Opinions on the "Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R MB" & the "Adaptec 1430SA" as a combo?

Hi. I'm think of replacing my current Gigabyte GA-M770-US3 with a Generic 4 Port SATA PCI card with a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R mobo & one Adaptec 1430SA SATA Card. As a CPU, I'll use an old Intel P4 775 3.2Ghz CPU I'll scrap from an older Desktop PC, RAM I can use from my current unraid server (Kingston DDR2 2GB PC-6400/800, I'm sure it would work with this new mobo), obviously use my current disks, case, disk enclosures and Power Supply (Antec True Power 650w) and I have SATA cables too.

I want to be able to use a mobo which isn't too old, has the most onboard SATA interfaces (this mobo 8 SATA interfaces running at 3Gbps on all ports) and get a real good SATA Controller for the remaining 4 data disks I'll buy in the future. Speed and rock solidness is my aim, I'm feeling I can achieve these parts.

Can any vouch on that the "Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R MB" & the "Adaptec 1430SA" components? Do they have this hardware/combo currently running on their server, any problems that others have faced with any of these parts, pros, cons, thoughts and opinions? My aim is to get up to 12 disks (11 data disks and 1 parity, no cache). Thanks.

 

 

 

I've been running this MB for about 2 years with no problems, but flash the BIOS to the current version and disable HPA.

 

Can't vouch for the SATA adapter.

disable HPA. - I understand this has something to do with the SATA controllers. I just Googled it before:

 

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3VHHVYBW5H499

 

Seems to have caused heartache. What does it do (or cause) anyways? It's best to upgrade to the latest f/w and disable it?

 

Or maybe on second thoughts, is it a bit over the top to do a complete overhaul and would it be wiser just to simply buy a decent SATA controller (like the Adaptec one mentioned or a 8 port card) to accommodate my future disk requirements? Thanks.

HPA

 

Host Protected Area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Protected_Area

 

It is a 'feature' where a specific portion of a hard disk is reserved for a special use such as recovery partition, special commands, etc.

 

It's most relevant here due to GIGABYTE's implementation of the HPA in the motherboard BIOS.   Many GIGABYTE motherboards have a 'feature' by which a small area at the end of the disk is used to retain a copy of the BIOS on the hard disk.  I surmise the intended purpose is to be able to obtain a copy of the BIOS should it become corrupted on the motherboard itself.   For unRaid users it presents a unique problem: it changes the reported physical size (in bytes) of one (or several) hard disks attached directly to onboard SATA ports.  

 

Some GB MBs have an option in BIOS to disable, or 'turn off' this feature, but it is sometimes described cryptically, or not available at all.   If you have acces to a GB MB, go into the BIOS and look for a setting similar to:

 

Save Copy of BIOS to hard drive

 

If this is toggled to 'NO' or 'OFF' it should disable HPA allocation, but there are no guarantees from what I've read.  Also, there are ways to remove the HPA if it has been assigned by using various 3rd party disk tools, etc.

 

Search around a little bit more (there are several threads here about it) and then make an informed decision.  Since you're thinking of replacing your MB anyway, it might be easier to go with a non-GIGABYTE board with fewer onboard SATA ports and more PCIe controllers in order to avoid the issue.

 

To date, my EP35-DS3R has performed well, and I have 8 drives all connected to the onboard SATA ports.  I get fast parity checks and no serious disk problems yet.  I personally am affected by the HPA 'bug' on my unRaid system, but since it did not hit my parity drive I'm not going to try to fix it until one of my disks actually fails (at which point I'll probably upgrade a few disks AND possibly a different MB). 

 

I am hoping be using the same motherboard (which is currently in service in my desktop PC). I am glad to hear all 8 SATA ports are working well.

 

Mind if I ask what makes the Adaptec card better than a Silicon Image based card, I believe those are cheaper and the HW compatibility page in the wiki mentions support for most of the Silicom Image IC's. At the same time I realize that the adaptec cards are used in the servers lime-tech sells. Have people had better experiences with the Adaptec cards ?

Adaptec cards to me seem are a bit of a IT Household name, though I've used SI cards before too, which haven't failed me either. The Adaptec card that I mentioned is a PCIe card, the SI card is just PCI, hence why I'm edging for the Adaptec.

 

I am hoping be using the same motherboard (which is currently in service in my desktop PC). I am glad to hear all 8 SATA ports are working well.

 

Mind if I ask what makes the Adaptec card better than a Silicon Image based card, I believe those are cheaper and the HW compatibility page in the wiki mentions support for most of the Silicom Image IC's. At the same time I realize that the adaptec cards are used in the servers lime-tech sells. Have people had better experiences with the Adaptec cards ?

