Hey all,

 

Following an issue I'm currently experiencing with HPA on a Gigabyte mobo (GA-K8NS-Ultra-939) I want to replace it with a one which doesn't have HPA enabled (or can be disabled)

I can get my hands on a Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R, but the question is - is it HPA free? I've searched the forum and it seems some use it, but wasn't able to get a conclusive answer from reading the posts.

 

Is any one using it? is it HPA free\disable-able?

I have that m/b for my main intel use works great.

but have only roughly tested it with just a unraid usb &

did't get very far (I didn't play with too many settings),

but I must try again soon.

 

if you have it try it out with the unraid usb (i think this has quite a few sata connections)

 

other wise buy a new board like the asus or asrock in my post (1150 cpu).

 

 

That's the board in my main system (not UnRAID) ==> it does NOT have the HPA problem.  I've got 5 disks in the system, and there are no HPA's on any of them.

 

Thanks for the replies.

 

I've installed the board - so far so good

Yes you can Disable the HPA. I have the same board.

 

 

Edit: depends on the bios version!!

There's nothing to disable -- this board doesn't have the issue.

 

At least mine doesn't -- is this the same board you're using?

 

It most certainly does Gary. I had to update the BIOS version to disable it though. Otherwise there was no option to disable it. I think I went to version F14 or something like that.

 

Is called save bios to disk or something along those lines.

 

Edit: just looked. You are using bios f5. Way to young to have the option. 

Interesting -- although NONE of my disks has an HPA on it ... so clearly it has NOT written one on my system 

 

Just for grins, I'll update to the latest BIOS and see if that changes things ... although I'd think a newer BIOS would be LESS likely to have the issue.

 

Very interesting.  I updated to the most current BIOS (F13) ... and there is now indeed a setting for "Backup BIOS Image to HDD" !!

 

... which was, by default, "Enabled".    I set it to "Disabled".    Doesn't really matter on my system ==>  since all the drives are already initialized and partitioned, it wasn't able to do that (they're still "HBA free")

 

But clearly you DO need to make this change in the BIOS if you plan to use this board with UnRAID.

 

[Do it with NO drives attached, so it can't create an HBA on a drive you plan to use]

 

glad i wasnt seeing things

 

For that last line of defense, whether it makes any difference or not i dont know, I put my cache drive on SATA0. If it some how manages to throw a HPA onto the cache drive i dont really care too much any how.

For that last line of defense, whether it makes any difference or not i dont know, I put my cache drive on SATA0. If it some how manages to throw a HPA onto the cache drive i dont really care too much any how.

 

As long as you set it to "Disabled" in the BIOS, it should never happen.    But if you really want a "last line of defense", what you've done doesn't work.    Since the cache is already partitioned, it will ignore that and look for the first drive it "sees" with any available space.    That would most likely be the first new drive you install.    It's not really a big deal as long as it's a data drive ... but there IS a way to ensure even that can't happen:  (a) unplug everything EXCEPT the cache drive;  (b)  use a 3rd party utility to shrink the partition on the cache drive so it has some extra unallocated space on it;  ©  Enable the HPA function in the BIOS; remove your flash drive; and boot -- it won't find any bootable volume; but it WILL create an HPA on the cache drive;  (d) boot back to the BIOS and Disable the HPA function;  (e) shut down; hook everything back up; and you're done.

 

With the HPA function disabled, it should never check;  but if it was to somehow become enabled again (perhaps the BIOS battery fails and the CMOS loses its settings), then when it looked it would see that there was already an HPA saved, so it wouldn't bother any of the other drives.