GIGABYTE Raid options, please help

[AOXOMOXOA]

Hello kind people,

 

I am waiting for my new GA-H270M-DS3H board to arrive to fix my home built NAS box.

the question I have is about the different kinds of RAID that this board offers and the best one to choose.

 

I am going with RAID 1 Mirroring just to get that out of the way, The question I have is about the setup.

 

The first option is to use the EZ-Raid option,

 

The second option is UEFI RAID Configuration, (Is this the only option that requires loading a separate driver?)

 

The third is Legacy RAID ROM.

 

I'm just not sure which one is the best option. I will be loading server 2012 most likely.

I do not want to have to install an extra driver to see the HDDs like the old days.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

[AOXOMOXOA]

Just to add to this,

 

I want to 2 2 tb drives as raid 1

a single boot drive

and another data drive,

 

only 2 drives will be in the raid array and the other two drives will be alone and separate.

[AOXOMOXOA]

Anyone??

 

[AOXOMOXOA]

well i decided to go with the legacy option, like the old days of hitting Ctrl-i to create the raid.

 

just dont like the idea of a bios reset destroying my raid array.

[Circaflex]

1 hour ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

well i decided to go with the legacy option, like the old days of hitting Ctrl-i to create the raid.

 

just dont like the idea of a bios reset destroying my raid array.

What do you mean a bios reset destroying your raid? As in upgrading your bios? That shouldn't ever happen. I'd like to know more.

[AOXOMOXOA]

I'm talking about this stupid EZ raid that this board has. if the computer has an issue booting 3 times it resets the bios and resets the EZ raid function, and then you have to set it up all over again.

there is nothing easy about that.

 

This is our DATA people nothing is more important.

 

in the olden days of raid controllers on boards it was a separate option from the BIOS, so if your bios settings get lost your raid drives are not affected.

 

the best way to do the raid on this board would be the legacy option that is more like the ways of the early 2000's..

 

 

but even with all of that, once the raid is set up on this board, and then you go to plug in an old data drive,

it then looses the OS on the drive that I just installed windows on,

 

and it has to be re-done.. over and over and over.

 

until i finally sent this crap back and found and MSI board that will do the trick.

 

I will never buy a Gigabyte board again. They used to be a solid product.

but now this is the biggest hunk of crap ever.

 

Trying to do a fancy new bios is something that Gigabyte just cant seam to handle. would have been better with an 12 year old bios.

[T3X4S]

4 minutes ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

I'm talking about this stupid EZ raid that this board has. if the computer has an issue booting 3 times it resets the bios and resets the EZ raid function, and then you have to set it up all over again.

there is nothing easy about that.

 

This is our DATA people nothing is more important.

 

in the olden days of raid controllers on boards it was a separate option from the BIOS, so if your bios settings get lost your raid drives are not affected.

 

the best way to do the raid on this board would be the legacy option that is more like the ways of the early 2000's..

 

 

but even with all of that, once the raid is set up on this board, and then you go to plug in an old data drive,

it then looses the OS on the drive that I just installed windows on,

 

and it has to be re-done.. over and over and over.

 

until i finally sent this crap back and found and MSI board that will do the trick.

 

I will never buy a Gigabyte board again. They used to be a solid product.

but now this is the biggest hunk of crap ever.

 

Trying to do a fancy new bios is something that Gigabyte just cant seam to handle. would have been better with an 12 year old bios.

IMO & I know this doesnt help your questions/concerns at all.   I have always hated Gigabyte.  I always felt they touted questionable tech in lieu of reliability.

[Circaflex]

2 hours ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

I'm talking about this stupid EZ raid that this board has. if the computer has an issue booting 3 times it resets the bios and resets the EZ raid function, and then you have to set it up all over again.

there is nothing easy about that.

 

This is our DATA people nothing is more important.

 

in the olden days of raid controllers on boards it was a separate option from the BIOS, so if your bios settings get lost your raid drives are not affected.

 

the best way to do the raid on this board would be the legacy option that is more like the ways of the early 2000's..

 

 

but even with all of that, once the raid is set up on this board, and then you go to plug in an old data drive,

it then looses the OS on the drive that I just installed windows on,

 

and it has to be re-done.. over and over and over.

 

until i finally sent this crap back and found and MSI board that will do the trick.

 

I will never buy a Gigabyte board again. They used to be a solid product.

but now this is the biggest hunk of crap ever.

 

Trying to do a fancy new bios is something that Gigabyte just cant seam to handle. would have been better with an 12 year old bios.

