Intel has quietly withdrawn its Rapid Storage Technology drivers (RSTe Version 4.1.0.1046) that supported up to ten SATA 6Gb/s drives on X99 chipset motherboards. It also has made its hardware partners do the same, reports Heise Online (via TechPowerUp). It leaves Intel X99 Express system users with only six out of the ten possible ports usable via Intel's optimised driver.
TechPowerUp regards the issue as a "repeat of the design issues Intel faced with its previous X79 Express chipset". In that case the integrated storage controller design troubles pushed motherboard vendors into redesigning their products with fewer storage interface ports.
ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI have pulled the driver, as per Intel's request, it is reported. However ASUS responded to the Heise Online report with a comment about why the driver was removed. ASUS said that the removed driver didn't offer TRIM support for RAID0, however no new version of the driver is planned as a replacement.
According to ASRock users should make use of the older Intel 13.1 driver and configure RAID sets using the first six available ports. On an X99 Express motherboard with 10 ports the further four will be controlled using the Windows AHCI controller driver if they are utilised by plugging in stor age devices. That limits the RAID array possibilities and it means that these four ports don't benefit from Intel's SATA link power management features.