Sil i belive dont yet currently have a viable 4 port pcie option.

Agreed. It begs the question, why the price difference between Sil and Adaptec? Their must be some advantages of going Adaptec over Sil.

 

Sil i belive dont yet currently have a viable 4 port pcie option.

quality, rep. no competition? there are very few 4 port pcie cards on teh market, the adaptec solution is one of the cheapest so i wouldnt say that its expesnsive.

 

pcie is more expensive than pci/pcix being anewer tech. it takes money to develop new chipsets for the new bus architechture etc.

Oh, my mistake, I thought SI did have 4-port PCI-E solutions.

From what I've seen, it seems SI only d

o PCI only cards.

I've got a Silicon Image based 2-port PCI-E card. Haven't tried with unraid yet, but I think the chipset number is mentioned in the hardware compatibility wiki. I just asumed they would have a 4-port PCI-E chip as well.

I'm surprised to see that their isn't one either, if that were the case, i would just simply just buy that one. Thanks.

Two things.

1) I was on Silicon Image to download drivers and they do indeed not list any chips with 4 ports for PCI-E. Further, the 3132 which is their two ports for PCI-E chip is listed as "A single-chip, one-lane PCI Express to 2-port Serial ATA (SATA) II host controller." So the two ports will be sharing a single 1X lane. Further, that's PCI-E version 1.1 so limited to 250mb/s in each direction.

 

2) OK, I went through all the BIOS options on my Gigabyte P35-DS3R and googled a bit as well. There is no option to disable this VirtualDualBIOS that creates the HPA. I also tried the CTRL-F1 to bring the "advanced" (wooohoooo,,,) bios options up, still nothing that sounds even vaguely like a disable option for this.

 

Has someone else found a way to disable it for the P35-DS3R family boards ?

Do all Gigabyte motherboards come with HPA? Just spotted this thread as I was about to buy a different Gigabyte mobo - GA-G31M-ES2L - and realised that I might run into the same problem....

Do all Gigabyte motherboards come with HPA?

Most do. Many of them have a BIOS option to disable it though.

And those that don't have this option can usually (but not all of them) have the BIOS updated.

 

Do all Gigabyte motherboards come with HPA?

Most do. Many of them have a BIOS option to disable it though.

And those that don't have this option can usually (but not all of them) have the BIOS updated.

 

 

That's worth knowing. I did a quick investigation on Gigabyte's website and looked at the spec sheet of a dozen or so random motherboards - some have dual BIOS on-board (so if the main BIOS gets corrupted the board has a backup to copy into the main BIOS) but other Gigabyte boards only have a single BOIS.

 

I'm wondering therefore if there's a correlation between a single BIOS board and HPA - since if there's a backup BIOS already on the board then it doesn't need to put anything on the HDD? I looked at around 3-4 other mobo manuals (plus the OP's one and the one I'm planning to get for my own server) and none of them mentioned HPA - chances are Gigabyte call HPA something less obvious. So it's a theory at this stage - is it worth scratching at to see if it works?

I'm wondering therefore if there's a correlation between a single BIOS board and HPA -

since if there's a backup BIOS already on the board then it doesn't need to put anything on the HDD?

 

Maybe it's the other way around: Maybe what they are calling "dual BIOS" is the HPA crap. (one in CMOS, one on disk)

 

The BIOS options will never mention 'HPA' specifically - they call it 'Save a copy of BIOS to disk'.  That's the guy you will want to disable.

The BIOS options will never mention 'HPA' specifically - they call it 'Save a copy of BIOS to disk'.  That's the guy you will want to disable.

 

Yes. They call it "Virtual Dual BIOS" in the manuals and spec sheets. I have not looked at Gigabyte boards with two physical bios'es, but asuming they do exist they would not be calling that "Virtual", so that might be worth looking for.

 

HPA is short for Host Protected Area. Gigabyte's Virtual Dual BIOS feature will create a HPA on harddisk(s?) to store a copy of the BIOS.

 

I read in another thread one guy believes he has gotten rid of it by enabling AHCI for the SATA controllers. Can anybody confirm ?

 

Also, would it be a solution to simply run the parity drive off of an addon SATA controller card like the Adaptec 1430SA - would that keep the parity drive out of the reach of the Virtual Dual BIOS ?  What about the on-board Highpoint SATA controller ?

I read in another thread one guy believes he has gotten rid of it by enabling AHCI for the SATA controllers. Can anybody confirm ?

No.  That does not sound likely at all.

Besides, AHCI is what you would normally use with unRAID.

