Updating BIOS with RAID

[𝔇𝔞𝔳𝔢− 𝔛]

My motherboard is an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero and my boot drive is a RAID0 array with 2 SSDs. A new BIOS version has been released for my board and I'm curious if updating the BIOS would undo my RAID array. One thing I definitely know is that if you load the defaults in the BIOS, that doesn't mess with the RAID array at all. But I have no idea what will happen with my array if I update the BIOS.

[Omega]

It will depend on the UEFI, some retain their settings between updates, others do not.

[_I_]

its often best to reset to defaults after bios update, to make sure all settings are changed and saved

bios/firmware raid works, but its hard to recover if he board dies
raid card is similar, but easier to find the same or buy a 2nd card to recover if you need
software raid is the easiest to recover, but some cant be used as boot/os

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I make it a habit to double check current BIOS settings before a BIOS Update. Once the update completes and ready to reboot, go and do so, then re-enter the BIOS quickly and double check everything.

Regardless of a Motherboard offering Preset Save Slots. Because while that is nice, a BIOS Update might add or remove some setting entries.

So lets say for example my latest BIOS update added or changed some entries; loading settings from that saved profile are only going to change the old entries, not the new ones that might now exist. So overall, everything needs to be double checked before and after.

If you find it helpful, or a need, use a Phone or Tablet and take pictures (without flash) of everything you need to remember.

[𝘌𝘯𝘋𝘓𝘦𝘚𝘚]

amm

[Lord Flashheart]

I expect that will be OK.
As for RAID 0, I strongly suggest some sort of backup solution.

I used to have my games on a RAID 0 setup, specifically 4 sata drives.

I put the games on a NAS instead, with redundancy.
I put the SSDs in there also to use.
One failed shortly after, before putting anything on it.
Dodged the bullet there.

Maybe consider look into raid 1 instead if you wish to use it.
It will be up to 2x speed, like raid 0, but without the grief if one fails.

[emoticorpse]

Good question. Asking on the Asus forums might help with this. Someone there may have already ran into this situation. Big if it's a brand new bios and mot security related maybe wait a little while while researching.

[𝔇𝔞𝔳𝔢− 𝔛]

Thank you to everyone for your replies. I took everything into consideration & I decided that it would likely be fine but if not, I could just use it as an opportunity to reinstall everything as a spring cleaning. So I updated the BIOS & it turned out that everything was totally fine. It even had the BIOS settings for RAID set up correctly without me having to change them.
So to anyone else in that situation, the BIOS upgrade will work fine & it will not screw up your RAID array.
Tested & proven :)

[𝔇𝔞𝔳𝔢− 𝔛]

I do sincerely appreciate all the input. You have made me think about several things that I didn't consider before. Thank you to all

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 iℏ(∂/∂t)Ψ：

Thank you to everyone for your replies. I took everything into consideration & I decided that it would likely be fine but if not, I could just use it as an opportunity to reinstall everything as a spring cleaning. So I updated the BIOS & it turned out that everything was totally fine. It even had the BIOS settings for RAID set up correctly without me having to change them.
So to anyone else in that situation, the BIOS upgrade will work fine & it will not screw up your RAID array.
Tested & proven :)

Just as some clarification, this isn’t something you should think of as “doing BIOS/UEFI update will/won’t do X” in regards to settings. This is dependent upon the firmware and hardware configuration being discussed, not a hard & fast rule.

In regards to motherboard “fake RAID” even if it does reset the bios settings, the configurations are actually done as metadata in the drives (similar to software RAIDs) so you can just reconfigure them in the same configuration and everything will be the same.

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 M. Rockatansky：

…
Maybe consider look into raid 1 instead if you wish to use it.
It will be up to 2x speed, like raid 0, but without the grief if one fails.

A 2x disk RAID1 would only be about 2x the speed for reads, not writes. It is actually very slightly slower than a single disk for writes due to the mirroring.

But yeah RAID0 is a bad idea unless you don’t care about any of the data on the volume. The failure probability for a RAID0 exponentially increases with the number of disks you have in the array.

[𝔇𝔞𝔳𝔢− 𝔛]

引用自 PopinFRESH：

引用自 M. Rockatansky：

…
Maybe consider look into raid 1 instead if you wish to use it.
It will be up to 2x speed, like raid 0, but without the grief if one fails.

A 2x disk RAID1 would only be about 2x the speed for reads, not writes. It is actually very slightly slower than a single disk for writes due to the mirroring.

But yeah RAID0 is a bad idea unless you don’t care about any of the data on the volume. The failure probability for a RAID0 exponentially increases with the number of disks you have in the array.

Thanks for your advice & input.

As for not caring about the data on a RAID0 volume, I basically put stuff all my OS's & games on my RAID0 array (stuff that I can simply reinstall if necessary) but I also have my HDD for everything that I want to store & be confident that I don't lose. So I think that works fine for me.

[𝔇𝔞𝔳𝔢− 𝔛]

引用自 PopinFRESH：

引用自 M. Rockatansky：

…
Maybe consider look into raid 1 instead if you wish to use it.
It will be up to 2x speed, like raid 0, but without the grief if one fails.

A 2x disk RAID1 would only be about 2x the speed for reads, not writes. It is actually very slightly slower than a single disk for writes due to the mirroring.

But yeah RAID0 is a bad idea unless you don’t care about any of the data on the volume. The failure probability for a RAID0 exponentially increases with the number of disks you have in the array.

I actually haven't had a single problem with RAID0 over the years i've been using it. Although I know that doesn't mean the problems don't exist