RST 11.5 WHQL Released FINALLY

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=21593
(3rd download)

Finally its out.. supposedly officially bringing TRIM support in RAID 0 SSD's with it. Works fine on my m18x r2. Enjoy guys.

 

I've been running the 11.2 for ages which also mentions trim support in it's help file, so I wonder if this one will be noticably better?

Unfortunately, no release notes yet that I could find.

By the way, didn't want to start my own thread as I only found about 11.5 WHQL from this thread which I believe deserves credit.

11.5 does seem to be different from 11.2 as the drive appears as an SCSI device.

 

No RAID0 to play with (don't want that &#%#!!! ), but I did install this on my U30Jc 8GB SSD (Intel 320) powered Win8 RP test setup.

Noticeable faster (Classic Shell, desktop, sidebar and RocketDock loads in half the time) and very stable so far (compared to IRST 10.8).

Next test (in a few days): uninstall IRST and load just the 11.5 WHQL drivers (F6 install method).

 

Cool. This will be great for my next notebook with msata ssd`s in raid0

 

what is STOR_Win7_8_11.5.0.1207_PV.exe for? i've been running RST 11.1 F6 drivers for a month or two, without installing other stuff (like the GUI), and it's been working just fine. at that time, i uninstalled IRST from Control Panel and just updated the drivers for Intel Mobile Express SATA RAID Controller using the F6 package to version 11.1. do i actually need to run this EXE file?

 

PV = production version

 

well, my question was that whether i need that EXE file if i've already installed the F6 drivers for my Intel Mobile Express SATA RAID Controller.

 

The .exe which installs rapid storage control center is needed for raid0 setup because you can enable write back cache in it.

 

I had BSOD problems with the previous version 11.2.0.1006 and was hoping Intel to resolve this in the 11.5 version. Still the same buggy driver: BSOD on selecting RST drivers with Driver Verifier.

Also, the performance with the original Microsoft drivers is 15-25% higher than with the latest RST 11.5. I don't see any reasons to upgrade unless you need RAID.

 

Should TRIM be enabled automatically once 11.5 is installed? I've installed them and haven't noticed a huge difference..

 

From what I understand/have read, Windows 7 actually doesn't support the unmap/TRIM command for SCSI devices (Intel RST 11.5 shows them as SCSI drives). Not sure if that is true, but if it is it, might it be Windows 8 only or in Windows 7 Service Pack 2 or something like that?

 

Seems like you're running these on a ThinkPAD? I would stick to Lenovo's officially supported drivers...

As for the performance dropping... is this a benchmark or is this something you can actually notice in real world use?

In my Win8RP test setup, I see an obvious difference simply booting up on my U30Jc i3 350M 8GB RAM 160GB SSD Arrandale based platform (twice as responsive... and it was not slow to begin with...).

 

You might be onto something with that...

On Win8RP, the Intel 320 Series SSD shows up as 'INTEL_SSDSA2CW160362', but the details tab shows 'SCSI\DiskATA_____INTEL_SSDSA2CW160362'.

On Win7, the Crucial M4 SSD shows up as 'SCSI device something or other (sorry, don't have it handy right now... will edit/update this when I can later) - so you may be right that we may need another update/SP in Win7 to actually take advantage of IRST 11.5 WHQL (at least in a RAID environment)...

 

well, i'm going to be a noob and ask this:the BIOS is set to RAID instead of AHCI (and without modding the BIOS, i can't change that), and i have only one SSD in my laptop. in Device Manager, "Enable write caching on the device" is selected for the SSD. i've currently installed the F6 RAID drivers, and they're working fine. and i have no use for the IRST GUI.

given all the above, do i still need to run and install that EXE file?

 

First, there is not just one 'write back cache' algorithm possibly available.

Second, until you try it for your particular system and your specific workload - nothing anybody tells you here means anything real.

The time needed to test this is minimal: uninstall (don't simply disable/replace) all IRST drivers and install the exe file and see if your system responds better or worse in the next few days or so (I would give it a week, myself - to see if I can notice a (real) difference).

 

I tried Lenovo's drivers as well - no difference for BSOD. You can try a quick test - add Intel drivers to Driver Verifier to see if these generate BSOD on boot. If yes, you can easily delete them from Verifier in safe mode.

Regarding the performance drop. I have run a lot of tests for both Crucial M4 mSATA 256GB and Intel 320 160GB. The all confirm a drop of about 30% for 4K read/write.

