Hey everybody,

 

First off: system works normally...

 

...but:

Recently update my setup, I now have:

Gigabyte Z97P-D3

Intel i5-4460 CPU

16GB memory

 

Also update the Parity drive to a 4TB WD so I could start updating all 2TB disks to 4TB in nearby future.

 

So yesterday I added the first 4TB disk and precleared it, however when I wanted to start the array it said it was bigger then the Parity drive. So I did some reading and figured it should be the HPA problem with Gigabyte Motherboards.

 

I ran:

 

 hdparm -N /dev/sd?

/dev/sda:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 15 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 15 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
max sectors   = 0/1, HPA is enabled

/dev/sdb:
max sectors   = 3907027055/3907029168, HPA is enabled

/dev/sdc:
max sectors   = 3907027055/3907029168, HPA is enabled

/dev/sdd:
max sectors   = 488397168/488397168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sde:
max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sdf:
max sectors   = 7814037168/7814037168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sdg:
READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error

/dev/sdh:
max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

/dev/sdi:
max sectors   = 3907029168/3907029168, HPA is disabled

 

sdg is the Parity drive.. and I haven't found out what that error message means.

 

Any ideas how to fix it? is it even broken?

 

Or just swap the parity drive with the new 4TB drive?

 

 

Thx in advance!

 

syslog.txt

WDC_WD40EZRX-00SPEB0_WD-WCC4E7EXTY2N-20160410-1153.txt

Yeah, as you've discovered you have several drives with HPA's, one being the Parity drive.  Apart from that, the drive looks fine, don't know why it had trouble with the hdparm command.  You will need to use your new Red 4TB as the Parity drive instead.  Once it is installed, you should have no more trouble with the HPA's, and can ignore them.

Once you switch around the drives as RobJ suggested (or remove the HPA from the parity drive), make sure that you leave one of the remaining drives that has HPA on it connected to the motherboard.

 

In my experience (not necessarily true in all cases), when the BIOS wants to put a HPA  onto a drive it will not if it sees that another disk connected to the mobo already has one.  HPA is only an issue when its on the parity disk

 

That and (if possible) completely remove all hard drives from the boot order so that it only has the flash drive to boot from.  My boards only put HPA on a drive when they attempt to boot (for whatever reason) from a hard drive.

As Squid noted, the Gigabyte boards that have this issue will only create an HPA on a drive if it doesn't find one already there on another drive.    So I'd simply use your new 4TB drive as parity, and leave everything else alone.  You shouldn't have any issues after that.

 

You might also check your BIOS to see if this is a board that allows you to turn off the automatic HPA creation feature.  See if your BIOS has an option for "Virtual Dual BIOS" ... and if so turn it off.

 

Thx for the answers and advice!

 

I have rebuilt parity on my new 4TB disk and the former parity disk is preclearing (maybe I can hdparm after that but it's not necessary). I'll make sure to have HPA one at least one connected disk (currently on two data disks and on the flash drive).

After that I will try to turn of the HPA, I think I've seen this option in the Bios.

 

Thx again!