GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 - Thumbs up

[spinbot]

Have a look at port multipliers as a potential cheap way to add SATA ports

 

This one here (for discussion purposes):

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=34241&vpn=AD5SAPM&manufacture=Addonics ( $86.28 )

Addonics Internal SATA Port Multiplier 1 SATA Port to 5 SATA Ports - Mounts in PCI or PCIe Slot

 

As this just looks like a splitter and all traffic has to travel through the 1 motherboard SATA port, am I correct in saying one disadvantage would be that if you are moving data between 2 drives, through the multiplier, your transfer speeds would be much slower?    However, I suspect that doesn't happen too often.

 

And then would the advantages of a multiplier be:  cost, not needing a real PCI-e slot on the motherboard, ...

[NAS]

As I understand it the bandwidth of a SATA2 port can sustain 3 port multiplied drives without blocking at all. I am no expert on this though.

 

The one big advatage of PM is that cost vs scale is much better. Adding 4 SATA ports via a pcie is possibly close to same cost but try adding 15 port and the cost goes sky high IRL.

 

PCI SATA cards suck after you have a few drives. Parity speed becomes silly low and almost unusable.

 

Also I am sure you can get PM cards much cheaper than that.

[spinbot]

I did a little more searching, this time at newegg ( never the cheapest place here in Canada, but just useful for comparison as they have US and CDN stores ).

 

The main thing I noticed is that 95% of the port multipliers there are external units.  This is an option for me in a year or two, however for now, the case I purchased has room for 12 drives, so I would fill those bays up before adding an external unit to my server.

 

For now, I have 5 bays open ( maybe a 6th as I am not using my IDE cache drive as its too small ).   

 

So, in a perfect world I would get an internal port multiplier that could turn one port into 7 ( although I haven't seen a 1 to 7 version ).    The other option is to get something like the one mentioned before ( 1 to 5 ).  I still have an open PCIe x16 port to use.

 

I looked at some SATA II controllers and some of the 4 port versions were no more expensive than the multiplier , so I am thinking its a better option.  The multiplier might just be to consider if you are adding a tonne of drives or run out of storage in your case.

[peter_sm]

I have right now upgraded to the latest bios, and then I saw that's possible to disable the HPA 

 

//Peter

 

[razmajazz]

I have right now upgraded to the latest bios, and then I saw that's possible to disable the HPA 

 

Thanks for the info. Flashed mine to the latest version and disabled HPA. Fortunately, I never had any issues with HPA on this board but it's good to know I won't have them in the future.

[Chris Pollard]

good news,  will have to flash mine after xmas.

[peter_sm]

Out of curiosity, anyone ever install a pci-e x4 card in the x16 slot on this board and have any issues? Just curious if this gigaybte board supports putting in there. Thanks.

 

Similar question I was asked, that I'd like to know is "Have you checked on web that the mobo doesn't use PCIe x16 for video card exclusively"

 

Anyone know before I pull the trigger on this?  In others words, is anyone running a SATA expansion card in the PCIe X16 slot?

 

Thanks!

 

The Adaptec 1430SA works in the PCI-eX16 slot. Just remember to hit Ctrl-A to disable the bios in the 1430SA when booting up.

 

Is this confirmed that this 1430SA card works on GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 ? i have already ordered on 

[rsd]

I have the Rosewill version of that card working fine in the pci-e x16 slot of this mb.

[peter_sm]

Just installed my 1430SA on my PCI-E, disable d the BIOS and everything works fine.

 

When started up my server I saw that my USB flash is on the /dev/sdi1 ? but perhaps that's is OK, one of my new disc is on dev/sda

 

When started the server (4.5) I saw that is doing a clear disc .. Hmmm cool ,then perhaps that's is the same as preclear 

 

My second brand new disc (WD 1.5TB) I running preclear on right now 

 

[Joe L.]

Just installed my 1430SA on my PCI-E, disable d the BIOS and everything works fine.

 

When started up my server I saw that my USB flash is on the /dev/sdi1 ? but perhaps that's is OK, one of my new disc is on dev/sda

The atual devie names are assigned as the hardware is scanned for devices.  Different hardware is scanned in different order... sometimes even the same hardware is sanned in different order based on how long it takes to initialize itself.  It is why unRAID uses the "UNRAID" volume label to identify the flash drive instead of a device name.

When started the server (4.5) I saw that is doing a clear disc .. Hmmm cool ,then perhaps that's is the same as preclear 

It is, but when unRAID does it, your array is off-line and none of the data on the disks accessible.    the preclear_disk script can be used when the array is still on-line and will allow only a few minutes of down-time when you actually assign the pre-cleared disk to the array.

