Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World
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You can buy after market FakeRAID cards, too. Intel Matrix RAID is a famous one. Comes with dedicated hardware and everything. Yet, zero RAID on the card. The card is just a fancy licensing dongle to make it seem more reasonable to pay a lot for something that, if people knew what it was, would realize that better products are free.
That motherboard makers do this is nothing compared to dedicated FakeRAID hardware makers. Yet we've known about them for a very long time, and how they work.
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@wrcombs said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I Found this, do you think this Is something that could be a cause for confusion?
Yes, that doesn't help. It's impossible for it to work they way that they say, BIOS cannot support functionality like that (UEFI can, in theory). The BIOS can configure it (the Control - R trick), but can't provide it. RAID takes more code than fits in a BIOS, and the BIOS doesn't run on its own hardware, but on the main CPU. The BIOS is not a processor.
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@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
Scott, something has to process to "fakeRAID" components during the setup phase.
No, it doesn't. Why do you think it does?
I guess I have to question you on this, how do programs operate?
They run on the CPU, using system memory.
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So the chipset does absolutely nothing at all other than provide "a fancy licensing dongle" to use the software?
https://i.imgur.com/ARUMjVL.png
17 Intel® Rapid Storage Technology requires the computer have an Intel® RST-enabled Intel® chipset, RAID controller in the BIOS enabled, and the Intel RST software driver installed. Please consult your system vendor for more information. The Intel® Q85 chipset does not support RAID features. -
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I have always known the difference. This was never about me not knowing the difference between hardware/software/fake RAID.
Regardless of what kind of RAID it is, you get it with your motherboard. That's what this was always about.
First you state that you know the difference. Then you state something that clearly says you don't see the difference. Your second statement negates the first. Motherboards that have RAID must be hardware, and you can't buy those on the market.
You are missing the entire concept that we are discussing.
You are completely confused here.
I never suggested that because the motherboard does or has RAID, that it's hardware. That was entirely from you. I was saying that the typical motherboard has RAID... period. Not that it is hardware raid. Not that it is software. Not that it is fakeRAID. All the types of RAID in the discussion was introduced by you, not me.
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@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
Scott, something has to process to "fakeRAID" components during the setup phase.
No, it doesn't. Why do you think it does?
I guess I have to question you on this, how do programs operate?
They run on the CPU, using system memory.
So then the statement is that FakeRAID is provided by the CPU and the motherboards are just listing shitty features of the CPU family that they are claiming as features they are providing.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@bnrstnr said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
It's not hardware raid. It's a piece of code that is operated within your motherboard (and by the CPU on your board).
So it DOES come from the motherboard?
No, he's confused. It absolutely does not.
How does it not?
If you remove the motherboard, you lose the RAID. The whole thing comes from the motherboard. The motherboard provides the fakeRAID, it's built into the motherboard. The RAID exists without the OS. You can confirm the RAID is there by hitting CTRL+R or whatever it is, and seeing that the RAID1 is there, active, working.
I think to really answer this, you have to step back and explain why you feel this tells you something? To me, it's really clear, partially because I've seen this a hundred times, that all of these things are just you editing a text file somewhere, and aren't you interacting with the RAID at all. I'm not sure why you feel it is likely to be, let alone must be.
Think of it like editing a configuration file with Notepad. Then you run a database that uses that config file. Then you tried to convince me that the database "runs on Notepad", and you can "prove it" because you edited the config file using Notepad.
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@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@dustinb3403 said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
Scott, something has to process to "fakeRAID" components during the setup phase.
No, it doesn't. Why do you think it does?
I guess I have to question you on this, how do programs operate?
They run on the CPU, using system memory.
So then the statement is that FakeRAID is provided by the CPU and the motherboards are just listing shitty features of the CPU family that they are claiming as features they are providing.
No, CPUs don't provide code. They run code. FakeRAID is provided by a driver, like all software RAID. The CPU runs it, like it does all software from the OS. FakeRAID is not a "special thing". It's normal software, like any other.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I never suggested that because the motherboard does or has RAID, that it's hardware. That was entirely from you.
That's what the motherbaord having RAID would mean. It's the sole meaning of those words.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I was saying that the typical motherboard has RAID... period. Not that it is hardware raid.