Crucial M4 msahci:


Crucial M4 IaStorA:


There is a similar 4K performance drop for the Intel 320 as well:

Intel 320 msahci:


Intel 320 IaStorA:



Also, enabling Intel RST in services (delayed start) increases the performance even with MS msahci drivers.

 

So, this only gives a BSOD if you run them through Driver Verifier? Why do you NEED to do this?

As for your performance drop - yeah - only in benchmarks (means very little to me) - still need to actually use them for a good cross section of your workflow with your system to know if the performance is increased or not (in the real world).

 

I was experiencing some random BSOD and checked all drivers - that's why. If Driver Verifier throws BSOD on a single Intel RST driver, it means that something is wrong. Under normal circumstances no drivers should generate BSOD with Driver Verifier.

Yes, the drop in performance is not as big, though 4K is more important than seq read/write, but still altogether it makes no sense to me to use RST vs original MS drivers.

 

4K is not more important than sequential read/write (not for client workstation systems, at least).

I can't believe that the original (or Lenovo updated) IRST driver is BSOD'ing on it's own: you have messed up something else on the system (... it's not the IRST drivers, themselves).

I'd be doing a reinstall right about now...

 

I have seen your other posts...It looks like you enjoy arguing on everything - for the sake of argument

Just look:

- 30-40% benchmark difference in 4K read/write makes no difference for you. What does then?
- BSOD with DV tested on a single Intel RST driver doesn't mean anything to you as well. What does? BTW, BSOD with Verifier occurs during the boot, before even loading windows drivers. Does it say something to you before suggesting to re-install the system?

Instead of stating "believe" or not "believe" or making a suggestion to re-install the system you need to search the net - many people have the same BSOD problem because of buggy RST drivers (see, for example, the thread here). Why not to test it on your system and see if DV throws BSOD?

Why do I need to re-install if it works perfectly fine 24/7 yet the performance is better than with the Intel RST? Enlighten me.

 

Wow, you're mad because you might learn something (from me)?

I don't enjoy arguing - I like stating the real world results (not what meaningless benchmarks indicate).

At a certain level, 4K w/r results will do nothing to increase the performance of almost any workstation workload (as I previously stated and you ignored). As for the Lenovo supplied IRST driver: AGAIN: I can't believe Lenovo would ship/release the system with it not working (therefore: your install is wack). Go ahead, be angry - but try reading with comprehension (I am trying to help you, really) and you might get a working/stable system again (even if a re-install is the only way to achieve it). Why would I go to that length? Because I know ThinkPAD's: given the Lenovo supplied drivers; they're bulletproof ime (and I wouldn't run them any other way).

 

Well, i just got BSODs with HWiNFO and 11.5, on my G73, reverted back to 11.2 and everything is working perfectly. I'm not sure the problem lies with RTS though.

EDIT: I mean that the problem might lie with hiw HWiNFO gets it's data, CrystalDiskInfo and HWmonitor were working fine.

 

Where do you see this? On my Win7 M6400, the RAID arrays (conventional hard drives, Intel 10.x driver) show as IDE\DISKRAID....

Generally speaking, this whole TRIM business remains a bit of a mystery, at least to me: There does not seem to be a simple way to figure out whether or not TRIM is really working, even in straightforward single-disk configurations. In my experience, the simple check that people recommend is pretty much worthless. Does anybody know a reliable way to test if TRIM is operational?

 

I don't know of a way other than checking if windows sees the drive as a SSD and yup i know it doesn't necessarily mean that TRIM is enabled, only that windows sees the drive as a SSD. Windows 8 does tell you if TRIM is enabled IIRC. The Intel SSD toolbox allows you to send the TRIM command too, but i don't know of a way for SSDs that don't come with a toolbox.

 

Sorry, no RAID arrays here: where I see it is in Device Manager under Disk Drives.

BTW, My Win7 setup shows 'ATA M4-CT256M4SSD2 SCSI Disk Device' for my SSD. (I'll also update my original post too with this info I almost forgot about...).

I agree that no 'tool' can show if TRIM is actually working or not: it can only show itself if the performance of the system levels out and stays there after a period of time (a couple of days/weeks/months, depending on the workload that is presented to the storage subsystem).

 

I'll be surprised TRIM over a RAID volume does work on some of the older lappies.

In my case ( a Clevo x7200 ), it was first suggested Intel RST with TRIM support in RAID requires the Intel RAID BIOS itself flashed, and then the drivers would work. See - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/660167-raid-what-heck.html#post8492650

This was recently confirmed through a laptop builder - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...ger-np7280-owners-lounge-609.html#post8710155

Now, I cannot say this will be true in all other makes/models of laptops, but assuming we all share the same Intel RAID BIOS, I wouldn't be surprised if it did apply to all of those other laptops.