My second brand new disc (WD 1.5TB) I running preclear on right now 

It takes a while to clear these newer drives.  The pre-clear is actually a better test of the new drive as it does more to exercise the disk and identify any early physical failures.  The end-result is almost the same in that the disk is cleared, but the built-in does not alert you of any issues identified by comparing the pre/post clear SMART reports on the disk.

 

[Chris Pollard]

Just to confirm I have the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 running in the PCI-E slot of this motherboard fine.  (GA-MA74GM-S2H)

[rsd]

Just realized that I have this board and the bios I have has HPA enabled. I read some but it's not clear to me what my choices are in how to deal with it.

 

I have a parity, 4 data drives, cache connected to the MB and 2 data drives connected via a pci-e card. I'm running Unraid 4.5.4.

 

I dug up an old syslog (at work now so don't have latest) and I use it showed HPA on almost every drive (if not every).

 

What should I do? I don't care about losing a couple of megs of space due to it, but I just don't want an issue of losing data/parity when I need it most. Will it be sufficient if I upgrade to the latest bios that supposedly has HPA disabled by default? Is that all I need to do? Will that screw anything up with my current data? I don't mind running a parity check after if that is all it takes.

 

Thanks!

[Rajahal]

Actually, if you already have HPA on every single drive, then you should be OK.  If you don't, then there is a risk.  Say you have HPA on only one or a few drives.  Suddenly, those HPA-enabled drives are unavailable (the drives die, or a controller dies, etc.).  The mobo can no longer find it's HPA backup, so it goes about making a new one.  On one of your data disks.  Which changes the size of the disk that unRAID sees.  unRAID now thinks it is a different disk, and since your array is already degraded, it cannot recover the data from it.  While most of the data is still likely intact and can be recovered from any other ReiserFS-compatible OS, there is the possibility of permanent data loss.  So (in theory, at least) if all of your disks have HPA enabled, then your mobo should always be able to find one to use for its backup, and it shouldn't squash any of your data.  You may have a problem when adding new drives, though.

 

 

If you want to get rid of HPA all-together, your options are:

 

1) Upgrade BIOS AND do this

2) Get a new non-Gigabyte motherboard

[rsd]

Actually, if you already have HPA on every single drive, then you should be OK.  If you don't, then there is a risk.  Say you have HPA on only one or a few drives.  Suddenly, those HPA-enabled drives are unavailable (the drives die, or a controller dies, etc.).  The mobo can no longer find it's HPA backup, so it goes about making a new one.  On one of your data disks.  Which changes the size of the disk that unRAID sees.  unRAID now thinks it is a different disk, and since your array is already degraded, it cannot recover the data from it.  While most of the data is still likely intact and can be recovered from any other ReiserFS-compatible OS, there is the possibility of permanent data loss.  So (in theory, at least) if all of your disks have HPA enabled, then your mobo should always be able to find one to use for its backup, and it shouldn't squash any of your data.  You may have a problem when adding new drives, though.

 

 

If you want to get rid of HPA all-together, your options are:

 

1) Upgrade BIOS AND do this

2) Get a new non-Gigabyte motherboard

 

Thanks!

 

Will doing the hdparm command though potentially cause any issue to my existing data disks assuming they have HPA on them?

 

I've added new drives since initially building this machine, and didn't have problems, but maybe I got luckky.

[rsd]

Actually, if you already have HPA on every single drive, then you should be OK.  If you don't, then there is a risk.  Say you have HPA on only one or a few drives.  Suddenly, those HPA-enabled drives are unavailable (the drives die, or a controller dies, etc.).  The mobo can no longer find it's HPA backup, so it goes about making a new one.  On one of your data disks.  Which changes the size of the disk that unRAID sees.  unRAID now thinks it is a different disk, and since your array is already degraded, it cannot recover the data from it.  While most of the data is still likely intact and can be recovered from any other ReiserFS-compatible OS, there is the possibility of permanent data loss.  So (in theory, at least) if all of your disks have HPA enabled, then your mobo should always be able to find one to use for its backup, and it shouldn't squash any of your data.  You may have a problem when adding new drives, though.

 

 

If you want to get rid of HPA all-together, your options are:

 

1) Upgrade BIOS AND do this

2) Get a new non-Gigabyte motherboard

 

I checked and I actually only have HPA on Disk 3 of my data disks. I will upgrade bios/disable HPA, but do I need to remove the HPA via the hdparm command? If I do so, do I need to stop the array or do anything in particular? I just don't want to potentially corrupt/lose data on Disk 3.

 

Thanks!

