cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

What RAID controller for a pair of X25M G2s

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

I am buying a new Windows 7 (i7-870 / P55) system with two 80GB X25-M G2s and would like suggestions for the best RAID controller. My biggest concern is one that will allow me the upgrade the SSD firmware easily.

17 REPLIES 17

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Blowd,

Which drives are you using G1 or G2? When reinstalling, did you use secure erase 3.3 or 4.0 and wiped both drives? Which motherboard are u using (brand and chipset)? Which OS did u install and what is the driver version of the Intel matrix storage controller? In the general tab of the controller, line 3 states the location what does it say? In details you have property down below is a dropdown menu what does it say?

It just puzzles me what goes wrong, it might be the drive, it's very unusual though that hardware is bad. Many people have problems; it looks to me more like compatibly issues or certain driver issues.

Roland

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Hi,

use G2s. I've used Acronis secure wipe, should have done the job well.

Board is a DFI P45 T2RS, Eaglelake. OS Vista32Bit, Matrix (iaStor.sys) 8.8.0.1009, Locaion PCI-Bus 0, Gerät 31, Funktion 2.

I have a traditional HDD Raid0 on port 2 and 3 and this works great. Like I said before, I'm convinced its a issue with the SSD as it failed twice within 2 weeks.

Anyway thanks.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Blowd,

In our data center we tested driver 8.8.0.1009, info came back as problematic with SSD's. Next time use driver 8.9.0.1023 also I would advise use secure erase 4.0, I personally tested the software with no hiccups – Works great. BTW do U use Kaspersky as an anti virus?

Roland

Message was edited by: RolandSSD

CHend7
New Contributor

Lets be VERY careful here. I had lots of problems with the 8.9.0.1023 from Intel (running 2 X25-E's in Raid 0) on my ASUS P5E3 Premium and I am not alone. I had already RMA'd both of my X25's before I came across other users having the same problem (and it wasn't the X25's!). One of the longest running threads on the Intel Support Community is this one /thread/5036?start=120&tstart=0 http://communities.intel.com/thread/5036?start=120&tstart=0 that, in a nutshell, says that a number of users have found serious problems working with the Intel 8.9 driver. When most of them reverted back to 8.8 the problem went away. I became very nervous when I read through this so, just to be sure, I went out and purchased an Adaptec Controller. Needless to say, I have had no problems since.

The other interesting point is that the Intel 8.9 driver comes standard with Windows 7. I am not for a second saying that ALL users will have similar problems, all I am saying is that if spending extra dollars gives me piece of mind then it is a small price to pay.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Windows 7 64 - 2 G2's raid0 - P45 ICH10R driver 8.6.2.1012 also a good solution, no problems at all.

Roland