Which SATA ports to use on a GA-P55A-UD3

[EZDude]

Hello again,

Well, I got my system put together.  It's been awhile, but everything seemed to go well.  However, my mobo is only recognizing 2 of my 4 HDDs.  Here is my system:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
Video: GIGABYTE GV-R585OC-1GD Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212
HDD: 2 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
         2 x Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s
Optical: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
P.S.: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91

(not installed yet) Windows 7 Pr0 x64

My Drives are installed as follows:

SATA 2_0 - 1TB Western Digital
SATA 2_1 - 1TB Western Digital
SATA 2_2 - 2TB Western Digital
SATA 2_3 - 2TB Western Digital
SATA 2_4 - eSATA cable to front of case (no drive connected)
SATA 2_5 - ASUS DVD Drive

(FWIW - the 2_0 and 2_3 are side by side, as well as 2_1/2_4 and 2_3/2_5)

My system starts up fine, although it seems to hang at the start up "splash screen" for quite a bit.  I hit "DEL" to enter BIOS.  This is what shows up in the "Standard CMOS Featurs":

IDE Channel 0 Master:  WDC WD1001FALS
IDE Channel 0 Slave:    WDC WD20EADS
IDE Channel 1 Master:
IDE Channel 1 Slave:  
IDE Channel 2 Master:
IDE Channel 3 Master: ASUS DRW
IDE Channel 4 Master:

(I have swapped SATA cables around to make sure they all work.  All four SATA cables connected to the HDD work. Meaning the first two drives always show up in the BIOS no matter what cables are connected.)


My intention is to RAID0 my two 1TB drives for performance, and use the 2 x 2TB for storage.  So, my questions are as follows:

1. Does it matter where I plug each of my SATA HDD in to the mobo?
2. Master Slave doesn't mean a thing when it comes to SATA, right?
3. Am I using my HDD effectively?  Is RAID0 the right way to go? Should I RAID the 2TB as well?
4. Does the mobo support me using RAID0 with the two 1TB and just leaving the 2 x 2TB alone?  ( I think so, the manual eludes to that on page84)

thanks in advance for your help

[Dark Mantis]

OK, the reason the POSTing might be takoing a long time is if you haven't disabled the floppy disk drive in the BIOS. Also set it to boot from your "C" drive first.

I wouldn't use the Marvell SATA3 ports for RAID they just won't take it. They are fine for single drives but not RAID. Disaster really but there is no option.

To answer your questions in order:
1) No. you can plug them into any SATA port
2) No not in SATA
3) RAID0 is the fastest way to use your drives but make sure you keep them on the Intel ICH10R ports(Southbridge)
4) Yes, just make sure that you set the seperate ports in the BIOS.

[EZDude]

Once again, DM comes to the rescue.  Thanks!!

Ok, here are my responses (with additional questions, of course )

1. rgr
2. rgr.
3. The southbridge ports are the 6 SATA ports closest to the bottom right of the mobo, right?
4. I am not sure what you mean by this?  I do not intend on connecting anything to the SATA 6.0G/s ports (Marvell SATA3 ports).

UPDATE:  Not sure why, but after a couple of reboots, all four drives show up now.

thanks

[Dark Mantis]

3) The SATA2 ports are the 6 near the bottom of the motherboard.
4) I meant that if you want to run both RAID and ordinary drives just make sure that the BIOS knows what is on what port.

The problem with your drives(even though they have shown up now) is that they are the Western Digital Greens. They are much slower and take longer to initialise. The best thing is to set a delay in the BIOS for them to catch up.

[EZDude]

As always, you couldn't be more correct.  Now, only one of the two 2TB drives is showing up.

Since my original post, I have conducted the following steps:

(all four drives were showing up on POST at the time)

1. In the BIOS, I setup PCH SATA Control Mode to "RAID(XHD)" per the manual to allow me to configure a RAID.
2. After reboot, all four drives were recognized by the RAID controller and I entered the RAID configuration utility using "CTRL-I".
3. Once in the utility, I noticed both 1TB drives were listed, but only one of the 2TB drives was listed. (even though, it showed up during startup).
4. I went ahead and set up a RAID0 configuration using the two 1TB drives.  No problems.

Now, whenever I startup the machine, only one of the 2TB drives shows up.

I love building new machines, but these little things get so frustrating, LOL.

Also, under "Advanced BIOS Features" I set "Delay for HDD" to 5 secs, do you think that is adequate?

standing by for additional help, thanks everyone!

