Thinkpads Forum

Hi all, I am getting ready to purchase a T6x and I want to run XP x64 on raid 0 using the internal drive paired with a matching one in an ultrabay hd adapter. I see that Lenovo has updated the the drivers supporting the Intel{R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/M SATA RAID Controller, so that they cover the T6x's but they do not list the specific T6x models that come with this chipset.

Also, the readme.txt file for these drivers has a footnote that states only the w700's support Windows XP x64 O.S. and yet the driver is listed for x64 for the T6x series so I'm a little confused.

Anyways, here's my questions:

-- Which T6x models come with the Intel(R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/M SATA RAID Controller chipset, all of 'em?

-- I've read here about a Linux guy having success with raid 0, anyone with XP 64? Which model did you use?

-- Is this actual "hardware raid"? Can I f6 floppy (or slipstream) the drivers during a clean install, or do I have to load them from windows as per the readme?

I know this is a bad idea, but I want to do it anyways...I've always been a raid 0 fan, and I've paid the price several times. Hey, it's only data!

Thanks for reading!

It can only be software RAID.

Thanks for the reply! So I'd have to configure the chipset as AHCI? Do you know if any of the Tpads have the actual SATA RAID chipset in them? Lenovo's specs don't seem to clarify this as far as I could see...

I believe one or more W series models are RAID-capable.

T6x support SATA for primary hard driver, and ATA for ultrabay. You will need a 2nd HDD caddy with ATA to SATA bridge to use SATA in ultrabay). So I don't think that RAID 0 has meaning for these thinkpad models because of different controllers, different speed of these driver.

Maybe it will have sense in T400 and upward.

The T60 doesn't even support AHCI. It's SATA-I in PATA emulation mode only. Forget about the T60 if you're serious about disk performance.

As mentioned, the T61 uses PATA for its ultrabay, and with the stock bios, you're limited to SATA-I as well. The chipset in the T61 will support SATA-II, unleashed with Middleton's BIOS hack. Even if you could screw around into getting it working, running RAID-0 across a SATA-II drive and another drive strangled down to PATA speeds would be ridiculous.

Further, running two spinning disks isn't going to do your battery life any favours.

If you're serious about a T60/T61 and you want smoking disk performance, your ONLY option is a T61, with Middleton's BIOS hack, and an SSD, as I have done.

T60 supports AHCI! It has the option to choose AHCI or Compatibility mode in BIOS too.

T43 had SATA support without AHCI.

Interesting! But does it support SATA-II? I was under the impression the ICH7M southbridge was SATA-I only...

Don't do it

I have been using RAID 1 (linux software raid) in my T61 for some time but there are some problems. HDD in the ultra bay is usually slower then HDD in the NB and what is the biggest problem, disk in the ultra bay is sometime kicked off from the array, its because of some errors on SATA connection which I saw in dmesg...

So, now I'm using normal single HDD...

JeffCullen wrote:Interesting! But does it support SATA-II? I was under the impression the ICH7M southbridge was SATA-I only...

You are right - it does not support SATA2.