 

Well, yeah, and then the next question is whether or not TRIM actually makes a difference in a given usage scenario, given that the SSD can clean up itself on its own if it is given the idle time to do that, I believe.(*) So, some systems may not show any long-time deterioration in performance, even if TRIM is not working.

(*) That's what I read somewhere, anyway, although I have no idea how an SSD could accomplish this feat, since the SSD firmware itself has no understanding of file systems. Without knowing which one of the blocks hold valid data/filesystem structures, I really don't understand how this should work.

 

Actually, at some stage, when debugging the BSOD issues, I reverted back to the W520 factory configuration. Still, DV was throwing BSOD when testing it with a single added RST driver.

After rolling back to the original MS driver, I have not experienced any problems whatsoever, not a single BSOD - as many other people reporting that issue. Once again, aside the BSOD problems, I tested the performance with RST and MS drivers with CrystalMark, ASSSD and nebch32. All tests show a slight increase of about 30-40% in 4K read/write when using MS, while other benchmarks are identical.

The rumors about bulletproof Thinkpads are slightly exaggerated, at least. I owned a few TPs since 1992 and, though their hardware & assembling quality is better than most consumer laptops, Lenovo's software and drivers are not trouble-free. Just look at hundreds of issues at Lenovo's forums.

So, my system works perfectly fine, stable, no BSODs, passes all tests yet performs slightly better with the original MS drivers. Still you keep insisting that I need to re-install it, because...?

 

No, I'm not insisting you re-install. What I'm suggesting is that you're ignoring the fact that if the system doesn't run properly in it's 'as-shipped' state - there is something else wrong (possibly hardware).

But, it's your system - enjoy it at the level you want.

Good luck.

 

Is this worth installing for non SSD but using an MSATA for rapid start?

 

How are you using the mSATA without an SSD?

 

@Risco - It is up to you. Do some research to see if you can find any performance numbers of using the mSATA as a cache vs. an actual drive and see if it works for you.

@tiller - I'm pretty sure Risco is talking about using an mSATA drive to cache his boot drive using Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT - not to be confused with Rapid Storage Technology RST). This is something available in only laptops that support it. See - AnandTech - Intel Z68 Chipset & Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching) Review

 

I answered my own question, don't use it for the L521X it causes freezing on resume from sleep.

 

And nobody else's...

 

If you leave it long enough (say 10min max), does your laptop go into a crash (Blue Screen O' Death)?

 

Don't know, the issue was enough alone to make me revert back.

 

According to other sites, iastordatamgrsvc.exe seems to have a memory leak and I can see it is up to 350MB so far. Others have reported memory usage >1GB.. Not sure if I will revert back to 11.2 or not.

 

Besides the memory leak, there are other rumors regarding data corruption.

Perhaps someone can dig up some concrete posts. Otherwise, looks like it is a "use at your own risk" deal.

 

Meh, I suppose I will go back to 11.2 which is what Lenovo currently suggests: Intel Rapid Storage Technology Console with Device Driver for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) and XP (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad W510, W520, W530, W701 and W701ds

Not to mention it's pretty much 80% certain that TRIM for RAID isn't supported in Windows 7 at the moment.

 

Based on the posts I've looked at, it's about 98% certain that TRIM will not work for any type of RAID on a laptop mobo.

 

As mentioned in the other RST 11.5 thread, Intel RST 11.5.0.1207 has been "temporarily removed" from Intel's website.

 

Yep, removed. Hope they get it sorted out quickly...

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/21593/eng/removed.txt

"Important Note: This version of the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (RAID) has been temporarily removed from our website. Please use version 11.2.0.1006. Please contact Intel Customer Support for additional information."

 

Release notes:

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology

 

i just installed 11.2.0.1006.
(was 11.5, but didn't see any issues.... other than it calling my drives SCSI lol)

 

I didn't notice anything better or worse with 11.5.0.1207. I saw the memory leak slowly climbing up to and eating 1.5GB of my RAM over a day, but that's not noticeable on a computer with 6GB of RAM.

Well, actually one of my SSDs gained two bad blocks since I installed 11.5 over 11.2 (during which time I could not check SMART statistics), but that's probably not related.

Anyway, back to 11.2... ;_;

 

I didn't noticed till I wonder why my BF3 keep crashing with out of memory often lately.

Then figure out about the memory leak a couple of days when I was tracing down what causing my ram usage higher than usual.
I