So you are saying that motherboards can have things, but that those "things" can be software? What does it even mean to you for the motherboard to "have RAID" yet then it is software. Software, in this case, means that the motherboard doesn't have it.
It can't be both. The motherboard having RAID means it is hardware. If it is software, then the motherboard can't have it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I never suggested that because the motherboard does or has RAID, that it's hardware. That was entirely from you.
That's what the motherbaord having RAID would mean. It's the sole meaning of those words.
When you buy a typical motherboard from Newegg, you then have the ability to create a RAID... that's what I mean by the motherboard has RAID... in the same way it's possible to buy a motherboard that does not allow you to set up RAID. But, as in my original point, MOST BOARDS DO THIS!
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I never suggested that because the motherboard does or has RAID, that it's hardware. That was entirely from you.
That's what the motherbaord having RAID would mean. It's the sole meaning of those words.
When you buy a typical motherboard from Newegg, you then have the ability to create a RAID... that's what I mean by the motherboard has RAID...
But that makes no sense. If you buy a motherboard, any motherboard, and install software on it that you got somewhere else, that never is called the "motherboard having that software."
My desktop runs Steam, and Steam loads Skyrim. But everyone would call me crazy if I claimed my motherboard provides Skyrim.
Like Skyrim, your RAID is a third party bit of software installed onto the hard drives (not on the motherboard) that runs in the CPU (not on the motherboard.) It's not part of, or from, the motherboard in any way,.
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The motherboard has it all built-in, it comes with it. You don't need to install anything to get the RAID working. You simply hook up the motherboard, then on first boot, hit CTRL+R (for example), then you can configure the RAID.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
in the same way it's possible to buy a motherboard that does not allow you to set up RAID.
No, this is incorrect in the way that you are using it. All motherboards support you running software RAID on the OS on them, all of them.
It's impossible for the motherboard to block that RAID, and all motherboards on the market that we know of don't have the hardware to provide it. So neither assertion is true.
These are the points...
- What you perceive as motherboard RAID is actually just normal software designed to fool you.
- All motherboards CAN run that software, if you install it.
- No motherboard CAN run that software, if you don't install it.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
The motherboard has it all built-in, it comes with it.
You are going in circles. The motherboard cannot do this. It does not do this. This is the point I made. Show me any motherboard that actually provides it, I guarantee you cannot. They don't exist.
It's always a driver installed later, always.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
You simply hook up the motherboard, then on first boot, hit CTRL+R (for example), then you can configure the RAID.
Sure, configure it. That's a text file that the software RAID reads later. You don't think that configuring the text file is the same as running the RAID, right? I just discussed that above with the Notepad example and Skyrim.
You keep saying things like this as if they show that the motherboard is providing the RAID. Do you really not see how that is not at all what you are describing?
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How a Typical FakeRAID Install Happens
Motherboard Purchase
Someone purchases a motherboard (or RAID card) that claims to provide RAID. They install the mobo, CPU, RAM, and other components, hook up drives, turn on the computer.
First Boot - BIOS
On first boot, if RAID is desired, the new owner goes into the BIOS to configure the PC. This is a normal BIOS like any other. A BIOS is just a little ROM chip and tiny bit of configuration storage. It contains only enough to boot the system to a disk, nothing more. It's trivially small, it is only a few KB of storage, it contains no software that can be loaded later, it has no hooks into the OS (UEFI is different, but BIOS can't do these things), at most it can contain a small text file of configuration data. Often a special key sequence is used to get to the "RAID Configuration" portion of the BIOS, sometimes not. but it's always the same simple BIOS stuff.
The RAID configuration information is put into the BIOS and saved. There is no RAID at this point, just a config file.
OS Install
Now an OS needs to be installed. The OS, normally Windows, is installed. The drivers for most FakeRAID is included in the stock Windows (and Linux) system images, so typically you will be presented with the drives as if they were already RAIDed, as part of the included Windows driver.
This is not always the case and used to be rare, traditionally you'd have to provide an installer disk to handle this or else the FakeRAID would never load. But this has been eased by FakeRAID drivers being built into all major OS distributions as third party included driver slugs to simplify things for end users who were often confused when the RAID wasn't working as expected.
