Rampage IV Extreme - Storerage Setup

[DeChe]

Hey Guys n Gals,

The setup i'm trying to build currently is:

Rampage IV Extreme
WD 300GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s VELOCIRAPTOR Hard Drive - 10,000RPM x2
WD 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s Caviar Green Hard Drive
Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD

Now all these drives are SATA 3 (6GB) compatible and the MB internal controllers are as such:
Intel® X79 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), black
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red

So my dilemma is I would like to use the 4 SATA 3 (6GB) available to me but I would want to RAID 0 the 2 Raptor Drives. As far as I can tell so far only the Intel X79 Chipset controller supports RAID, but I want to install the OS onto the SSD. I've been told it's best to have the OS on the Intel controllers to boot from. Can anyone enlighten me on this.
Basically it looks like I need to use the 2 Intel SATA 3 (6GB) connections for Raptor and the ASMedia SATA 3 (6GB) connections for the other 2 drives but I'm not sure if this will allow the OS to boot properly.

Many thanks in advance for responses,

DeChe.

 

[Dereck47]

Forget about the ASMedia ports. Connect all of your drives to the Intel ports.

Hard drives can be SATA III (6Gb/s) "compatible", not SATA III "capable".
Hard drives cannot spin fast enough to saturate SATA II (3Gb/s) ports, let alone SATA III ports. You will suffer no loss in performance having your HDD RAID-0 array on the Intel 3Gb/s ports.

Connect your SSD to port SATA6G_1. Leave all other drives disconnected.
Change the SATA mode of the Intel ports to RAID.
Install Windows. Let Windows install its own default RAID drivers.
After Windows installation is complete connect your 3 HDDs to ports SATA3G_1 thru SATA3G_3.
Create your RAID-0 array with the 2 Raptors.
Download and install Intel’s latest RAID drivers.

 

[DeChe]

Forget about the ASMedia ports. Connect all of your drives to the Intel ports.

Hard drives can be SATA III (6Gb/s) "compatible", not SATA III "capable".
Hard drives cannot spin fast enough to saturate SATA II (3Gb/s) ports, let alone SATA III ports. You will suffer no loss in performance having your HDD RAID-0 array on the Intel 3Gb/s ports.

Connect your SSD to port SATA6G_1. Leave all other drives disconnected.
Change the SATA mode of the Intel ports to RAID.
Install Windows. Let Windows install its own default RAID drivers.
After Windows installation is complete connect your 3 HDDs to ports SATA3G_1 thru SATA3G_3.
Create your RAID-0 array with the 2 Raptors.
Download and install Intel’s latest RAID drivers.

Thanks for the reply Dereck , after posting this I did plug in the Sata drive in what I thought might work (because im impatient lol ) I have however plugged the SSD and and the slow HDD into the ASMedia ports and the 2 Raptors into the Intel ports. Would this setup be detrimental to the PC or its performance in any way? If so i'll get them swapped about when I get home tonight.

 

[Pinhedd]

RIVE owner here. The ASMedia ports do not support hardware RAID, the disks can be initialized in a software RAID should you wish to do so but you're best off just letting the Intel ports do the work. Additionally, most SSD manufacturers recommend that SSD drives be connected to Intel ports only for full AHCI support.

The Velociraptors may be Sata III compatible but will run perfectly fine on the Intel SATA II ports, you will not notice a performance increase on the SATA III ports

Additionally, there is a firmware bug on the RIVE that occurs when certain drive combinations are attached to the ASMedia controller (at least one bootable eSATA and one bootable SATA) that makes all drives attached to the Intel controller unbootable because the OPROM is never initialized. It may have been fixed within the 2 most recent firmware updates but I haven't checked.

 

[DeChe]

Thanks also Pinhedd, ill get those drives ports moved about tonight then when I am home.