SRT configuration on Z68 chipset motherboards

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I am considering the purchase of a Z68 mortherboard that has SRT SSD caching abilities and I know little to nothing about how it works. I have 5 caviar black drives now and I know that they are not enterprise editions and will fail in a raid array. Is this so with the SRT technology or does the SSD act as just a caching tool like ReadyBoost?

I’m curious if my Black editions will work and not suffer a possible raid error crash at a later date.

2

I think you need to contact WD directly for that information.

3

that might also be a question to ask the mobo company.

4

I am confused as all heck. I get some information that caviar black drives will work in RAID0 and RAID1. I also get counter information that only the enterprise editions will work safely in a raid array and that your consumer drives can fail over time. Then I also read that the consumer versions have raid problems with a hardware controller but can safely be used within windows using a software setup. If I had hair I would be pulling it out. I just don’t want to take the chance and lose a ton of data that I have saved over the years that can’t be replaced.

5

the confusion comes from the fact that wd has changed their stance over this specific issue over the last year.  before they only recommended their enterprise drives for raid applications.  now, they say it’s okay if you’re using their desktop drives in a raid 1 or 0 application.  however, if these drives go into error checking mode that lasts longer than about 10 seconds, you can bet they’ll fall out of the array.  if you’re using raid 0, keep backups of the data.  If you’re using raid 0, mirrored, you won’t lose your data if the raid array goes down.