Does the AMI RAID controller on the IWill Kk266R support ATA33/66/100?

[Biggs]

Ala Promise or HighPoint or does the AMI only do RAID? After you disable RAID via jumper, can you just plug-in a CDROM/CDRW or hard drive to the AMI IDE slot and use it as an ATA33/66/100 controller? Thanks.

 

[Octoberblue]

All the stats on the controller chip itself are here. (The PCI card pictured is the RAID chip in the Iwill board. It has all the same stats and options exactly.) It definately supports ATA66 drives for RAID. Not sure if it supports ATA33, but most likely it does since almost every IDE device is backward compatible all the way back to PIO mode.

As for RAID vs. Regular ATA33/66/100 support, a quote from this Anandtech Article says of the KK266, "A single jumper chooses RAID or standard Ultra ATA 100 operation. If you choose Ultra ATA 100 support, you can connect up to four Ultra ATA 100 devices (two devices per channel).."

I don't have this board myself (yet ), but since it has the non-raid option it's extremely unlikely that it wouldn't also support ATA66/33 in addition to 100. I've also heard elswhere that the Iwill board has the best and easiest to understand BIOS options for the RAID mode, in case you decide to migrate to that later. Their manual is also said to be extremely good with regard to the RAID instructions.

 

[Biggs]

I was reading this thread and they said you can't use CDROMS/CDRW on the AMI controller. Hmmmm...

 

[SVTSnake]

<< All the stats on the controller chip itself are here. (The PCI card pictured is the RAID chip in the Iwill board. It has all the same stats and options exactly.) It definately supports ATA66 drives for RAID. Not sure if it supports ATA33, but most likely it does since almost every IDE device is backward compatible all the way back to PIO mode. >>



The KK266-R does NOT support anything but hard drives on the AMI raid controller. Over at www.amdmb.com in the Iwill forum, we have had a long discussion on this. The AMI chip definitely does NOT support ATAPI devices on the ports...



<< As for RAID vs. Regular ATA33/66/100 support, a quote from this Anandtech Article says of the KK266, &quot;A single jumper chooses RAID or standard Ultra ATA 100 operation. If you choose Ultra ATA 100 support, you can connect up to four Ultra ATA 100 devices (two devices per channel)..&quot; >>



Anands review is WRONG! The jumper on the the KK266-R is used to either enable or disable the RAID ports. If you set the jumper to 1-2 you enable the ports, and 2-3 disable the ports. The only motherboard that the jumper works as Anand mentions is the Asus A7V133. On that motherboard, the jumper will either enable RAID support, or turn off RAID, but set the Promise controller to ATA100 mode.



<< I don't have this board myself (yet ), but since it has the non-raid option it's extremely unlikely that it wouldn't also support ATA66/33 in addition to 100. I've also heard elswhere that the Iwill board has the best and easiest to understand BIOS options for the RAID mode, in case you decide to migrate to that later. Their manual is also said to be extremely good with regard to the RAID instructions. >>



The VIA 686B supports ATA33/66/100 natively. The AMI controller supports ATA33/66/100 devices as well, as long as they are HARD DRIVES! You plug in anything other than a hard drive to the port, the system will freeze at the detection screen for the AMI bios.

The Promise and the Highpoint controllers will work with ATAPI devices connected to them. I have set up systems with the A7V133 where I put the CD Writer on the RAID port and all worked well. My Abit KT7A-RAID has my writer on the RAID port and all is well! I have built 5 systems with the Iwill KK266-R and this setup does not work. The only work around would be to install your hard drive on the AMI controller, your CD drive on IDE 0 and your writer on IDE 1. The only problem that I have had with this setup is that you don't get a IDE light for your hard drive. I know of a few others that have said the same thing!

Now before everyone runs and says &quot;they say in the manual not to connect anything other than hard drives to the RAID controllers,&quot; they also state that they are normal ATA33/66/100 controllers when not in RAID mode. With that being said, then they all should work with ATAPI devices. The Promise and the Highpoint live up to that...

 

[SVTSnake]

<< All the stats on the controller chip itself are here. (The PCI card pictured is the RAID chip in the Iwill board. It has all the same stats and options exactly.) It definately supports ATA66 drives for RAID. Not sure if it supports ATA33, but most likely it does since almost every IDE device is backward compatible all the way back to PIO mode. >>



The KK266-R does NOT support anything but hard drives on the AMI raid controller. Over at www.amdmb.com in the Iwill forum, we have had a long discussion on this. The AMI chip definitely does NOT support ATAPI devices on the ports...



<< As for RAID vs. Regular ATA33/66/100 support, a quote from this Anandtech Article says of the KK266, &quot;A single jumper chooses RAID or standard Ultra ATA 100 operation. If you choose Ultra ATA 100 support, you can connect up to four Ultra ATA 100 devices (two devices per channel)..&quot; >>



Anands review is WRONG! The jumper on the the KK266-R is used to either enable or disable the RAID ports. If you set the jumper to 1-2 you enable the ports, and 2-3 disable the ports. The only motherboard that the jumper works as Anand mentions is the Asus A7V133. On that motherboard, the jumper will either enable RAID support, or turn off RAID, but set the Promise controller to ATA100 mode.



<< I don't have this board myself (yet ), but since it has the non-raid option it's extremely unlikely that it wouldn't also support ATA66/33 in addition to 100. I've also heard elswhere that the Iwill board has the best and easiest to understand BIOS options for the RAID mode, in case you decide to migrate to that later. Their manual is also said to be extremely good with regard to the RAID instructions. >>



The VIA 686B supports ATA33/66/100 natively. The AMI controller supports ATA33/66/100 devices as well, as long as they are HARD DRIVES! You plug in anything other than a hard drive to the port, the system will freeze at the detection screen for the AMI bios.

The Promise and the Highpoint controllers will work with ATAPI devices connected to them. I have set up systems with the A7V133 where I put the CD Writer on the RAID port and all worked well. My Abit KT7A-RAID has my writer on the RAID port and all is well! I have built 5 systems with the Iwill KK266-R and this setup does not work. The only work around would be to install your hard drive on the AMI controller, your CD drive on IDE 0 and your writer on IDE 1. The only problem that I have had with this setup is that you don't get a IDE light for your hard drive. I know of a few others that have said the same thing!

Now before everyone runs and says &quot;they say in the manual not to connect anything other than hard drives to the RAID controllers,&quot; they also state that they are normal ATA33/66/100 controllers when not in RAID mode. With that being said, then they all should work with ATAPI devices. The Promise and the Highpoint live up to that...