Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager 7.0 - why should I want this thing?

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xylophone

I have just set up a new Dell Dimension E520 (recently discontinued) XP SP2
(by choice). It comes with this Storage Manager, presumably for a reason.
Darn if I can figure out that reason. Why should I wish to use this thing?
What benefits or advantages would it bring? (the Manual is strictly for
techies). Many thanks
 
it's associated with the driver for the HD interface; it includes the RAID
functionality available w/ that interface. If the drive(s) are not set up
for RAID you _MAY_ still need this, as the driver is a part of it.
Removing it _MAY_ cause the machine to not boot, so be careful and
research it a bit more before shooting yourself in the foot! It may also
depend on what "mode" you've choosen for the ICH5/6/7 interface in the
BIOS; there's a normal mode and an enhanced mode, the latter being more
effcient but requireing a special driver (the normal mode maps it to
standard IDE, and the built-in driver will work fine). Proceed
cautiously, or just leave it alone.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
 
With respect, this does not answer my question, which was:

"Why should I wish to use this thing?
What benefits or advantages would it bring?"

I am not a techie. I understand most everything else on my PC, but not
this.
 
Thanks, Gary. This is the most consumer friendly best explanation of what
RAID is about I have yet seen. It appears that as I have lots of digital
photos and videos, and even with my single hard drive at present, RAID would
provide benefits, although I am not sure what these are. Were I then to
upgrade to a second, external hard drive, there would be clear and major
performance and loss of data benefits.

I would be grateful if you would explain the first scenario, with a single
hard drive, a little further, to make those benefits clear.
 
Sorry, I haven't read up on the technology, personally. I just found the
article for you using Google.

When it comes to RAID, the benefits are speed and/or redundancy and you
aren't likely to notice much difference in normal personal usage. And by
definition, a single drive isn't RAID, even if it's attached to a RAID
controller. From personal experience, I can tell you one thing: If the
motherboard goes bad and needs reconstruction, rebuilding a RAID array is a
lot more difficult than just plopping in a hard drive. I used to use RAID,
but found that the drawbacks greatly outweigh the benefits on a personal
computer. IMO, it's better to use single drive(s) and a decent backup
scheme.

Anyway, if you want to get into a detailed discussion of the technology, I'm
not the one to do it. Perhaps someone else will come along who's interested
in the discussion, or if this thread seems moribund after another day,
consider starting again with more specific questions about the technology
and how it might decently be applied to your own needs.
 
Many thanks, Gary.

What you say about personal usage I can see makes sense. So I will abandon
thoughts of RAID.
 
Not sure how your hardware is set up, but what you may want with that
controller is the JBOD function -- Just a Bunch of Disks -- not really RAID,
even if on a RAID controller.
 
Here are the *theoretical* benefits of using an INTEL-chipset RAID
array in single-drive mode:

1. There are two modes in which an Intel-chipset motherboard can
access its Hard Disks - Standard Mode and Enhanced Mode.

2. Standard Mode (also known as "compatibility mode") is the default.
This mode is compatible with the Microsoft Hard Disk Controller
Driver (ATAPI.SYS) shipped with Windows 2k and XP. This is
the mode in which a default Windows installation can "see" the
hard disk - but it has no RAID performance advantages such as
NCQ, dedicated I/O, mirroring, striping, RAID or eSata.

3. Enhanced RAID Mode (also known as "go-fast mode") is a special
mode that requires two processes to be completed before the mode
can be activated...

a) Enhanced Mode must be activated and set for RAID capability
in the motherboard CMOS setup *BEFORE* Windows is
installed

b) Dedicated Intel-specific Hard Disk Controller drivers must be
installed using a special "F6 install floppy-disk" during the
installation of Windows. There is a specific change to the
standard Windows installation procedure which must be
followed in order to install the special Hard Disk Controller
drivers. If this procedure is not followed correctly, you will
NOT be able to "see" the hard disk to partition and format
during installation.

