Intel Rapid Storage Technology not supporting M.2 Drives?!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
D

DCCXVIII

Junior Member
Nov 10, 2015
2
0
0
So i've just put together an Asus Z170-Deluxe based machine and have come across this rather frustrating limitation. I've installed an M.2 PCIE SSD on the mobo only to find the moment I enable RAID support (i.e. Intel Rapid Storage Technology) my mobo drops the m.2 drive on reboot and as far as the BIOS is concerned, it no longer exists. Switching Intel's Raid support off in the BIOS and rebooting immediately restores the existence of my M.2 drive.

Is there a limitation I am unaware of where enabling Intel's RAID drivers forces the mobo to drop any M.2 PCIE drives? It's really annoying as my plan was to setup my OS on the M.2 and data on 2 WD Reds running in RAID 1 for redundancy. Now i'm going to have to rely on....WINDOWS RAID
sad.png
facepalm.gif


There is a setting in the BIOS that is marked M.2 PCIE Storage RAID Support Enable/Disable which is detailed as: Quote:
Enable this item to remap PCIE port to SATA for RAID Support. Only 6 ports will remain when enabling this item.
But enabling this setting has no affect. Immediately after applying the changes and the system restarting, the BIOS drops the existence of the M.2 drive
confused.gif
 
Last edited:
D

DCCXVIII

Junior Member
Nov 10, 2015
2
0
0
FINALLY! After trying literally dozens of different permutations (BIOS settings, hardware changes etc.) I was still getting the same problem - every time. In a final bid to troubleshoot the issue, I took the included Hyper M.2 x4 Mini PCIE card (note that this is not the same as the Hyperkit that's also included) that's included with the motherboard, mounted my M.2 in it, installed into a PCIE Express slot and VOILA! IT WORKED! I could finally get my SATA RAID running without the BIOS unmounting the M.2 SSD!

There's only 1 conclusion I can draw for this. I've inadvertently stumbled across a bug in the latest BIOS firmware (v1203). Another part of the bug I think, is that I noticed in my testing that when I had my M.2 SSD in the on-board M.2 socket, attempting to set the following setting: "M.2 and SATA mode Configuration" (M.2 or SATA Express) would always revert itself to "SATA Express" even after I had set it to M.2 previously. Whenever I tried to set it back to "M.2" mode and rebooted the computer, the PC would attempt to start, immediately shut down a second after the fans started spinning, and then restart itself and eventually POST.

The conclusion I draw from this is that for whatever reason, the nature of the bug is causing the motherboard to attempt to startup in M.2 mode, encounter the bug in the BIOS, and then switch it back to SATA Express and reboot. This would explain why whenever I got back into the BIOS, the setting had changed itself back to "SATA Express". Note that this behavior does not occur when using the Hyper M.2 x4 mini PCIE card instead of the on-board M.2 socket. I.e. the BIOS correctly retains the user selected "M.2" mode after reboot.

I hope they fix this bug related to the on-board M.2 socket as I would like to not have unnecessary PCIE Express cards taking up room when it shouldn't have to.
 
M

mr.Tux

Junior Member
Nov 10, 2015
1
0
0
DCCXVIII said:
FINALLY! After trying literally dozens of different permutations (BIOS settings, hardware changes etc.) I was still getting the same problem - every time.

.... a bug in the latest BIOS firmware (v1203). .......

I hope they fix this bug related to the on-board M.2 socket as I would like to not have unnecessary PCIE Express cards taking up room when it shouldn't have to.
Click to expand...

FINALLY! you made my day (or night)!

That problem kept me busy for days.
After so many restarts, for some I now have SATA Mode AHCI and two single HDDs in BIOS, Windows itself detects and uses "Intel Raid 1", but Intels tool does not see anything: not HDDs nor Raid.

I do not have any PCIe Card for M.2, therefore unable to use your workaround, but hopefully the BUG will be fixed soon.

How do we submit a bug to ASUS?..
 
WT

WT

Diamond Member
Sep 21, 2000
4,816
59
91
I'm guessing a bug as well. Keep us updated on this please, as I am planning on going the same route with a build and its always helpful to let someone else work the kinks out before you encounter the same issue.
 
vailr

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom