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1343 Discussions

Optane on boot drive and IRST on second HDD?

EOrto
Beginner
1,938 Views

Hello,

I have a Z270 board that supports 2 x M.2's. I have the boot drive accelerated with an Optane module which is setup. I have installed a 250gb M.2 in the other slot and would like to accelerate a second HDD used for storage. I have tried partitioning off 64gb on the new M.2, setting up a raid between the M.2 and HDD, but that too does not give me the option to accelerate the HDD.

Is it possible to run Optane on one drive and IRST on another?

Thank you in advance.

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9 Replies
idata
Employee
780 Views

Hello Highlander3,

 

 

We understand you would like to use Intel® RST and Intel® Optane™ Memory with two different M.2 SSDs. It is really interesting to check if this can be done without issues, a reason why we would like to run a test in our lab.

 

 

Please stand by, we would like to confirm if this actually works here first.

 

 

Regards,

 

Nestor C
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idata
Employee
780 Views

Hello Highlander3,

After testing your request in our lab, we were able to determine that this can be done.

 

We have our boot SSD drive accelerated with Intel® Optane™ Technology and a secondary RAID 1 setup accelerated with Intel® RST.

Please check this picture with our configuration:

Please let us know if you have any more questions.

Regards,

 

Nestor C
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EOrto
Beginner
780 Views

Thank you for quick response and encouraging test results. My only questions at this point are:

# 1 I noticed that both discs used for this test were 93gb, will it be a problem that I will be using a 250bg M.s to accelerate a 4tb HDD?

# 2 There is not an "Accelerate" button due to it being the Optane version of the software, will the utility know to accelerate the HDD with the M.2 simply by combining them in a RAID through the software?

Thank you again for your help.

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idata
Employee
779 Views

Hi Highlander3,

To answer your questions, please read below:

1- We set the RAID 1 with two 100GB (93GB for Windows*) SSDs in 2.5" form factor. Now, if you want to do the RAID setup with those two drives (250GB M.2 and 4TB HDD), you can, but keep in mind that we recommend doing this with like to like disks.

2- Since the Intel® RST software we are using is for Intel® Optane™ Technology, it does not show the accelerate button. We were able to create the RAID after we enabled Intel® Optane™ in our boot drive and also, we did create this RAID 1 with one M.2 SSD 180GB + 2.5" SSD 100GB, without issues.

You can see it in this screenshot:

 

About the accelerate button from Intel® RST for the RAID storage configuration, we don't think this can be done; However, this can be actually answered by our /community/tech/rapid-storage-technology Intel® Rapid Storage Technology support community.

Please let us know if you have any other question related to Intel® Optane™ Technology.

Regards,

 

Nestor C
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idata
Employee
779 Views

Hi Highlander3,

 

 

We would like to know if you have any other question or if you require further assistance. We'll be waiting for your response.

 

 

Regards,

 

Nestor C
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EOrto
Beginner
779 Views

No, thank you again for answering my question so quickly, I forgot to close out the ticket, sorry about that.

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idata
Employee
779 Views

Hello Highlnder3,

 

 

We are glad that your questions were answered. In case of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us back.

 

 

Regards,

 

Nestor C
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EOrto
Beginner
779 Views

I tried to recreate your test and failed. If I choose a Raid 1 as you have done the Raid volume is only 233GB, if I choose Raid 0 the volume size is 466GB. I was expecting to see a 4TB Raid volume. Screenshots below.

You will notice that the Raid's volume size slider is greyed out and at 100%. I'm sure that I'm missing a step somewhere, please advise.

Thanks again for all your help.

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idata
Employee
779 Views

Hello Highlnder3,

 

 

I believe this is expected behaviour due to the way that RAID on unequally sized drives works. RAID 1 will default to the size of the smallest drive, RAID 0 will double the size of the smallest. If you intend to extend the size of your secondary drives, you'll need to crate a JBOD, which is not supported by RST.

 

 

Since this has evolved beyond an Optane™ Memory issue, our best recommendation will be to check with our /community/tech/rapid-storage-technology Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Support Community team, as it's their area of expertise.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Carlos A.
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