Driver Install
The OS installs and both Windows and most Linux variants go out and automatically load the necessary drivers, management tools, updates, etc. This is where the RAID driver really comes from, this automated process. It's just another hardware driver.
Usage
To the end user, the RAID was "magic", it appears to have been configured by, and maybe even provided by, the motherboard. But it is not. If you remove the driver from Windows or Linux, you will see the driver independently - there is no RAID from the motherboard. It's all in the OS, or on top of the OS.
The software for the driver can not come from the motherboard in BIOS days, if while a UEFI can provide drivers, this is no different than getting it from any "add on" storage space. It's simply a viable install storage location, a tiny SSD. To run, the driver must load into the OS and run like any normal software.
In this way, FakeRAID looks just like hardware RAID, but is actually just software RAID masquerading. No amount of motherboard labeling, BIOS menus, motherboard storage, motherboard requirements, or other artefacts suggest that the RAID itself is coming from the motherboard or any piece of hardware. It only suggests that there is some labeling, a simple text editing utility, and a licensing dongle possibly associated with the motherboard. That the RAID comes from hardware is not implied by any of those things. But most people believe that they must imply that, giving FakeRAID its power to convince people.
At the end of the day, the RAID comes from a normal software driver, normally included in the OS and/or downloaded as part of the normal driver installs during installation, it runs in system RAM, runs on the CPU, and has no connection to the motherboard other than optionally looking to the motherboard to pick up the configuration file from the publicly readable BIOS space (the OS can always read the BIOS for information.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
You simply hook up the motherboard, then on first boot, hit CTRL+R (for example), then you can configure the RAID.
Sure, configure it. That's a text file that the software RAID reads later. You don't think that configuring the text file is the same as running the RAID, right? I just discussed that above with the Notepad example and Skyrim.
You keep saying things like this as if they show that the motherboard is providing the RAID. Do you really not see how that is not at all what you are describing?
I've always got the concept of it, I'm not ever debating that part.
I'm saying that when I buy a typical motherboard, I am able to create a RAID without installing anything except the motherboard hardware itself. I set up and configure the RAID via the RAID BIOS. Then I can install any OS onto the RAID, or present the RAID as storage to the OS running on another disk, or have the RAID available to something I boot to.
That it's fakeRAID, and only storing config settings in the BIOS for software to use later is irrelevant. My whole point originally and this ENTIRE TIME, was that when you buy a motherboard, it's got the RAID stuff built in and ready to go, nothing else needed.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
I'm saying that when I buy a typical motherboard, I am able to create a RAID without installing anything except the motherboard hardware itself. I set up and configure the RAID via the RAID BIOS. Then I can install any OS onto the RAID, or present the RAID as storage to the OS running on another disk, or have the RAID available to something I boot to.
Right, I understand that you are saying this. And I'm explaining that while it can look like this, it's not true. The RAID doesn't exist, at all, until you have installed the operating system and the RAID software. Only then is there RAID, and it is something I've proven for people on their hardware over and over again.
This is the entire purpose of FakeRAID, to make it seem like this is what is happening. If it didn't, it wouldn't trick anyone. It's very convincing. They've take every casual avenue of investigation and made it all seem the same as if there actually was some hardware involved.
The magic is all in the automatic installation of the RAID software as part of the OS install. Since the RAID is added on, by you, transparently without you really knowing, it seems like it must have been there earlier, when there was just a motherboard. But the motherboard has nowhere to store that software, and no RAID controller to run it on, and a BIOS can't provide software to the OS. So it has to be in software, it just doesn't seem like it because they always show you something that makes it seem like hardware.
But install Linux on there and remove the Windows abstractions, and you can always see "through" the RAID, proving the RAID is above, not below, the OS.
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@obsolesce said in Discovering FakeRAID in the Real World:
That it's fakeRAID, and only storing config settings in the BIOS for software to use later is irrelevant. My whole point originally and this ENTIRE TIME, was that when you buy a motherboard, it's got the RAID stuff built in and ready to go, nothing else needed.
But it IS relevant. If your point is that the motherboard has RAID stuff built in, then that it doesn't have it built in must be pretty relevant. The RAID itself is not on the motherboard, anywhere. There is nowhere for it to be. Where do you think the motherboard would store it or run it? The mobo has no capacity for that.