Also, would it be a solution to simply run the parity drive off of an addon SATA controller card like the Adaptec 1430SA - would that keep the parity drive out of the reach of the Virtual Dual BIOS ?  What about the on-board Highpoint SATA controller ?

No.  HPA is a vicious beast.  It can creep up on any disk.

If it's not disabled by default on that mobo, you're begging for disaster.

 

I read in another thread one guy believes he has gotten rid of it by enabling AHCI for the SATA controllers. Can anybody confirm ?

No.  That does not sound likely at all.

Besides, AHCI is what you would normally use with unRAID.

Also, would it be a solution to simply run the parity drive off of an addon SATA controller card like the Adaptec 1430SA - would that keep the parity drive out of the reach of the Virtual Dual BIOS ?  What about the on-board Highpoint SATA controller ?

No.  HPA is a vicious beast.   It can creep up on any disk.

If it's not disabled by default on that mobo, you're begging for disaster.

 

One post I read said it would not affect a drive already partitioned.  Therefore, perhaps the person playing with BIOS options was fooled into thinking the AHCI option prevented it from being applied.    I will also not purchase a Gigabyte MB because of that "feature"

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-US3 board and in the mobo documatation, it states the following:

 

<F9>: XPRESS RECOVERY2

If you have ever entered Xpress Recovery2 to back up hard drive data using the motherboard

driver disk, the <F9> key can be used for subsequent access to Xpress Recovery2 during the

POST. For more information, refer to Chapter 4, "Xpress Recovery2."

 

This is only a imaging utility from the BIOS to make a backup of the OS on your disk

 

The following the the Gigabyte BIOS update options:

 

GIGABYTE motherboards provide two unique BIOS update tools, Q-FlashTM and @BIOSTM. GIGABYTE

Q-Flash and @BIOS are easy-to-use and allow you to update the BIOS without the need to enter MSDOS

mode. Additionally, this motherboard features the DualBIOSTM design, which enhances protection

for the safety and stability of your computer by adding one more physical BIOS chip.

What is DualBIOSTM?

Motherboards that support DualBIOS have two BIOS onboard, a main BIOS

and a backup BIOS. Normally, the system works on the main BIOS.

However, if the main BIOS is corrupted or damaged, the backup BIOS will take over on the next system

boot and copy the BIOS file to the main BIOS to ensure normal system operation. For the sake of

system safety, users cannot update the backup BIOS manually.

What is Q-FlashTM?

With Q-Flash you can update the system BIOS without having to enter

operating systems like MS-DOS or Window first. Embedded in the BIOS, the

Q-Flash tool frees you from the hassles of going through complicated BIOS flashing process.

What is @BIOSTM?

@BIOS allows you to update the system BIOS while in the Windows

environment. @BIOS will download the latest BIOS file from the nearest

@BIOS server site and update the BIOS.

 

and something else interesting...

 

B. Updating the BIOS

When updating the BIOS, choose the location where the BIOS file is saved. The follow procedure

assumes that you save the BIOS file to a floppy disk.

Step 1:

1. Insert the floppy disk containing the BIOS file into the floppy disk drive. In the main menu of

Q-Flash, use the up or down arrow key to select Update BIOS from Drive and press <Enter>.

• The Save Main BIOS to Drive option allows you to save the current BIOS file.

• Q-Flash only supports USB flash drive or hard drives using FAT32/16/12 file system.

 

Ths seems like an interesting the below fact:

 

• If the BIOS update file is saved to a hard drive in RAID/AHCI mode or a hard drive

attached to an independent IDE/SATA controller, use the <End> key during the POST to

access Q-Flash.

 

This might be the feature above that could be causing problems. I've never used this feature and haven't updated my BIOS yet.

 

My mobo only has (from what I can see) is the DualBIOS, not the 'Virtual Dual BIOS' that has been mentioned before on this forum and this ''Virtual Dual BIOS' seemed to be causing the problem, not the DualBIOS feature. From my understandings, the DualBIOS feature as it writes a backup (or mirrors the current BIOS onto another BIOS chip, an exact chip from the current BIOS chip), and doesn't write any data to a hard disk, though you can do this manually as an option as mentioned in this post too, which I would steer clear from doing this and wouldn't write any BIOS data onto any disk, regardless of the OS or what is stored on it.

To be honest, I don't really feel like going through countless pages of their documentation.

They screwed up big time, and many people got burned big time. Gigabyte is crossed off of my bying list.

 

Fair call purko. I wasn't aware that this has caused much grief for a lot of people out there. Having said that, if it is disabled or you don't use it, you will be fine. I think as a replacement mobo, i might look at a Abit or better yet a SuperMicro, they both seem to have positive feedback. Why can't you have the cake and eat it too?