I am confused, you originally said you use the ctrl i method, which is using the intel raid option; are you saying you did not use that method and instead used the ez raid? If you used the crtl i method, a bios update or reset will not lose the data.

 

 

13 hours ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

well i decided to go with the legacy option, like the old days of hitting Ctrl-i to create the raid.

 

just dont like the idea of a bios reset destroying my raid array.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

5 hours ago, T3X4S said:

IMO & I know this doesnt help your questions/concerns at all.   I have always hated Gigabyte.  I always felt they touted questionable tech in lieu of reliability.

I second this, but I just hate their boards. they're like lower price/preformance than ASRock...

 

I do however have a Gigabyte 750Ti, and it's been OK for the last 2 years I had it.

[adrynalyne]

6 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

I second this, but I just hate their boards. they're like lower price/preformance than ASRock...

 

I do however have a Gigabyte 750Ti, and it's been OK for the last 2 years I had it.

Eh, I doubt their Aurous boards are lower price/performance than Asrock. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

8 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

Eh, I doubt their Aurous boards are lower price/performance than Asrock. 

Their current stuff, no. But if you go back into the 775 days, they are a POS...

 

If you buy their lower grade stuff, that's what you get...

[Circaflex]

Even their 775 was stellar, you have to remember you get what you pay for. Their Ultra Durable line was impressive and held many world records for overclocking during their run. ASRock only recently improved their quality, for the longest time they were low-end boards.

[adrynalyne]

3 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Their current stuff, no. But if you go back into the 775 days, they are a POS...

 

If you buy their lower grade stuff, that's what you get...

Yeah that is true with most manufacturers. 

[xendrome]

Yeah just pointing this out.. ASRock is now pretty high quality... I'd choose ASRock over ASUS or Gigabyte any time now..

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

33 minutes ago, xendrome said:

Yeah just pointing this out.. ASRock is now pretty high quality... I'd choose ASRock over ASUS or Gigabyte any time now..

Well, ASUS used to be good, but they are sort of falling out right now. ASRock used to be lower quality than ASUS. But now, it's flip-flopped.

[AOXOMOXOA]

4 hours ago, Circaflex said:

I am confused, you originally said you use the ctrl i method, which is using the intel raid option; are you saying you did not use that method and instead used the ez raid? If you used the crtl i method, a bios update or reset will not lose the data.

 

 

I did, but I tried all three methods. The Ctrl-I felt more natural to what I am used to with a hardware based raid controller. 

Then installed windows on a different drive.

all was good until i plug in my data drive with all the data that needs to go back on the raid.

 

as soon as i plug that drive in the computer loses the OS, I am telling to boot to the correct drive, and the data drive is not part of the raid, its all hooked up ans set up correctly in the bios.

 

But it wont boot at all, The I have to completely start over with the install of windows, I did this 6 times last night, twice on all 3 RAID methods available on the board.

not to mention that between each time you have to go back through a really bad bios setup and undo the previous raid.

 

when i tried to do a disc copy back to the RAIDED drives the copy program saw the raid drives as two separate drives even though the BIOS said they were mirrored.

 

 

Never have I had this much trouble with a machine and i have been building and repairing computers since the early 90's.

Like 286 and 386 controller card dos days.

 

When I worked in a retail computer repair store during the Y2k days up until 2006 when i went in to the aerospace field.

 Gigabyte boards were not a bad choice, I even still have an AGP Gigabyte test bench to test old DDR memory and its still working, and it has IDE raid that I could still set up to this day and would be rock solid.

 

But nowadays quality has gone down hill. I only bought it because it was cost effective and the only one i could find at the time with raid.

now that i have had more time to look and with the frustration of having to return this I am going with MSI.

 

And then I found a cool site that lists everything i was looking for, if only I found this site first I would be up and running already.

 

 

https://us.hardware.info/category/1/motherboards/products#filter:RY5NT8JAFAD_yztjwmoMTW9CsKFLNbpuycZ42Jam2_jo2w_AFsJ_dyUk3mbmNGcI5PeQgiV7QO27_QgTCLapa0IW-_Rf729qdDARHVPu1CVOVrngoT3yguXrgoIrP4QUdBBL9noKyTBfUbVam6zIHp3C5_G9xzspaZBPbyTzhepb-51JXnLEkg87vRm6hdlYhjnny-OLQD52qMZS7cL8b6bRvjY_5LchTsRgddtEYrdRSM_AZgm7pssEKq_7LaSf8ABfl18

[AOXOMOXOA]

41 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Well, ASUS used to be good, but they are sort of falling out right now. ASRock used to be lower quality than ASUS. But now, it's flip-flopped.