4. Benefits of Enhanced SATA RAID mode are as follows:

a) The chipset allows for a special dedicated I/O Bus - used only
by the RAID Controllers - when run in enhanced mode. This
means that I/O traffic that would normally clog the PCI channel
when the chip is run in compatibility mode runs on the dedicated
IDE/SATA I/O Bus instead.

b) The performance benefit is especially noticeable if there is lots of
AGP or PCI traffic (fancy video card and/or fancy sound card or
just lots of PCI cards) in your machine - as the two buses are
both DMA busmasters and can concurrently access the processor
without causing the other bus to stall.

5. Caveats and "gotchas" when running Enhanced SATA RAID mode
are as follows:

a) System Utilities that monitor the health of your Hard Disk (such
as the System Doctor element of Norton Utilities SystemWorks)
may have trouble "seeing" your RAID array and automatically
reporting disk health. Ditto for Temperature/Voltage/Fan
monitoring software (such as Motherboard Monitor).

The above compatibility issues are normally fixed by updating both
the software (Eg: SystemWorks and/or Motherboard Monitor)
and the hard disk controller drivers. However, in some cases it
is *downgrading* the controller drivers that fixes the problem,
not upgrading. Don't ask how long it took to figure this out.
You don't want to know... :-(

b) Do not even consider using a RAID array without a complete,
verified and proven backup facility with imaging capability. You
must also CONFIRM that the restore process works properly
when run from the backup-supplier's bootable restore-CD-ROM.

Personally, I think that anyone who runs a computer today
without verified and proven image-backup-capability is crazy by
definition - but this is even more critical when using RAID in
either
single-disk or multi-disk mode. The storage recovery utilities that
allow recovery of single-disk-drive data using the standard
ATAPI.SYS driver do NOT work on data strewn across multiple
disks where the disk failure is extensive enough that the RAID
array is unable to rebuild itself automatically. You MUST have
backup that is completely independent of the array. (Eg: Norton
Ghost or Acronis TrueImage)

6. The appropriate set of RAID Array Drivers for Intel-Chipset boards
varies with the model of the Southbridge Chip or I/O Controller Hub
installed on your motherboard. There are currently five different
chipsets which require consideration:

a) ICH5R - This is the original RAID-Array chipset. It is the most
cranky of the chipsets as far as finding compatible drivers. This
chipset also had extremely erratic and unreliable BIOS support
when first released. It is absolutely mandatory that the latest
motherboard BIOS update be installed - and the CMOS values
be completely erased and replaced with valid data - before this
chipset is set to RAID mode and the F6-install-floppy is used.
NCQ support can be problematic with this chipset.

b) ICH6R - I don't know much about this chipset.

c) ICH7R - This is the most widely-compatible RAID-Array chipset.
It is the last chipset Intel made that had standard PATA IDE
connections as well as SATA support.

d) ICH8R - This is the first RAID-Array chipset that Intel made with
SATA only support. When first released, it was a compatibility
nightmare as far as connecting to SATA DVD-ROM or SATA
DVD-RW Drives was concerned. You *must* ensure that you
are using the latest motherboard BIOS for this chipset - and that
the motherboard is updated as for the ICH5R before Windows
installation.

e) ICH9R - This is the current RAID-Array chipset offered from
Intel with its latest motherboards.


There is more to the use of the Matrix Storage Manager than detailed
in this post. The above is just the basics. You will need to know the
particulars of your motherboard, its Southbridge or I/O Controller Hub
details, and the compatibility issues of the particular version of the RAID
drivers you contemplate using. I recommend further research in the
tech-support newsgroups specific to your particular make and model
of motherboard before you even think about implementation.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill
 
Bill

Re enhanced mode, I assume that as this manager came installed on my Dell,
it already has the necessary drivers. I am unsure, however, where I should
look for these to make sure.
 
