GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Hi there,

I'm expecting my GA-EP45-DS5 to turn up tomorrow and I just wanted to gt a few things clear before I start rebuilding my system.

I have 4 identical 500gb sata hard drives that I wanted setup as a RAID 10 and be the location for my operating system. I then have 3 sata 1tb drives for storing data, 1 sata Blu-Ray drive and 1 IDE DVD/RW.

Would I be able to intall the four disks as 2 sets of stripes instead?

Am I right in thinking that the 4 500gb drives should be connected to the Gigabyte sata ports and the rest of my drives (except the IDE) to other the sata ports?

Also, the specification on the Gigabyte site states that this board takes a max of 16gb DDR but the manual states 8gb. Anyone know which one it is?

tia

Flo

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Can't help you with RAID, not an expert on that subject.

The website is probaly right about the 16GB, the manuals are usually a little out of date. Just comparing the BIOS screenshots in the manual to the actual BIOS will tell you that...
16GB is nonetheless not easy, some kits might not work at all, and you almsot certainly need to tweak voltages. Running all 4 banks with double sided sticks is always a little tricky. If you buy a 4x4GB kit make sure you can return it in case it doesn't work.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Yes, you will be able to make 2 separate Arrays out of the 4 disks on the Intel Yellow Ports

The gigabyte Ports will only be for smartbackup and you will not have control over any of it. SO you will want/need to setup what arrays you want to control on the Intel Yellow Ports

There has been MUCH discussion, testing and dismay over the GA and Silicon Image chipsets and their usages in the new P45 boards. Here is those discussions >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ep45-ds5-dq6-27384/

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/problem-ga-ep45-ds5-hard-disk-led-remains-27347/

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/raid1-migration-ep45-dq6-5723-a-27308/

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/problem-ga-ep45-ds5-hard-disk-led-remains-27347/index2.html

16GB max is correct, but 8GB is overkill for sure let alone 16GB. And as said above 8GB or 16GB you will need to do much tweaking in the BIOS manually to get them stable.

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Hi, thanks for the replies

I'm glad the board takes 16gb. I already have 8gb and don't have any intentions of increasing it for the foreseeable furture but when I spend good money on a board I like to think there is room for upgrading.

As for the RAID, I searched the forums before I posted and I still can't make sense of the Smart Backup. I found this article that attempted to explain it that some people may find helpful

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Reading this article seems to suggest that the Gigabyte sata's are for purely backup of the drive containing the OS so does this mean that if I put 4 drives on the Gigabyte sata ports do they all backup the OS drive? Would it just be four copies of the same thing? Can I have my OS drive on the Gigabyte ports?

The reason I bought this board was because I had outgrown my old board as far as number of drives vs number of sata ports available and I had been unable to find a pci/pci-e sata card that worked with Vista 64bit

Flo

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Well in the past P35 boards yes you could have you OS on the GA ports, which I do on my board now.

As for the P45, best For you to ask one of those users in the threads I linked, I would PM them so they get a email notifying them so you can find out quick. They have done some extensive tests, and I am sure they could answer you pretty quickly

I will also Post a Link from there to here incase one of them is around today before you PM them

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Hi again,

Thanks for that, I appreciate it

Flo

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

I posted in the first thread I linked. That should be the ones you ask >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ep45-ds5-dq6-27384/

They seemed to do the most testing there

[mv2devnull]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Reading this article seems to suggest that the Gigabyte sata's are for purely backup of the drive containing the OS so does this mean that if I put 4 drives on the Gigabyte sata ports do they all backup the OS drive? Would it just be four copies of the same thing? Can I have my OS drive on the Gigabyte ports?

IIRC, somebody did state that they run OS from the 5723. I have not tried that. Asus has similar Southbridge-SATA controller-SiI5723 that their marketing calls "EZ-Backup". Asus says: "for data only". They might just "play it safer" than Gigabyte.

Anyway, if you do connect drive to GS0-Source (or GS2-Source), another to GS1 (or GS3), and activate the "SmartBackup", you do activate the RAID1 mode on the 5723 chip. First thing it does is to ensure that the array is consistent, ie mirror from Source to the second disk. So whatever is on GS0 will be written to GS1. That is the Initialization/Rebuild and takes some hours.

From then-on everything written to the RAID1 array will be written to both disks (GS0 and GS1), so they remain consistent. In case of one disk fails, I'm not at all sure how the controller will handle it. There is no documentation, neither from Gigabyte nor Silicon Image about failures, and on my tests I actually had a misbehaving drive, but cannot tell what exactly happened. I have the disks on ICH10R now (and wait to see if the BIOS/driver/application front makes breakthroughs).

