Does RAID persist after a BIOS update and reconfiged AHCI/SATA settings?

I have an ROG Crosshair VII Hero (Wi-Fi) with BIOS verion 0804. As I understand it, this board will be able to handle 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen coming out soon. So I was curious to know ahead of time, if I do the BIOS update for the new Ryzen CPU, will my NvME PCI-E RAID 0 persist after restoring the BIOS settings to how they were before the BIOS update?

I’m perusing the RAID Q&A looking for info that I need, and you’ve become a victim of my comment :slight_smile: I guess this would be for posterity sake?

While I can’t give a definitive answer on any specific MB manufacturer, signs would point to, these manufacturers are smart enough to know they could destroy people’s data if they haphazardly design their updates. RAID BIOS tends to remain left alone, or the changes protect the way the RAID BIOS sees the arrays, even if a protective layer of software has to be added. Hardware assisted Software RAID, which is what most MBs have has existed pretty much unchanged for many years. There have been minor changes over time, but it’s not anything that needs constant re-evaluation. Maybe the drivers get an update, but the BIOS typically doesn’t. The firmware is segmented BTW, and the chipset belongs to AMD, so it’s theirs to do the updates. The firmware also controls the CPU, which is really an SoC, so the firmware affects SoC, CPU, and chipset. MB makers CAN edit this to give what they think will be the BEST touches to get the most out of the hardware. Right now though, AMD puts out excellent firmware for their chipsets, and in general I would assume most board makers leave it alone, because they have to reverse engineer it, then re-engineer it, without any kind of notation built into the firmware for them to read.

I don’t think the Hardware assisted software RAID belongs to AMD, so they probably don’t touch it in general.

I also believe that the setting that toggles between SATA being seen as AHCI or put into RAID mode, which means turning on the RAID controller can be toggled, without losing the RAID. I believe the identifier for the RAID is put on the drives, and the RAID controller simply reads the drives at boot when its enabled. After applying an update, go into BIOS and check your settings before booting to the OS. The OS shouldn’t automatically make any changes to the disks, but no sense in going there until you know the system is the way it should be. Of course if the OS is on the RAID, you wouldn’t have the choice anyway.

Peace Bro.

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Wanta know something funny?
I must have gotten a notification that you replied, but didn’t even see it.
I just happened to log in and stumbled upon your reply.

BTW thank you. You’ve clarified some things I was wondering about with regards to the controller and the array identifier.

I guess I’ll back up data and try it out. All that could be harmed is losing the array and having to rebuild it as well as reinstalling the OS on it.

I’m only leaving this for posterity sake because of my OP on this thread.

For NVMe RAID, there are different settings involved in BIOS, and when you update it, it can wipe out the NVMe RAID and you might not be able to recover it when trying to re-initializing it. Ask me how I know.

So if you want to run NVMe RAID, then you need to clone the system once you have software configured the way you want. In my case, I had it running for a while, updated BIOS, lost the RAID, set it back up without the RAID and have been content like this. But, I’ll go back to an NVMe RAID after I buy the 5800X3D CPU (gaming system). I’m doing this because 2 WD SN 750 1TB NVMe SSDs = 1 really fast array that should meet the specs for DirectStorage. I also feel pretty confident there won’t be another BIOS update needed, but I’ll wait for about a month to see what shows up on tech channels on the 5800X3D. The X570 BIOS is REALLY mature now.

thanks my issue has been fixed.