your insight. My plan is to have a RAID 5 media solution on the same board. I'm just trying to figure out which HDDs to use for mine - thinking 4 1.5TB ecogreen drives, or 5 1TB drives of some sort.

This'll be a summer project for me once I get the storage purchased and then start ripping DVDs to the RAID.

Once again, thanks.