The "SmartBackup" will only copy from GS0 to GS1, and from GS2 to GS3, so four disk in there will definitely not produce four copies of OS disk (that is connected to ICH10R). I would rather boot Linux Rescue from USB, and run low level 'dd' to copy OS disk to other disk. I will know that the filesystem on source is not changing while I do that, and know when the copy is complete. Not really much more complicated than using SiI5723.

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Hi, thanks for that.

If I understood you correctly the 4 500gb disks should be seen as 2 500gb volumes, volume01 and volume02 for example? Do you think these volumes would be seen in Windows setup so that I can choose volume01 to install it on and away you go? I want to be able to have one volume as my OS and one volume as my 'life wouldn't be worth living if I lost it' data storage

This might sound a bit simplistic but my knowledge regarding RAID is simplistic (I know what it is but never mess with it too much) and my knowledge of Linux is non existent *hangs head in shame*

I want to try and make as much use of the gigabyte ports as possible so that I keep the other ports free for my extra hdd's and blu-ray drive.

IMO if the specification states that there are 10 sata ports I think it should mean there are 10 sata ports for me to do with as I wish. Afterall, that was the main reason I purchased this board. If they are going to restrict your usage they should at least make the information you need to be able make the most of it freely available.

Just my humble opinion...

[mv2devnull]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

If I understood you correctly the 4 500gb disks should be seen as 2 500gb volumes, volume01 and volume02 for example? Do you think these volumes would be seen in Windows setup so that I can choose volume01 to install it on and away you go? I want to be able to have one volume as my OS and one volume as my 'life wouldn't be worth living if I lost it' data storage

1. Yes, there would be two 500 GB RAID1 volumes.
2. No idea, but you should be able to test that easily. Chances are fair.
3. RAID is never a backup. If you accidentally delete a file from RAID volume, it is gone. RAID (except the 0) saves the day if one drive from the volume breaks, but you still want backups in case the rebuild fails.

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Well, several hours and a few bunches of hair less later I can safely say that my simplistic approach didn't work.

With all four 500gb drives plugged into the gigabyte sata ports windows setup only saw one 500gb disk and said that it wasn't suitable for installing windows on.

I now have the four drives on the first four Intel ports and regardless of whether I have RAID enabled or not windows setup only sees 2 drives, disks one and three, I'm assuming it's decided it knows better than me and has made them RAID. I even enabled the RAID so that I could enter the utilit and make sure there was no raid going on that I needed to 'break' but nope.

Oh well, it's been a long day, I'm just going to get the OS on and fight with my other ports and disks tomorrow

Will someone please remind me why I love IT?

There must be easier things to do for living...

Flo

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Are you sure you have the correct settings for the Intel controller set? They are the top ones in the integrated peripherals page. You should see all four with no RAID, and all 4 with RAID enabled in the RAID (Control +I) page. You will need to Do all this before you install, which I assume you know. Change the below BIOS setting, Reboot and Enter RAID Controller Ctrl + I at the post screens

For RAID settings should be >>>
SATA RAID/AHCI Mode ..... RAID
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode .........Disabled

Then you should see all 4 disks. It wont Make a RAID without you! HAHA J/K I know you are stressed. But ya, you have to make them in the RAID Controller

Let me know if this helped any, or where you are when you finally see this

Good luck with things

[flo_the_lil_minx]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Hi there,

I tried all of those things. When the system booted up, even though the RAID was disabled in the bios it still said drives controlled by raid as it listed them. I even went into the bios and enabled RAID so that I could go into the utility using ctrl-I to check and they were all listed as independant disks.

Oh well.

Eventully I had the four 500gb drives set up as RAID 10 on the intel ports and then had my blu-ray and one 1tb drive on the remaining two ports and then the other two 1tb drives on GS0 and GS2.

Kinda what I was trying to achieve in the first place but disapointed I've only got 8 sata ports that I can use rather than the 10 I thought I was buying

Doh!

Thanks for all your help though, it makes such a change to be able to post on a forum for help and get real help rather than to wait 3 weeks for a useless response from a sarcastic nerd!

Flo

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS5 Config advise please

Ahh, well I am glad you got it mostly. I do see what you mean about missing out on two ports for sure!!

RAID 10 eh, sounds nice! I need me a few more drives for sure!

Sorry I could not fully get you direct help and solve things, but I am glad You got things setup eventually from all this discussion.

And thanks for the kind words, I know what you mean! I hate waiting for answers that take forever and offer less information in them then the knowledge you already had when you asked!

Good luck with things, and post back anytime