There is no way i would ever believe this, I was working in a retail computer repair shop when ASROCK first hit the market.

They were such crap that I would never even consider buying one. Next to MATSONIC boards and PCCHIPS ASROCK was the works.

 

Of course this was a long time ago but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I have never has any issues with ASUS boards.

 

The computer I'm replacing is still running and its an old ASUS P4P800 rock solid.

 

I realize you said they have flip flopped in terms of quality but I just can't go there.

[xrobwx71]

Does it have room for one of these?  https://www.newegg.com/Controllers-RAID-Cards/SubCategory/ID-410

 

It will run separate from the system and bios.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

16 minutes ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

There is no way i would ever believe this, I was working in a retail computer repair shop when ASROCK first hit the market.

They were such crap that I would never even consider buying one. Next to MATSONIC boards and PCCHIPS ASROCK was the works.

 

Of course this was a long time ago but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I have never has any issues with ASUS boards.

 

The computer I'm replacing is still running and its an old ASUS P4P800 rock solid.

 

I realize you said they have flip flopped in terms of quality but I just can't go there.

I partly agree with you. ASRock is a semi-part of ASUS. (IIRC) They have always been the budget boards. But since their Extreme 3 boards, they've been solid.

 

It's pretty much between ASUS/ASRock/Gigabyte/MSI in the top of the big motherboard world.

 

I never had an issue with ASUS or ASRock. Though I had quarrels with MSI. I had to send their board to them 3 times. After that I was, forget them... I never had a problem with Gigabyte per se, but it does lack quite a bit that the big 2 A's normally has.

[AOXOMOXOA]

Just now, Mindovermaster said:

I partly agree with you. ASRock is a semi-part of ASUS. (IIRC) They have always been the budget boards. But since their Extreme 3 boards, they've been solid.

 

It's pretty much between ASUS/ASRock/Gigabyte/MSI in the top of the big motherboard world.

 

I never had an issue with ASUS or ASRock. Though I had quarrels with MSI. I had to send their board to them 3 times. After that I was, forget them... I never had a problem with Gigabyte per se, but it does lack quite a bit that the big 2 A's normally has.

I have always had good luck with MSI boards, hopefully I will again. I need this project to end.

And then someone showed me this new ZFS filesystem in the FreeNAS.

 

Generally I wanted to stick with a windows server OS, but now im going to go play with this.

 

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

3 minutes ago, AOXOMOXOA said:

I have always had good luck with MSI boards, hopefully I will again. I need this project to end.

And then someone showed me this new ZFS filesystem in the FreeNAS.

 

Generally I wanted to stick with a windows server OS, but now im going to go play with this.

 

 

Yeah, just be careful with ZFS. Make sure you read up on it before you take the plunge.

[Mando]

2 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

Well, ASUS used to be good, but they are sort of falling out right now. ASRock used to be lower quality than ASUS. But now, it's flip-flopped.

my ROG Asus mobo is the mutts nuts with the 7700k (S270 Strix H Gaming) easily hitting 5Ghz if i manually clock it. the H has the enhanced audio setup. Also FYI ASRock havnt been a part of Asus for years mate, they sold it off to Pegatron (in 2010 IIRC)

 

Decent budget to mid range boards, the ASrocks.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Mando

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

1 minute ago, Mando said:

my ROG Asus mobo is the mutts nuts with the 7700k (S270 Strix H Gaming) 

Should've put this out, but I mean the lower class, not the ROG series.

[Mando]

6 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Should've put this out, but I mean the lower class, not the ROG series.

the ROG Strix isnt the full blown ROGs, like the maximus or hero, its the new range replacing the old V-pro series. My Z68 V-pro is still flying with my dad and my old 2600k (6+ years old and still flies), they are the replacement of your sig boards basically, half the price of the proper ROGs. Only brand of motherbaord id take over an Asus gaming would be an EVGA board but they are too expensive in the UK.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Mando

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

41 minutes ago, Mando said:

the ROG Strix isnt the full blown ROGs, like the maximus or hero, its the new range replacing the old V-pro series. My Z68 V-pro is still flying with my dad and my old 2600k (6+ years old and still flies), they are the replacement of your sig boards basically, half the price of the proper ROGs. Only brand of motherbaord id take over an Asus gaming would be an EVGA board but they are too expensive in the UK.

Here too. EVGA boards look cool, but way out of my budget...