Okay, I've got the Norco 4220 case and will be getting a Gigabyte MoBo; however, I know about the HDA issue with Gig mobo's and drives though I don't know how to figure out which drive to make the parity drive in order to avoid having HDA installed.  Normally I know to just plug in the HDD into any SATA port other than the first one; but with the 4220, I will have a SAS-SATA breakout cable.  Which drive in the case (looking from the front) is the primary, #1 drive on each backplane?  The left, right by the SAS port, or the right, by the power ports (i'm assuming it will be the left, but I want to be sure) ... hopefully I didn't make this too confusing, time to go home from work....

I would avoid connecting the drive you intend to become the parity drive, until later.  As you hook up other drives, you will learn the order that the kernel identifies them, and be able to figure out where to connect it.

 

Also, I think we are pretty sure that the HPA is not usually installed on drives connected to addon cards, just motherboard ports.

Well the first 6-10 drives would be connected to the MOBO via the backplanes in the Norco case. So I'll just do as you state and figure it out from there.  Thanks