General overview of RST and RSTe

[BWeng2]

Can someone help me get a general overview and understanding of RST (Rapid Storage Technology) and RSTe (Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise).

On ark.intel.com you'll find these definitions:

RST:

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology provides protection, performance, and expandability for desktop and mobile platforms. Whether using one or multiple hard drives, users can take advantage of enhanced performance and lower power consumption. When using more than one drive the user can have additional protection against data loss in the event of hard drive failure. Successor to Intel® Matrix Storage Technology

RSTe

Intel ® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise (Intel ® RSTe) provides performance and reliability for supported systems equipped with Serial ATA (SATA) devices, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) devices, and/or solid state drives (SSDs) to enable an optimal enterprise storage solution.

Are you familiar with any other definitions - ones that are more specific?

I imagine it would be a good idea to have a matrix showing features of RST and RSTe and conjunction with the different Intel chipsets/Intel storage controllers.

Please provide me with any information you might have...I will when start creating this matrix :-)

Some of the questions to be asked/answered:

• what's the difference in features of RST and RSTe and when/how are the activated?
• what kind of Intel SATA controllers/chipset support RST and RSTe?
• Is it correct that not all RST supported SATA controllers support software RAID, which one do and don't?
• In your motherboard BIOS you can set your controller in either AHCI or RAID mode...what influence does this have relation to RST/RSTe, beside the obvious that the later will activate the software RAID feature?
• Has Intel SCU (SAS-Control-Unit or Storage-Controller-Unit) anyting to do with RST(e)?

[PDenn]

it's massively confusing. Intel have different version numbers for drivers and the rst software and you can't get straight answer from this forum. it seems to me that Rste comes via the motherboard manufacturer for a server depending on the chipset but Intel don't explain the difference. For example from posts on this forum it appears that Rste supports ssd in mirror raid configuration but I ccannot find any official documentation to this effect. there doesn't appear to be any technical specs documents for Rste.

Lastly with rste if you have an issue they just refer you back to the motherboard manufacturer despite the fact it's their software at and their chipset. Rste is very slow in mirror raid.

Paul

[BWeng2]

Thank for your comment :-)

Yea....it almost look like a marketing gimmick :-P

Product page for RST: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/technologies/intel-rapid-storage-technology-intel-rst.html LINK

Product page for RSTe: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/technologies/intel-rapid-storage-technology-enterprise-intel-rste.html LINK

I did also notice the "contact manufacturer" answers from Intel.

[idata]

Hello JesperL,

The difference is that the RST is used for desktop systems and the RSTe is mostly used for server systems.

RST supports regular SATA controllers from desktop systems

For the RSTe you can see the http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/rapid-storage-technology-enterprise-brief.html Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise Product Brief

You need to set your BIOS to raid so your system can boot from the raid configuration and you will not be able to create the raid either if it is not set to raid mode. This is when you want to create the raid to the hardware level.

If you prefer to create the raid to the software level, you can use the IRST.

The reason why we sent the customer to manufacturers when they have problems with raid is because they are more familiar with their systems and how the components interact with each other, we can try to help the customer as much as we can but you will get better support from the manufacturer and because they are more familiar with the motherboard BIOS.

I appreciate your patience and understanding on this case.

Best wishes,

Ivan

[BWeng2]

Dear Ivan

Thank for your feedback.

The RSTe product brief says not much, and it's more than 4 years old. Intel's SATA controllers has provides software RAID for ages, long before RSTe came to the world, what's new?

And I do have some additional questions after reading the product brief:

-What's the features for RSTe compared to RST? Saying RSTe is for servers and RST is for desktop, doesn't say much.

-Is RSTe only available on systems running XENON CPUs, or perhaps it just was the case 4 years ago.What about now?-Is RSTe only available on C600 series chipset?....a lot of C23x series board claim to have RSTe?

-When is RSTe activated...only in RAID mode or also in AHCI mode (for the later you want have RAID of course, but do you have other RSTe features)?

-Is RSTe planned to be supported in VMware ESX in the future? Is that a decision of Intel or VMware?

Perhaps it makes more sense to talk about the SATA controller instead of chipset, as it seems different chipset share the same SATA controller part (it seems the SATA controller part to be tightly integrated into the chipset today, but nevertheless it have it's own device ID).

I've seen names like "Wellsburg RAID Controller" and "Sunrise Point-H AHCI Controller"?

What the name of the SATA controller in the C23X and C600 chipsets? And which have RSTe support and which don't?

[idata]

At the following links, you can see the products supported:

Intel® RSTe: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26224/-Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Enterprise-NVMe-Intel-RSTe-NVMe-RAID-Driver https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26224/-Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Enterprise-NVMe-Intel-RSTe-NVMe-RAID-Driver Intel® RST: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26361/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26361/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005 RST Works on RAID mode and on AHCI mode as well, obviously you cannot create a RAID on AHCI but you can install. If it is an Intel or VMware decision to make this software supported most likely it is something that both need to agree about it. Regards, Ivan

[PDenn]

Hello Ivan, Thanks for the link. in the enterprise brief it states as follows.

Yes, things have changed. Software RAID

solutions running on the Intel® Intel® Xeon®

Processor E5-2600/2400/1600/1400/4600

with the Intel® C600 series chipset (Romley

platform) now equals or outperforms hard-

ware RAID.

This is simply not true I have c600 chipset with Xeon E5 2630 and the performance of a standard RSTE mirror raid of 2*1TB disks is slower than my old dell 1950 with perc 6i hardware raid which is sata 3gb/s. See my posts