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Is RAID1 working? How do I set BIOS?
I have a Dell Alienware Aurora ALX purchased in Dec 2010, and I am not sure whether my RAID1 is configured properly.
The computer has an Intel ICH10R SATA RAID controller. The configuration that I ordered was supposed to have the boot drive set as a stand-alone drive and the data drive as a mirrored RAID1 array.
In Windows7 Device Manager, under Disk Drives, I see ARRAY0 (data drive) and ST32000641AS (boot drive.) In BIOS, I see 3 drives, one is the boot drive and the two others have the same identifier (ST31500341AS).
But, I am afraid that the RAID is not working because in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology window, 3 HDs are listed, but there is no indication that any of these are structured in an array. Under “Manage”, I can see the properties of each of the 3 HDs, but nothing about an array. Under “Usage” for each HD, it says “unknown”. Further, under “advanced” there are no options that can be changed. There is nothing to say that this is RAID1 or RAID0.
Within BIOS (A10), under Integrated Devices, the ICH SATA configuration was set by Dell to “configure SATA 1-6 as AHCI”. But, the other choice here is “configure SATA 1-6 as RAID”. Should this be set to RAID? I am afraid to change it because it says in red that this could make the SATA devices inaccessible to the OS. And, on the Intel website it says that this should not be changed after the operating system has been installed.
Is the RAID1 configured properly? How can I tell?
If it is configured properly, how do I manage the array? It seems that somewhere there should be a dialog that will let me set SATA1 as a single drive and SATA2-SATA3 as a RAID1.
Thanks.
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2 Replies
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If IRST doesn’t show volume info like in the screenshot below, then it’s not configured properly. I’d suggest calling Dell first and asking them the same questions you are asking here. After all, it was their responsibility to configure it.
Alex (DV411)
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What does Disk Management show? Does it show the 2 drives as brick color in the bottom, graphical view, but only one drive in the top pane? My guess is that the system drive is on the 1-6 SATA ports, along with the 2 media drives, and if you switch to RAID in BIOS, you will lose access to your system drive – the RAID controller will want to view it as part of the RAID. So they probably just used Windows to create the RAID and bypassed the Intel RAID software. Could be working correctly, just using Windows software for the RAID.
TC
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