Z77 Extreme4 - 4x6GB SATA RAID????

[delecti]

When i have all 4 SATAIII disks connected to the SATAIII ports.. i only see 2 disks in the RAID setup utility.

If i move all SATAIII cables to the SATAII ports, all 4 disks show up in RAID utility.




-can this MB not handle 6GB SATA RAID config on more than 2 disks? (RAID0 or 1)

[profJim]

Re: Z77 Extreme4 - 4x6GB SATA RAID????

You can't span your 4x array across the Intel and ASMedia sata3 controllers.
You should be able to span the same 4x setup across the Intel sata2 and sata3 controllers.

[delecti]

Re: Z77 Extreme4 - 4x6GB SATA RAID????

thanks for reply.

so it IS a weakness on board. -a good reason must exist as to why ALL SATA ports are not SATAIII by now.
I guess for this box which is to be a backup device of other machines... i only NEEDED the SATAIII should i need to virtualize a downed server from it.

I will make due w/ the SATAII ports,.. what benefit would using 2 III's and 2 II's give me in the end?


*My second mirror setup of this hardware is running FreeNAS w/ ZFS RAIDZ across all 4 6GB SATAs, plus another 2 SATAIII in PCI slot for mirror'd SSD (ZIL and cache) -this config is running great so far


-I see what you mean... this is why in BIOS they SATAIII disks are listed before and after the other 4 SATAII disks. i thought this was odd... your saying its because these are 2 different controllers!

[parsec]

Re: Z77 Extreme4 - 4x6GB SATA RAID????

Yes, two separate SATA controllers. The main Intel Z77 with two SATA III and four SATA II, and the extra ASMedia with two SATA III ports that don't perform very well. RAID is only supported on the Intel SATA controller.

Since you are using HDDs, the SATA III ports will not provide any more performance than the SATA II ports. No HDDs even surpass SATA II speeds.

I hope you know how to format your 3TB drives so all their capacity is seen in Windows.

[profJim]

Re: Z77 Extreme4 - 4x6GB SATA RAID????

The limitation of only 2 native Intel sata3 ports is due to the design of Intel's Ivy Bridge (and earlier) chipset design.
The soon to be released Haswell Lynx Point chipset is reported to natively support 6 Intel sata3 ports and 6 Intel usb 3.0 ports.