Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

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schittli
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:21 pm

Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by schittli »

Good evening

We have the Windows 10 System Disk in an Intel Rapid-Storage-Technologie (Motherboard) RAID.

If we use IFW to backup the Windows 10 System Drive, everything works fine.

If we try to restore the Backup using IFL, then
- we can not see the RAID Disk: each physical drive is listed apart.
- We can use the IFL GUI to mount the RAID Drive (e.g. /tbu/mnt1), but IFL itself does not support to restore to a mounted drive.

Isn't there any solution to use restore with the Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

We compared the Adaptec RAID Controller perfomance with the Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology - and the later is almost two times faster!

Thanks a lot in advance
kind regards
Thomas
TAC109
Posts: 273
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:41 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by TAC109 »


My Dell laptop also uses Intel Rapid Storage Technology. I have it set to
mode: Enhanced, as I've read that using mode: Maximised can cause problems
with imaging.

When I wish to restore an image with IFL I do the following:-

1. While in Windows I disable acceleration. (I'm not sure this is necessary
but I do this to be safe.)

2. Reboot and enter the BIOS (F2 on my machine).

3. Change the SATA access mode to either AHCI or IDE.

4. Save and reboot into IFL. Do the restore.

5. Reboot and enter the BIOS. Change the SATA access mode back to what it
was before.

6. Save and reboot into Windows, then re-enable acceleration.

TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by TeraByte Support »

it uses mdadm for linux as well as dmraid, I believe mdamd doesn't provide
that raid on purpose. Not sure how you mounted the RAID, if the raid exists
it should show up (what was the device name?) - you can produce a report and
email it. See http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=585

Also you can use IFD (speed will depend on bios interface) or build a
Windows TBWinRE/PE boot disk with the drivers required on it.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/


"schittli" wrote in message news:11534@public.image...

Good evening

We have the Windows 10 System Disk in an Intel Rapid-Storage-Technologie
(Motherboard) RAID.

If we use IFW to backup the Windows 10 System Drive, everything works fine.

If we try to restore the Backup using IFL, then
- we can not see the RAID Disk: each physical drive is listed apart.
- We can use the IFL GUI to mount the RAID Drive (e.g. /tbu/mnt1), but IFL
itself does not support to restore to a mounted drive.

Isn't there any solution to use restore with the Intel
Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

We compared the Adaptec RAID Controller perfomance with the Intel
Rapid-Storage-Technology - and the later is almost two times faster!

Thanks a lot in advance
kind regards
Thomas

pablo
Posts: 43
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:10 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by pablo »

I also had IFL problems with RAID and Intel RST. When Terabyte dropped dmraid from IFL, my RAID 0 array was no longer recognized. See http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/vi ... f=4&t=1025

After struggling for months with Terabyte Support to try to make it work, I finally gave up and started using a TBWinPE v3.1 restore disk with my Win7 desktop. I haven't had any problems with TBWinPE properly booting, recognizing RAID, or causing Blue Screens like IFL did. The only bug I've experienced is that it never gets the drive letters right.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by TeraByte Support »

you can still use raid=dmonly but linux only officially supports it under
mdadm now.

"pablo" wrote in message news:11583@public.image...

I also had IFL problems with RAID and Intel RST. When Terabyte dropped
dmraid from IFL, my RAID 0 array was no longer recognized. See

[
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1025
](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1025)

After struggling for months with Terabyte Support to try to make it work, I
finally gave up and started using a TBWinPE v3.1 restore disk with my Win7
desktop. I haven't had any problems with TBWinPE properly booting,
recognizing RAID, or causing Blue Screens like IFL did. The only bug I've
experienced is that it never gets the drive letters right.

schittli
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:21 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by schittli »

Thank you very much, TAC109, to answer my question!

I finally got time to test the proposed solutions in this post and the solution using TBWinPE is much smoother:
the tutorial which explains how to setup TBWinPE is really frightening and, unfortunately, there is no information about the difference between TBWinPE/RE Builder and TBWinRE.cmd, but in fact, probably most Users can install TBWinPE with 4 simple steps - and then it works really nice and we have full support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST).

Kind regards, Thomas
schittli
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:21 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by schittli »

Hello TeraByte Support

Thank you very much for anwering my question and offering a solution!

Your proposal to use TBWinPE works perfect. Unfortunately, your TBWinPE-Setup Tutorials
https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto ... torial.htm
https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto ... torial.htm
are frightening because they are very long and there is no short description about the difference between TBWinPE/RE Builder and TBWinRE.cmd, so it's hard to decide for a user which one he should use.

Additionally, a short intrudiction would be very useful because most users which opens those tutorials will probably think that they need at least one hour to get TBWinPE/RE working.

In fact, installing TBWinPE/RE is really easy and I just used 5 minutes to install ist:
1. Instal Image for Windows.
Select those components if they should be added to TBWinPE/RE: TBIView, TBIMount, TeraByte OSD Tool Suite Pro (TBOSDTS)
Install the Image for Linux CD Boot files, if they sould be added, too.

2. Download and Extract the TBWinPE/RE Builder Files
Source: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downlo ... bwinre.zip
Working-Dir (for example): c:\TBWinRE\

3. Edit two files:
c:\TBWinRE\imagew.ini: Add the Licence Key
c:\TBWinRE\TBWinRE.cmd: Define the Input Locale, e.g.: set inputlocale=de-CH

4. Add the Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST) Drivers, as described in the tutorials:
Extract f6flpy-x64.zip into c:\TBWinRE\Drivers\f6flpy-x64\...

5. Start c:\TBWinRE\TBWinRE.cmd as Administrator
Execute 1) to change the Windows Recovery Environment so that you can start Image for Windows while booting Windows
Execute 2) to create an CD, USB Flash Drice or an ISO file

Kind regards,
Thomas
schittli
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:21 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by schittli »

Thank you, pablo, very much answering my Question!

Your post was very encouraging to test TBWinPE and it really works nice and despite my fear it was really easy to setup.
tas3086
Posts: 317
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:15 pm

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by tas3086 »

.... And what exactly is the difference between PE and RE as documented? Anybody know?

Thomas, nice simplified write-up, and it is that simple !
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Support for Intel Rapid-Storage-Technology (Intel RST)?

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Using TBWinPE/RE Builder is generally easier because it's a GUI interface and simple wizard steps. TBWinPE/RE Builder can create both TBWinRE and TBWinPE builds. TBWinRE uses the installed Windows Recovery Environment so it doesn't require downloading and installing WinPE. TBWinPE gives you the option of creating builds based on alternate PE environments. For example, you could build a Windows 10 PE build on Windows 8.1 or a Windows 7 PE build on Windows 10. Otherwise, the builds are basically the same (WinRE is based on WinPE and includes the recovery environment components).

Also, the TBWinPE/RE Builder files (and the TBWinRE script) are included in the IFW installation so they're available without needing to download them separately.
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