Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 AMD Mainboard

[helio]

Hi All,

 

Looking at building an UnRaid server with a Norco 4020 (recently purchased).

 

To begin I will only be using the 6-8 onboard SATA connections. After 6 months I will start to expand with PCIe for extra SATA connections as required (up to 20).

 

Key decision now seems to be the MOBO. I am in Aus and a few that have been suggested are either old, unavailable or rather expensive.

 

This one seems to have the key things I want:

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 AMD

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?sort=3a&products_id=46315

 

That is:

Dual LAN

2 x Realtek 8111D chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

Support for Teaming

Support for Smart Dual LAN

 

6-8 on board SATA

2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors

6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors

 

Only reference I found on the forums was for the Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H - which is similar but lacks the Dual LAN:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6745.0

 

Anyone have any comments/suggestions or feedback on this board? Will Dual LAN/Teaming work with UnRaid? I am not set on AMD. Intel are ok too.... Mainly depends on the MOBO.

 

Many Thanks!

Helio

 

EDIT:

LAN teaming doesn't work apparently :-(

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3751.0

[queeg]

Gigabyte motherboards can potentially cause a big corruption problem.  It's known simply as HPA and it occurs when they backup up the bios to a hard drive.  The HPA is a small partition created by the motherboard on one of the data disk or even on the parity disk. 

[helio]

Gigabyte motherboards can potentially cause a big corruption problem.  It's known simply as HPA and it occurs when they backup up the bios to a hard drive.  The HPA is a small partition created by the motherboard on one of the data disk or even on the parity disk. 

Thanks queeg. I noted that in the other post I referred to above, but assumed this could be turned off in BIOS. I guess I better make sure that is the case. If it was off in BIOS - this shouldn't be an issue right?

[queeg]

Gigabyte motherboards can potentially cause a big corruption problem.  It's known simply as HPA and it occurs when they backup up the bios to a hard drive.  The HPA is a small partition created by the motherboard on one of the data disk or even on the parity disk. 

Thanks queeg. I noted that in the other post I referred to above, but assumed this could be turned off in BIOS. I guess I better make sure that is the case. If it was off in BIOS - this shouldn't be an issue right?

 

I'm a big fan of gigabyte.  Just not for raid systems.  What happens if the bios battery dies?  The best advice is avoid the problem altogether.

[helio]

I'm a big fan of gigabyte.  Just not for raid systems.  What happens if the bios battery dies?  The best advice is avoid the problem altogether.

 

Fair point. I guess I'll go back to the drawing board. Considering Dual LAN / Teaming isn't going to work it might not have been worth it anyway.

 

Is there anyway to do some kind of LAN bridge that you are aware of? Seems that this is the bottleneck currently. I was hoping this might help me side step it...

 

Thanks for your help 

Helio.

[queeg]

Is there anyway to do some kind of LAN bridge that you are aware of? Seems that this is the bottleneck currently. I was hoping this might help me side step it...

 

 

It might not be the bottleneck you are concerned with.  How are you planning on using unRAID?

[helio]

Is there anyway to do some kind of LAN bridge that you are aware of? Seems that this is the bottleneck currently. I was hoping this might help me side step it...

 

 

It might not be the bottleneck you are concerned with.  How are you planning on using unRAID?

 

For home use. As a general NAS and for use with a distributed Media centre.

 

I am using LinuxMCE http://linuxmce.org/ and currently have 2 media directors that may be drawing HD content from it at the same time.

 

That should all be fine with a single Gbit connection though. Mainly I wanted Dual LAN just to make transferring large files / ISOs across a little quicker....

[queeg]

Is there anyway to do some kind of LAN bridge that you are aware of? Seems that this is the bottleneck currently. I was hoping this might help me side step it...

 

 

It might not be the bottleneck you are concerned with.  How are you planning on using unRAID?

 

For home use. As a general NAS and for use with a distributed Media centre.

 

I am using LinuxMCE http://linuxmce.org/ and currently have 2 media directors that may be drawing HD content from it at the same time.

 

That should all be fine with a single Gbit connection though. Mainly I wanted Dual LAN just to make transferring large files / ISOs across a little quicker....

 

If you have a collection of ISO files on one or more hard drives you can mount those drives in the unRAID system outside of the array and transfer disk to disk. 

[helio]

If you have a collection of ISO files on one or more hard drives you can mount those drives in the unRAID system outside of the array and transfer disk to disk. 

 

Sorry - what would the benefit of that be from a speed perspective? Is unRAID a little slower or would I be able to use Dual Lan outside the array?

[queeg]

If you have a collection of ISO files on one or more hard drives you can mount those drives in the unRAID system outside of the array and transfer disk to disk. 

 

Sorry - what would the benefit of that be from a speed perspective? Is unRAID a little slower or would I be able to use Dual Lan outside the array?

 

I was talking about transferring any existing media you might have.

[helio]

Ahh - sorry, I understand now

 

On a side note - looks like the 4020 I ordered is being change to a 4220 due to stocking issues - so I guess I should be looking at SAS not SATA... more $$ to shell out... 

 

Thanks for your help.

[BRiT]

The only thing that should be different is the cable types used on your controller card to the Norco backplanes. It won't be too much since you're only using 6 to 8 drives to start with, unless you order all the cables upfront. But still a bit of a bummer to have things come out slightly different than what you had planned.

[helio]

The only thing that should be different is the cable types used on your controller card to the Norco backplanes. It won't be too much since you're only using 6 to 8 drives to start with, unless you order all the cables upfront. But still a bit of a bummer to have things come out slightly different than what you had planned.

 

Thanks BRiT.

 

I am assuming I need the following cables "SAS to SATA Reverse Breakout Cable" ref# http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7003.0

 

Thing is I am also assuming I can't just plug some of the SATA plugs in and leave others empty right?

 

So I would need to make sure that the MOBO had 8 SATA ports if I wanted to use only 6 HDD... if I didn't want to buy a Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 8-Port SATA II Controller Card just yet anyway (not a problem I would have had with the 4020).

 

Also - do you know if using 2 SATA II and 2 SATA III MOBO ports on the same Breakout Cable would be a problem?

 

Thanks

 

 

[digital_billy]

i have this board with his 6900 video card im having problems with gpu passthrough anyone have a solution for this mobo combo?unraid-diagnostics-20230924-0629.zip