Usually, you may set up RAID as a hardware or software RAID. As BIOS-level RAID uses the onboard controller on the motherboard, it is also called Fake RAID. It is a cost-free alternative to the dedicated RAID hardware, but configuring it requires more effort.
You need to install proper storage disks, enable this technology on your BIOS/UEFI, create a RAID array, and install the necessary drivers to set it up on your ASRock motherboard. you may generally use theUEFI interfaceor theAMD/Intel Windows Desktop appsto set up this type of RAID.
There are many things you need to note while setting RAID on ASRock. For instance, while trying to create a non-OS RAID volume with my NVMe drives, I had mistakenly enabled RAID mode for both SATA and NVMe devices. So, my OS SATA drive was not booting at all and I was getting theINACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD error.
In this article, I will be guiding you so that you may set up RAID while avoiding all such mistakes.
Check for RAID Support
Before you begin with actually setting up RAID, you need to ensure that your motherboard supports RAID. It needs to have a built-in RAID controller for this purpose.
The onboard controller also needs to supportthe RAID level you want. Otherwise, you need to use a dedicated RAID controller card.
you may check the motherboard specifications on ASRock’s official website.
Generally, you canaccess the BIOS setup utilityor UEFI firmware settings by using the BIOS key on startup.
you may alsoget to Advanced Startupand then selectTroubleshoot>Advanced options>UEFI Firmware Settings>Restartto do the same. The latter method is useful if you haveenabled Ultra Fast Bootand can’t utilize the BIOS key to access the UEFI setup.
Now you will need to enable RAID mode on the UEFI/BIOS. For SATA drives, you must set the SATA controller mode to RAID instead of AHCI.
You need to perform different steps to have NVMe SSDs in the RAID array depending onyour CPU. The motherboard needs to support NVMe RAID or else you won’t find the necessary settings.
Note: You need to have the same type of disks to use them in a RAID Array. For instance, if you are using an HDD, the other disks must be HDDs as well. Similarly, if you are using a NVMe SSD, other disks need to be NVMe as well.
you may’t use a M.2 SATA or SATA SSD with an NVMe SSD. You can however, use an M.2 SATA SSD with a 2.5” SATA SSD.
Older Intel-based ASRock motherboards thatdo not have NVMe RAID supportcontain a RST PCIe Remapping feature that makes the PCIe devices seem to be connected to the SATA RAID Controller instead.