[Dark Mantis]

Actually that is partly my fault. I thought that you were planning a RAID array for the future not with the drives you have already. You cant use Western Digital Greens for RAID, just won't work. Even the ordinary Blacks can have trouble because they dont support TLER and so often get dropped from the array or don't even show up in the first place. Actually absic and I thought we had found a way around that recently(as we both had bought a pair of WD SATA3 drives) but it didn't work. If you want to make sure drives are supportive of RAID get the WD "Enterprise" versions or any others that support TLER.

[EZDude]

OK, the reason the POSTing might be takoing a long time is if you haven't disabled the floppy disk drive in the BIOS. Also set it to boot from your "C" drive first.

I forgot to reply to this part...

What do you mean by "disable" the floppy?  I don't know of that setting.  I have removed it from the "Boot Device" list, if that is what you mean.

Secondly, right now I have CDROM set to first, so that I can install Windows 7.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes that was what I meant. It just save time that the  BIOS would spend looking to see if you had a floppy installed. You can either leave it how it is for now and then change it when you have installed Windoiws or change it now and make your second boot drive the CDROM and the first the hard disk. You can always boot form whatever drive you want by pressing F12 on boot and then just select the drive.

[EZDude]

Actually that is partly my fault. I thought that you were planning a RAID array for the future not with the drives you have already. You cant use Western Digital Greens for RAID, just won't work. Even the ordinary Blacks can have trouble because they dont support TLER and so often get dropped from the array or don't even show up in the first place. Actually absic and I thought we had found a way around that recently(as we both had bought a pair of WD SATA3 drives) but it didn't work. If you want to make sure drives are supportive of RAID get the WD "Enterprise" versions or any others that support TLER.

OUCH!

I already spent enough money on these four drives.  HHMMM.

I understand that these drives won't work using a RAID configuration, but I still don't understand why they don't show up in the BIOS at all.  I look under the HDD boot priority, and only one of the 2TB are listed.

So, at this point, should I stop what I am doing and invest in different drives, or just go forward with all four drives as separate drives (no RAID).  If separate drives, then do I set ICH SATA Control Mode to "AHCI"?

Kinda bummed about the RAID thing, tbh.

[EZDude]

Just to add to my continuing dilemma.

I have added a 10 sec HDD delay and still only one of the 2TB drives shows up.

I am going to try swapping cables and so forth to see which drive is not being recognized.  Might it be that I have a bad drive?

thanks

[Dark Mantis]

Yes if you have added in the dealy and it is still not being picked up it does sound like a faulty drive. Obviously check the cables etc but probably not that.
As far as the RAID goes I wouldn't worry about it especially if it is not your boot drive. Wait until the SSDs get a bit cheaper and then invest in a couple of them. Set the mode to IDE in the BIOS there is very little difference speed wise and more stable. May even pick up that invisible drive of yours.  

[absic]

Hi, sorry to jump in but....

you might be lucky with enabling your drives for use in RAID.

The procedure that I tried on my WD drives didn't work but I'm not sure if that was only because they were SATA6 GB/s drives. There have been many instances where users have been able to enable TLER.

I have sent you a PM with links and details that were given to me by Lsdmeasap, if you wish to try and enable TLER before going any further.

[Dark Mantis]

I see where you are coming form absic but his drives are WD Greens not Blacks or even Blues and they are known for not being able to use for RAIDing as they power down all the time.

[EZDude]

I have done some drive and cable swapping.

I think I may have a bad drive. Every time I connect ONLY this one drive, the system hangs for a bit (trying to initialize the disk, I presume) then says
"SMART command failed".

I don't get this error when I connect the other 2TB drive.

To be clear, I am not having problems with the two 1TB WD black hard drives.  I am only having a problem with one of the 2TB WD green hard drives.  The 2TB drives are NOT configured into the RAID, only the 1TB drives.

I think I may have bit off more than I can chew.

I have 4 drives.  2 x 1TB black and 2 x 2TB black.

I want to configure the 2 x 1TB in a RAID0 and leave the 2 x 2TB drives as stand alone drives.  I thought this was possible, but maybe not.

Lastly, if I go back to "IDE" mode with all single drives, do I need to go back in and delete the RAID configuration?

absic, thanks for the PM, I'll check it out.

[EZDude]

If I may, I'd like your opinions then.

I am almost positive that one of the 2TB WD Green drives is faulted. (it will not come in the BIOS at all, no matter what cables, etc.)

I am going to return this drive, but based on some of the comments here and ones that I read on these forums this morning.  I don't think I want a WD green drive.

I only got the Green drives as they were the only 2TB WD drives I could find on Newegg.  I know WD may have had some issues lately, but I am pretty loyal to them and I want to stick with them.

Should I forego the Greens and go with 1.5TB blacks instead?

standing by for your thoughts (I have nothing better to do, as I continually turn my "NEW" machine on and off again trying to figure this whole problem out, hehe)