Post RST & RAID 0 Boot times

Aleksandrs · 16 Dec 2013 at 23:35

This is sort of two questions rolled into one post.

I've just set up a raid0 setup on two 1TB Caviar Blacks, not as a boot drive but for video recording. I've noticed since setting this up my boot times have been a lot slower even though I am booting from my 840 Pro as I always have. Have I missed something that may be causing this?

Secondly, is there any way to disable the RST thing that appears when I turn the computer on?

Motherboard is an Asus Z87 Pro. Thanks

AStaley · 17 Dec 2013 at 20:50

Not much you can do the additional boot time is the RAID array starting. The RST screen is part of that.

I actually went the other way I went from RAID0 to AHCI which decreased my boot times. Boot with RAID0 was around 20secs, without is closer to 5. This is with Win8.1 and Fast Boot enabled.

Aleksandrs · 18 Dec 2013 at 00:34

AStaley said:
I actually went the other way I went from RAID0 to AHCI which decreased my boot times. Boot with RAID0 was around 20secs, without is closer to 5. This is with Win8.1 and Fast Boot enabled.

Yeah that's pretty much what the change has been for me. When I didn't have the RAID0 setup I was just using AHCI and it was great. I honestly didn't think there would be such an adverse effect considering the RAID0 setup isn't for the boot drive anyway.

AStaley · 18 Dec 2013 at 14:50

If I recall the increased POST time is because the RAID controller allows longer for drives to be detected and the OROM also has to be loaded.

I switched to AHCI after my RAID failed and wiped the array (I had backups), so decided to go with a single fast drive. In my case a 2Tb WD Caviar Black, as it turned out load times for my games were about the same.

Around the same time I opted to buy a Synology NAS for storage/backups (I also have an offline backup disk) etc. Probably one of the best purchases I've made, the NAS gives me a lot more flexibility with how/where I access my data.

Aleksandrs · 20 Dec 2013 at 03:08

AStaley said:
In my case a 2Tb WD Caviar Black, as it turned out load times for my games were about the same.

Yeah, having had games on SSD and also my Spinpoint I couldn't point out a performance difference with either. Sadly though the raid setup isn't for games but for 1080 60p recording of games on DXtory. Sadly one hard drive was not enough to keep up!

So this explains the POST time, but not so much why the Windows loading screen takes a darn sight longer. Do you think it would be the RAID utility I have on Windows causing it perhaps?

AStaley · 20 Dec 2013 at 09:18

With RAID software loading you will get some delay with the Windows boot, but shouldn't be particularly long few seconds perhaps if that. Using Windows 8 mine would load (after POST) in only 2-3 secs tops, using hybrid boot. 5-6 maybe after a restart.

What version of Windows are you running, have you loaded the Intel RST (RAID) software? How was Windows setup prior to your move to RAID, AHCI perhaps, or is this a fresh install? Also take a look in Event Log under System/Application and see if there is anything in there.

And purely out of interest have you tried Nvidia's ShadowPlay for recording gameplay? Results seem good with a few tries I've had playing WoW/BF4.