SuperMicro X13SAE主板NVMe硬盘硬件RAID 1配置问题咨询

Hey Evan, let's sort out this NVMe RAID 1 setup on your X13SAE—this is a pretty common spot folks get stuck, so let's break it down step by step.

First: BIOS Configuration (Hardware RAID Setup) #

The most likely issue is that your BIOS is still set to AHCI mode instead of RAID, which hides the RAID configuration options. Here's how to fix that:

• Reboot your machine and hit Del (or sometimes F2) to enter the SuperMicro BIOS setup.
• Navigate to the Advanced menu, then find Storage Configuration (the exact name might vary slightly by BIOS version, but it's usually under Advanced).
• Look for an option like NVMe RAID Controller or M.2 PCIe RAID Mode—set this to Enabled (it's probably on AHCI by default).
• Save your changes and reboot. During the POST boot sequence, keep an eye out for a prompt like "Press Ctrl+E to enter NVMe RAID Configuration Utility" (this is the key combo for SuperMicro's NVMe RAID tool; if you miss it, just reboot again).
• Once in the RAID utility, select Create RAID Volume, choose RAID 1 as the level, pick your two NVMe drives from the list, name the volume if you want, and follow the prompts to finalize the setup. Save and exit, then reboot again.

Linux Side: Verifying & Using the RAID Volume #

After setting up the hardware RAID in BIOS, Linux should detect the RAID volume as a single block device. To check:

• Run lsblk or fdisk -l in the terminal—you'll see a new device (like /dev/nvme0n1 or a /dev/sdX entry, depending on how the controller presents it) that represents your RAID 1 array.
• You can then partition this device (if needed) and format it with your preferred filesystem, e.g., mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1, then mount it like any other drive.

What If You Can't Find the BIOS RAID Option? #

Double-check your X13SAE motherboard manual to confirm which M.2 ports support RAID—while the spec says all three do, sometimes certain ports are tied directly to the CPU and might require additional BIOS settings to enable RAID. Also, make sure your BIOS is up to date (SuperMicro has a utility called IPMI or you can flash it via USB) since older versions might have missing options.

Bonus: Software RAID Alternative (If Hardware RAID Isn't Working) #

If for some reason you can't get hardware RAID going, you can use Linux's built-in mdadm for software RAID 1. Here's the quick version:

• Make sure both NVMe drives are unpartitioned (wipe any existing partitions first if needed).
• Run: sudo mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/nvme0n1 /dev/nvme1n1
• Format the array: sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/md0
• Mount it: sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid1
• To make it persistent across reboots, add an entry to /etc/fstab.

备注：内容来源于stack exchange，提问作者Evan Carroll