Intel Matrix RAID - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Intel Rapid Storage Technology (formerly Intel Matrix RAID) is a computer storage technology marketed by Intel.
It is a firmware RAID

RAID

RAID is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit...

system, rather than hardware RAID or software RAID.

Description

It first appeared in the ICH6R "southbridge

Southbridge (computing)

The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In Intel chipset...

" chip. Intel uses an 'R' at the end of the southbridge's name --- ICH9R instead of ICH9 --- to indicate when a southbridge contains their Matrix RAID technology and no other upgrades. Complicating the matter is that instead of "R," a "DO," "DH," etc has indicated a southbridge that combined RAID with non-RAID-related upgrades to the southbridge. Note that newer chipsets which don't use a separate southbridge might also use Intel RST without explicit extensions like "R" within the chipset name, an example for this is the Intel PCH C200 chipset series. Like all RAID, Intel Matrix RAID employs two or more physical hard disk

Hard disk

A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...

s which the operating system will treat as a single disk, in order to increase redundancy which avoids data loss (as all RAID levels except RAID 0 do), and/or to increase the speed at which data is written to and/or read from a disk.

Intel Matrix RAID is not a new RAID level

Standard RAID levels

The standard RAID levels are a basic set of RAID configurations and employ striping, mirroring, or parity.The standard RAID levels can be modified for other benefits ; there are also non-standard RAID levels, and non-RAID drive architectures, which may be offered as alternatives to RAID architectures...

. One of the features that Intel Matrix RAID has, which many other RAID implementations lack, is that different areas (e.g. partitions or logical volumes) on the same disk can be assigned to different RAID devices. The ICH10R supports Standard RAID levels

Standard RAID levels

RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5.

Intel recommends to put any critical applications and data on a RAID 1, 5, or 10 volume. The thinking being that protection from losing the user's personal data and the OS and program configuration settings is more important than having the pure performance (speed) increase of RAID 0. On the other hand, the RAID 0 volume in Matrix RAID is recommended mostly for working with large files, such as videos during editing, and for non-critical files where fast storage will increase performance (swap files, for example, or read-only files that are backed-up on a separate PC).

In 2010, Intel renamed the Intel Matrix RAID to Intel Rapid Storage Technology and redesigned the graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

to make it simpler.

Operating system support

Linux supports Matrix RAID through device mapper

Device mapper

In the Linux kernel, the device-mapper serves as a generic framework to map one block device onto another. It forms the foundation of LVM2 and EVMS, software RAIDs, dm-crypt disk encryption, and offers additional features such as file-system snapshots....

(DM-RAID) and MD-RAID. DM-RAID does not provide a graphical utility to configure the arrays or notify the user of disk errors/failures, and will not activate the Intel Matrix RAID on many motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

s (due to incompatibilities). All the functionality of the Windows driver is also not available; such as creation of RAID volumes (which must be performed in the ROM, or using Windows).

FreeBSD

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...

and MidnightBSD

MidnightBSD

MidnightBSD is a free Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD 6.1. It borrows heavily from the NEXTSTEP graphical user interface.- History and development :...

support Intel Matrix RAID using the ataraid driver, managed through the atacontrol command. However, with older versions of FreeBSD there are critical reliability issues which include array device renaming when a disk in an array is replaced, an array being considered healthy if the machine reboot/crashes during an array rebuild, and kernel panics when a disk is lost or is removed from the bus. Some of these problems, when experienced in combination, could result in the loss of an entire array (even in the case of RAID 1). All of these issues have been addressed and are not present in current FreeBSD versions.

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

has full support for Intel Matrix RAID, including creation of RAID volumes.

VMware ESXi 4 does not support any RAID function nor Intel Matrix RAID based on Intel ICHxR controllers.

PGPDisk does not support Intel Matrix RAID based on Intel ICHxR, and does not support standalone drives if the "RAID" mode is enabled on the motherboard.

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Option ROM

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Option ROM is a part of Intel Rapid Storage Technology that has to be used in the BIOS

BIOS

In IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface....

to create new RAID arrays.
There are several versions available:

Version	Release date	Notes
v3.0.0	2003
v3.5.0
v5.0.0
v5.6.0
v5.7.0
v6.0.0
v7.5.0
v7.6.0
v8.0.0	2008	Standard on Intel X58 Intel X58 The Intel X58 is an Intel chip designed to connect Intel processors with Intel QuickPath Interconnect interface to peripheral devices. Supported processors implement the Nehalem microarchitecture and therefore have an integrated memory controller , so the X58 does not have a memory interface... based motherboards.
v8.5.0
v8.6.0
v8.7.0
v8.8.0
v8.9.0	2009
v9.5.0
v9.6.0	2010
v10.1.0	2011
v10.5.0	2011	Standard on Intel Z68 based motherboards. This version is the first one to support RAID arrays made of HDDs With Over 2.2 TB. Not yet available (June 2011) for Intel X58 based motherboards. Physical disks >= 2TB are not supported on controllers older than ICH9.
v10.6.0	June 2011
v10.8.0	November 2011

The latest stable version is 10.8.0.1033 (17 October 2011). The latest testing version is 11.0.0.1015 Alpha (29 June 2011). Note: therse versions does not support ICH8 controllers.

Description

Operating system support

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Option ROM

See also