The Dell downloads site for that model should have the drivers, probably a
specific set intended for copying to a floppy or CD for use during
installation. And I would NOT assume that Dell set the machine up using
Enhanced Mode. Check BIOS to see if it is enabled.
 
Hi, xylophone. If you have the Matrix Storage Manager
already installed, you should see the Intel Drivers installed
in Device Manager in parallel with the standard Microsoft
Drivers.

To confirm the above, open Device Manager and Check
under the "SCSI and RAID Controllers" section for the
presence of the "Intel XXXXXXR SATA RAID Controller".

Open the Properties for this item and check the driver details.
If this item is present, you will see a copy of iastor.sys.
This is the RAID Driver upon which all the rest of the
features of the RAID Controller software is based. If
this is present, you are running in Enhanced RAID mode.


At that point, you then need to check the version numbers
on the drivers and confirm which version you are running.

If you have the controller-management software installed
(which I think is installed because your previous posts
indicate this was your original starting point), then the
Controller-management software should also tell you what
version you are currently running.


From there, go to the appropriate newsgroups and create
a post which details what you are running now - and ask
for help on what updates/upgrades are appropriate for
your current and/or planned configuration.



Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill
 
Yo Bill, that was a great write up on the ICHx chipset! I knew a lot of
that info before, kinda sort-of, but your write-up made it very very clear
- thanks for the info!! I am archiving it away for future reference.

FWIW, my ICH5 setup has been working just great for years, in enhanced
mode w/ RAID 0 (don't shudder now!). Setup was straight forward following
the instruction included w/ the motherboard (ABIT). And you're right,
finding an imaging program that can save AND RESTORE is critical.
 
Bill,

Have checked all that you say and what is installed on my PC complies. So it
appears I have advanced RAID software installed. This takes me to a Intel
Matrix Storage Console from where I can create a RAID volume.

I had Ghost but could not understand it so I now have True Image, but on my
PC at my other house, so that will have to wait.

I assume I should install an external hard drive for the backup? If I do
so,
which I agree I should anyway, will the Storage Console install RAID on the
external drive or both drives?
I am trying to visualise what happens.
 
Hi, Frodo. I was part of the original group of people
who debugged the Abit IC7-G implementation of the
ICH5R on the very first BIOS versions using the Intel
RAID BIOS insert.

There was lots of hair-pulling and massive confusion in
those early days. At first, it was very difficult to figure
out whether a problem was caused by user error, driver
installation error, CMOS configuration error, BIOS bug,
or driver bug.

It was only after Intel implemented their RAID BIOS insert
to allow for BIOS-based RAID configuration (similar to the
HPT controller RAID BIOS used on earlier PATA controllers)
that things finally started to straighten-out-and-fly-right.

Then came the compatibility issues with mismatched BIOS
and driver revisions, the "intermittently missing" HDD firmware
bugs with some hard disk manufacturers (notably Maxtor),
and the backwards-compatibility bugs when using newer
ICH6R drivers with older ICH5R hardware. Quite the saga.


Nowadays, as you mentioned, this stuff is pretty reliable.
I have many clients happily running ICH5R machines in SATA
RAID mode with both single and multiple drives. With properly
updated BIOS and the proper set of RAID drivers installed,
these machines have been completely stable.

The defining issues are to *ensure* the HDD controller and disk
subsystem is stable before committing data to the array - and
the religious use of verified backups to protect data from loss
should the array fail for any reason.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill
 
Here are the *theoretical* benefits of using an INTEL-chipset RAID
array in single-drive mode:
Click to expand...

There is more to the use of the Matrix Storage Manager than detailed
in this post. The above is just the basics.
Click to expand...

I think I'll skip the whole mess; looks too brittle to be worth the
benefit. I don't want to dangle off "special" drivers, lose
compatibility with CDR-booted maintenance tools and data recovery,
etc. much less have to rely on drivers on diskettes at install time.

But you can bet I saved your post for future reference ;-)


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Click to expand...
Our senses are our UI to reality
 
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