Intel RST TRIM support on NVMe

[J1mC]

Please can I ask:

1. Which RST RAID levels support TRIM when used with NVMe disks? What is the minimum driver version required? 

NB: The following document indicates that only RAID0 is supported. However, experiments have found this isn't correct. Please what is the updated status? 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000039183/technologies/intel-rapid-storage-technology-intel-rst.html

2. Where is the full revision history for the v20.x RST driver?

NB: Driver version v20.2.7.1026 was replaced by a later dated v20.2.6.1025. Why did this happen? where is the complete revision history of the driver and known issues?

3. Is there a known issue with RST v20.2.7.x where both NVMe disks in a RAID1 mirror will disconnect from the bus at the same time? I have experienced this several times and in all cases the disconnect happened at the same instant and both disks were byte-for-byte identical. Is this a known issue? Is there a known cause or workaround please?

Thank you for your help.

[EnricoB_intel]

Hi J1mC,

Thank you for reaching out and for the detailed information regarding your Intel RST environment and observations.

To better understand your configuration and concerns, and to ensure we provide the most accurate guidance, could you please help clarify the following points:

1. Could you confirm the exact system configuration you are using?
   1. Motherboard model
   2. CPU model
   3. NVMe SSD models involved in the RAID array
2. Regarding the RAID1 NVMe disconnect issue:
   1. Does the issue occur under specific workloads (idle, heavy IO, gaming, benchmarking)?
   2. Are there any system logs (Event Viewer / Intel RST logs) captured at the time of the disconnection?
   3. Does the issue resolve after a reboot or require a full power cycle?
3. Have you tested the same configuration with a different RST driver version (older or newer), and if so, did the behavior change?
4. Have you been able to reproduce the issue consistently, and if so, under what exact steps?

I look forward to your response.

Best regards,

Enrico Maco B.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[J1mC]

The system is an Asus Z890-P installed with Windows 11 25H2. It has 4xSamsung 990 Pro SSD arranged as two mirror (RAID1) pairs.

Initially the RAID configuration was unstable and single SSD disks would leave the array under heavy load. This could be recovered and was eventually traced to a known issue in the Samsung firmware. Since updating to the latest firmware, this problem has not been seen again.

More recently, a new problem has emerged where both disks in an array will disconnect from the bus at the same instant. Typically, this happens under heavy workload. I have now seen this 4 times. In each case, the checksum of the filesystem volume on the two disks was identical. This leads me to conclude it was the controller rather than the disks that failed. This is a catastrophic failure when it happens on the system volume. The fix is to remove one of the disks from the array and then rebuild it. This adds downtime and increases the wear on the SSD. 

Asus have confirmed that this is a known issue in the v20.2.7.1026 RST driver and that under heavy load controller can reset. They recommend disabling various NVMe / CPU power management features and downgrading to the (more recent) latest release of v20.2.6.1025.

I am unable to find the revision history for the Intel RST drivers. Consequently, I cannot confirm the Asus advice that this is a known issue. Please why is the revision history no longer packaged with the driver or available on the driver download page?

My suspicion is that this is related to relatively heavy workload and TRIM. Most sources say that TRIM is not supported on RAID1 with NVME, however, tests have shown it works as expected and blocks that are TRIM'd are zeroed out. Please can you answer my original questions:

1. Which RST RAID levels support TRIM when used with NVMe disks? What is the minimum driver version required? 

2. Where is the full revision history for the v20.x RST driver? This would help me (and I guess many other people).

3. Is there a known issue with RST v20.2.7.x where both NVMe disks in a RAID1 mirror will disconnect from the bus at the same time?

[EnricoB_intel]

Hi J1mC,

Thank you for providing detailed information regarding your system configuration and observations.

After reviewing your inquiry, please be informed that TRIM support in Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (RST) is limited to RAID 0 configurations. Beginning with the Intel® 7 Series chipset, the Intel® RST driver supports TRIM functionality on SSDs configured in RAID 0. However, TRIM is not supported on RAID 1 volumes, including RAID 1 configurations using NVMe SSDs.

Based on the configuration you described, the observed behavior is expected since TRIM is not supported on RAID 1 arrays.

We understand that your testing may indicate TRIM-like behavior on the drives, however, from an Intel® RST support perspective, TRIM support is officially limited to RAID 0 volumes only.

We will proceed to close this thread. Please keep in mind that this thread will no longer be monitored by Intel. Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

Enrico Maco B.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[J1mC]

 > Based on the configuration you described, the observed behavior is expected since TRIM is not supported on RAID 1 arrays.

This is very disappointing. 

The RST software allows a RAID1 array (mirror) to be created using NVMe disks. This is a supported configuration (because the UI allows it to be created). In this scenario,  you would naturally expect SSD related features to work as expected. Without TRIM the life of the disk(s) could be considerably less and performance could degrade. Why does the UI allow a RAID1 array to be created with SSD disks if you don't expect it to work reliably?

>We understand that your testing may indicate TRIM-like behavior on the drives, however, from an Intel® RST support perspective, TRIM support is officially limited to RAID 0 volumes only.

Based on observations, TRIM commands *are* passed to the underlying disks in this configuration by the RST driver. This means either your support information is out of date or you don't understand the detail of the RST software.

Alternatively,  do you mean the observed array failures are the expected behavior? If this is the case, it would be terrible and mean this is a known issue that Intel are ignoring. 

> We will proceed to close this thread.

I note you have not actually answered my questions about the release history or known driver issues. I also note that you have now closed the question and probably won't respond to further comments on it. 

I guest other users will reach their own conclusions about this.

To reiterate:

2. Where is the full revision history for the v20.x RST driver? This would help me (and I guess many other people).

3. Is there a known issue with recent (e.g RST v20.2.7.x) where both NVMe disks in a RAID1 mirror will disconnect from the bus at the same time?