AMD Releases Update To Enable Bootable NVMe RAID Modes On X399 Motherboards

Sticking to its promise of delivering bootable NVMe RAID support to every owner of an X399-equipped motherboard, AMD has today released the update necessary – much to the chagrin of Intel, I’m sure. Currently, Intel’s best implementation of RAID NVMe requires a license key, the use of specific drives, and is primarily targeted at server and workstation platforms, so for many reasons, it’s not entirely attractive.

In a blog post, AMD’s Robert Hallock explains what you have to do in order to enable NVMe RAID, and if you’re familiar with installing and configuring software, you’re going to be golden. After installing the RAIDXpert2 package and updating your EFI, you can configure your 2+ drives inside of that EFI, or in Windows.

How much does AMD love giving enthusiasts features that Intel won’t? The fifth step given: “Just enjoy! No hardware activation keys, license fees, or arbitrary SSD restrictions apply. It’s that simple.” Zing.

I have no clue which motherboard would support 6x NVMe drives, but Mr. Hallock apparently found one to help him deliver the results seen above. The scaling really is incredible, and as I ogle over it, I get depressed that we don’t see the same kind of scaling with our graphics cards. It’s nice when adding a second of anything actually doubles the performance and retains that scaling all the way up.

Who needs an NVMe RAID solution on the desktop is my big question at this point, though. After having used an NVMe x4 drive in one of our testbeds, I truly can’t “feel” the difference between it and a standard SATA SSD. NVMe RAID makes a lot of sense for servers, but on the desktop, I feel you’re going to require a very specific reason for going all-out like this. If you have one, I’d love to hear it!