ICH10R Vertex installation Guide. (Outcome Benchmarks Provided)

[Tyr]

Please note the following guide is designed for a fresh install further steps may be required to restore previous imaged partitions.

This is not an official OCZ guide and I take no responsility or liability for any issue that may arise from following the guide.

Firstly check Firmware version of you drives. If required download desired firmware and follow tony's how to flash guide (Current firmware available in this guide)

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=52848

Once you have your Drive/Drives at the desired firmware you want thats where this guide starts.

This guide begins on the assuption that you ahve installed all the drives and have installed them into your system.

BIOS SETUP

Boot the computer at boot go into the Bios and set your Controller to RAID

Should look something like this



Save your BIOS settings and reboot.

RAID SETUP

During Boot you should see an option to enter raid Management for me this is accessed via Ctrl-I.

once in the manager you should see a screen like this



Ok now its time for us to create the RAID array if you want if you only have a single disk we just check in here that your Drive can be seen and is a non raid member. (Single Drive users skip past the next steps now too the Disk Alignment section)

Select Create Array from the menu you should now have an option to "Select Disks" choose this option and you should see a screen similar to below use your arrows keys and space bar to select the drives you want to use in the Array and press enter.



Now choose the array type in this example I am going for performance so its RAID 0 there is several different options but this guide isnt for explaining what raid is so I will let you google that and look it up else where

Select the Stripe Size next I suggest 128k which is the maximum that can be done on the ICH10R controller.

And now the options should look something like this



Now lets finish by selecting create the Array and finally acknowledging with a yes I am sure


Now you should see the drives listed as Raid members as in the picture below.



OK lets select exit because were all done in here.

[Tyr]

DISK ALIGNMENT

** the majority of this part of the guide is TheRookies Guide with a few tweaks all credit to him for this **

This will show you how to do alignment via Diskpart on the vista recovery or installation disk however there is a good thread for everything alignment here.
HERE

Download recovery Disk here

when your ready Boot From the Vista installation or Recovery Disk.

Select your keyboard layout and click Next.





Select “Repair your computer”.





If you are running a RAID system, you can load the device drivers for your setup before proceeding. Otherwise click Next right away.





Click on “Command Prompt”.






The above screenshot shows the commands for creating a primary partition spanning the entire SSD raid array and being aligned at 128k, which is a valid setting for a raid array of 2 or more disks with a 128k stripe.

If you are running one SSD, you need to use another partition offset (alignment). it has been recommended that 64 is best.

For a reference on Diskpart commands see

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../cc766465.aspx

After you are finished, exit diskpart and the command prompt and shut down the computer.

[Tyr]

Install OS

You can now do a fresh install of the Windows operating system of your choice onto your aligned partition. When you are installing the operating system you need to select NTFS as file system and preferably the quick format option.

Do NOT delete the partition and recreate the partition in the OS installer. This will kill the alignment that you have performed.

Finish the OS install.


Chipset Drivers and Intel Matrix Storage

Ok Now we have the OS installed its time to install Chipset and the Storage matrix drivers.

These are found here for X58 Boards.

Chipset

Intel Matrix Storage

Generic Download area for ICH controller software for other board types.

Ok now we just install the Chipset Drivers, reboot and install the Intel Matrix Storage manager.

Ok now comes a very important step to get the best performance from your Drives.

Load the intel Matrix Storage Manager and enable Write back cache like displayed below.



(Matrix Storage Manager will not have a cache option without an actual RAID array configured. so if no raid jsut skip down to enabling it in device manager.)

once this has been enabled the final step to this guide is to make sure in device manager that write back caching and advanced performance is also set on the Array/Disk.

Settings should be set as below in vista (XP or Win7 may have a slightly different looking set of options)



Now the only thing left to do is check the OS tweaks thread and make any changes you see fit and Enjoy the Speed of your New Vertex's!!!

Tweak thread

[Tyr]

Benchmarks prior to OS install.

Atto (Yes thats me Spanking the hell outta my ICH10R and Breaking the 660mbps Limit!)



Iometer All



Iometer 4krw

[Tyr]

Benchmarks After OS install

*New Install still have updates etc going on and No OS tweaks apart from whats provided in the guide*

[lowfat]

That guide makes alignment a whole lot easier to understand.

[Sung Young Gui]

Tyr, you mention at the beginning to set your controller to "RAID" in your BIOS. And a couple steps later you state, "Single disk users, skip to the alignment section."
I have seen other members discuss what looks to be a "RAID" set up too, even when they are talking "single disk." Maybe it is just my lack of techno language that makes me misinterpret what is being said.

So my question, "what gives"? I though "RAID" was only for combining multiple disks? Am I wrong on this?
If so, if it is a single disk option, could someone elaborate a bit to explain the benefits I can get out of setting a single disk to raid mode from the MB controller (not some additional raid card).

Thanks in advance!

[lowfat]

Tyr, you mention at the beginning to set your controller to "RAID" in your BIOS. And a couple steps later you state, "Single disk users, skip to the alignment section."
I have seen other members discuss what looks to be a "RAID" set up too, even when they are talking "single disk." Maybe it is just my lack of techno language that makes me misinterpret what is being said.

So my question, "what gives"? I though "RAID" was only for combining multiple disks? Am I wrong on this?
If so, if it is a single disk option, could someone elaborate a bit to explain the benefits I can get out of setting a single disk to raid mode from the MB controller (not some additional raid card).

Thanks in advance!

The reason you set it to RAID even with a single disk is so that you can enable write-back cache. You can't do that when it is set to AHCI.

[Sung Young Gui]

What about with "IDE"?

[tuleggi]

Thanks!

[slickric21]

Thanks Tyr.

I've got a p45 mobo arriving this week (after years of being with nvidia) so its good to read this on how to set up my Vertex's.

Awesome dude.

[lowfat]

What about with "IDE"?

can't enable write-back cache either. However if you are worried about data loss and don't have a UPS then I would highly suggest not enabling write-back.

[Sung Young Gui]

Thanks for the info lowfat!
Actually, I have a UPS but it is kind of a dud. And I am a little concerned with data loss.
Is the data potentially lost - due to enabling write cache - data that hasn't been saved to a file (you haven't pressed "save"), or would it be say, all the data in a software session, or even a complete computer session?

Also, one last thing, what kind of performance gain does havig write-back cache enabled typically offer on a fairly high end system - percentage wise?

[Tyr]

Tyr, you mention at the beginning to set your controller to "RAID" in your BIOS. And a couple steps later you state, "Single disk users, skip to the alignment section."
I have seen other members discuss what looks to be a "RAID" set up too, even when they are talking "single disk." Maybe it is just my lack of techno language that makes me misinterpret what is being said.

So my question, "what gives"? I though "RAID" was only for combining multiple disks? Am I wrong on this?
If so, if it is a single disk option, could someone elaborate a bit to explain the benefits I can get out of setting a single disk to raid mode from the MB controller (not some additional raid card).

Thanks in advance!

Its been noticed that enabling the controller to its raid state and actually using the single disks as a Non raid member gives better performance due to the way the controller talks to the disk.

This is not 100% necessary step but my guide is to try and get the best out of your drives which is why i added this.

[Tyr]

bah maybe i should of read the rest of the thread before answering looks like Lowfat's answered all your questions and as for write back cache it affects my raid performace 3 fold pretty much not sure how it affects single drives though I have been advised it helps a fair bit but I don't know this from personal experience.