Setting up a Raid Array on Intel Controllers

Posted by Lvcoyote on March 10th, 2010

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Configuration

Obviously you need to have the hard drives you intend to use connected the motherboard. I recommend populating your SATA ports from port 0 forward. For example if you are going to use a two drive Raid Array, use SATA ports 0 and 1.

There are two other areas we need to concern ourselves with when configuration begins. The first area is your motherboard’s BIOS. Consult your motherboard manual to find the BIOS location where your Intel controller settings are. Once located you need to set the Intel controller to Raid mode.

Once the Intel controller is set to Raid mode in your motherboard’s BIOS, rebooting the system should present you with an option to hit “Crtl I” to enter the Intel controller utility. This option will flash by pretty quickly so be ready! You will notice in the image below that you now see the “Crtl I” option as well as the drives hooked to the Intel controller, you will see this as the system goes through the boot sequence.

Once you press “Crtl I” you will enter the Intel controller utility, or sub bios as some like to call it. Here is what that should look like upon initial entry. You should see all the hard drives you have attached to your Intel controller’s SATA ports. Something to keep in mind here is that having more than two drives attached to an Intel controller that is set to Raid mode, does NOT mean that all the attached drives have to be included in an array. It’s perfectly fine to use only the drives you want in a raid array. For example, let’s say you have four drives attached to your Intel controller but only want to use two in an array and leave two to operate as standalone single drives; this is perfectly acceptable and easily doable.

Ok, now that we are inside the Intel controller utility, let’s get your desired array set up and ready to install Windows to. Make sure “Create Raid Volume” is highlighted and press enter. Once you do this a new screen will pop up that looks like the below image. Follow the navigation options provided at the bottom of the screen as you work your way through the different settings.

You can name the array anything you like, but I usually just leave the default name here. Next you want to highlight the “Raid Level” line which gives you the ability to select the type of Raid Array you prefer.

After choosing your desired raid level, we now need to add the desired hard drives to the array, so go ahead and highlight the “Disks” line. See image below.

Then press the enter key to get to the screen that allows you to choose the drives you want to assign to the array. See Image below.

Highlight a hard drive you want included in your array and hit the space bar, then do the same for the next drive you want in the array. Remember at least two drives are needed for a Raid 0 or Raid 1 array.

Once you have added the drives you want included in your Raid Array, hit the enter key. The next line is the “Stripe Size” selection. I usually just leave this to the default 128kb. Depending on what your system is going to be used for you may want to research if a different stripe size may suit your needs better. I find that leaving it at 128kb stripe size works very well for most users.

The next line has to do with the capacity of your volume; I normally just use the entire available space. You can however choose a smaller size, but a second volume will need to be created to utilize the remaining space.

After leaving the “Capacity” area you need to highlight the “Create Volume” line and hit enter. Once you do that, the following will appear on your screen asking you to verify your selections.