[Rajahal]

hdparm will delete the HPA partition, which will make unRAID see the disk as a different size, which will make unRAID think it is a new disk.  The procedure in the link I posted above relies on unRAID's ability to recover from a single disk failure.  After you run hdparm, unRAID will see the drive is new (assuming the 'old' drive failed) and begin to rebuild your data back onto the drive as soon as you start the array.  Keep in mind that your array is unprotected from a real drive failure until the rebuild completes.

 

So two gotchas to watch out for:

 

1) You can only do this procedure on one disk at a time (which is fine for you since only one of your data disks has an HPA).

2) Run a parity check before and after this procedure.  If there are any errors, do not proceed, seek help here first.

 

Here's a more complete post detailing the hdparm procedure:

 

Joe L. Rocks

 

Of course you'll need to use your own syslog and the numbers that reflect your data drive.  You may want to start a new thread about this if you aren't comfortable proceeding on your own from here.

[rsd]

Thanks again for your help!

 

I upgraded the MB bios but I do not see any option to disable HPA (I realize it's called a few different things but I don't see any of the expected terms).

 

I have the Rev 1.x version of this MB and upgraded to the F5B bios. Anyone know if this version has a way to disable hpa or if it disables it by default now?

[rsd]

Just thought I'd mention I decided to replace my GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 rev 1.1 which had no bios's that allowed for turning off hpa. I believe rev 2 and later have bios's that allow this to be disabled. So replaced it with a Biostar 760g mobo.

 

No issues, and everything run well so far with this mobo! Very happy I made the change.

[purko]

...bios's that allowed for turning off hpa. I believe rev 2 and later have bios's that allow this to be disabled.

Having a BIOS that allows HPA to be disabled is not good enough.  You need a BIOS that has the HPA off by default.

Otherwise it's a ticking time-bomb: the moment your CMOS battery dies, the HPA monster will strike.

 

...So replaced it with a Biostar 760g mobo.

Perfect.  You can forget about HPA now.

 

[rsd]

...bios's that allowed for turning off hpa. I believe rev 2 and later have bios's that allow this to be disabled.

Having a BIOS that allows HPA to be disabled is not good enough.  You need a BIOS that has the HPA off by default.

Otherwise it's a time ticking bomb: the moment your CMOS battery dies, the HPA monster will strike.

 

...So replaced it with a Biostar 760g mobo.

Perfect.  You can forget about HPA now.

 

 

Correct, to be more clear none of the bios's for rev 1.1 allowed you to manually turn off HPA or seemed to have it off by default from what I could tell.

[spinbot]

I'm in the same boat as rsd.    I prefer not to have to replace my motherboard, so I am going the route of disabling the HPA on the BIOS and then rebuilding the 2 affected data drives.  I realize I do run the risk my BIOS could lose its setup , re-enable HPA and then write to my parity drive.  ( I've got more details on the necessary process I need to follow in another post )

 

For now, my first step is to update the Motherboards BIOS, which is honestly something I have never done.  I have a utility on my Windows machine that would do it, but not on the UnRaid machine.  Anyone done an update that may be able to direct me a some?

 

My specific board is:

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=3063&ver=#anchor_os

 

I do have an 8 port SATA controller to install and 2 more drives, however I am not dealing with that until I get the HPA fixed.

 

Gigabyte doesn't say what improvements were done on each of the firmware releases.  The latest one is from 2009/10/09 and called "FDB"

 

The notes also say after you update it to ""Load Optimize Defaults" ... is that really what we need to do?

 

I know I had to make a few tweaks over the year, however hard to recall exactly what they were.  The main one's I remember were setting it to boot from the USB Stick and one to change the PATA ports to SATA ports.

 

This HPA issue is a real drag.    Maybe this topic should be renamed to show "Thumbs DOWN"

[razmajazz]

I have Rev 2.0 of this board. I flashed the BIOS back in December with version FC. I loaded Optimized Defaults afterward, as recommended, and found that HPA was already disabled. It's a bit of a pain to reconfigure BIOS settings but it did give me peace of mind that the default for HPA was off with this BIOS version.

[spinbot]

OK... that's great news then.   So, FC is safe to download.    Now, how to install it?  

 

I might as well continue my issues in this thread, as its right on the topic.

 

I just want to make 100% sure that after I disable HPA, when I run hdparm on the first mis-sized data drive ( as I have 2 that are wrong ),  UnRaid should only think it has a problem and/or was replaced.    The second drive ( that I need to do after ), will still appear smaller than it should, but UnRaid won't say anything about it as it hasn't changed.

[razmajazz]

I used Q-Flash. Just put the BIOS image on a USB stick and when you power up, go into the BIOS settings. Press F8 for Q-Flash and follow the prompts.

[spinbot]

The file I downloaded is a .exe  ( do you run than on the windows machine to extract anything or you just put the .exe on the flash drive )?

 

BTW -- thanks for the help  ( give Joe a break )