Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi

I just found this software and it looks awesome. Been looking for this for a while so hope it will work.

Is it possible for HD Sentinel to see the individual disks on a JMB390 controller connected to a Intel RST RAID? I.e. the software need to be able to see the 4 JMB390 controllers connected to a Intel RST in RAID 0 mode, and from there see two individual disks connected to each JMB390 controller in RAID 1 mode.

I have 8 4TB disks in RAID 1+0. Since I didn't want to spend $400+ for a RAID controller I use 4 JMB390 (SYBA SY-PEX40045 1:2 Internal Port Multiplier / RAID) controllers each in RAID 1 mode with 2 HDDs. Each JMB390 is then connected to the 4 SATA ports on the ASUS P9X79 motherboard in RAID 0 mode. Initially I wanted to use the built-in Intel Rapid Storage (IRST) hardware RAID, but when I tried using it the standard Windows software and the JMB39X H/W Manager was not able to see anything else past the 16TB RAID disk itself. So I opted for using the standard Windows Server 2012 software RAID, where I'm now able to monitor each individual disk on the RAID, both with the JMB39X H/W Manager and also HD Sentinel (trial version).

Thanks

I can confirm that Hard Disk Sentinel can properly access RAID members when they controllered by a "single" RAID controller, for example the Intel RST OR the JMicron JMB39x RAID chips. It means that Hard Disk Sentinel can collect and display the RAID members by special ways.

But I'm afraid no, when the combination of such RAID controllers used, it is not possible to see "through" both of the controllers. To access RAID members, special commands required to be sent to the RAID controllers and this is not possible if multiple RAID controllers used, for example the Intel RST AND the JMicron controller.

Things are perfect (and much more recommended) if you use Windows Software RAID: then the JMicron chips can be accessed (so the RAID members can be detected). But if the Intel RST would be used on top of the JMicron chips to group them together in RAID0, then the Intel RST would not allow sending the mentioned special commands to the JMicron chips, in that situation you'd only see the 4 JMicron virtual devices (the members of the Intel RAID array) but not the actual hard disks managed by these 4 JMicron RAID controllers.
Generally, I suspect this is why the JMicron manager also can't see these devices when Intel RST used.

If you have the opportunity, please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, it is rare to see so many different JMicron chips at the same time in action