Test Motherboard: Intel DP55KG (With RAID Limitations)
We chose an Intel desktop motherboard to look at the storage capabilities of the existing UEFI implementation. The DP55KG was the product Intel provided to the media when it launched its P55 platform, LGA 1156 interface, and the Core i5/i7 processors. It’s a modern solution that takes advantage of all P55 chipset features (and it did well in our recent roundup of $200-$250 motherboards). Intel didn’t spend much effort on the possible visual enhancement to the system configuration menus through UEFI, and left the familiar menu style unchanged. We're OK with this, though, since the platform fully implements UEFI 2.1. Other vendors, such as Asus and MSI, seem to have focused on visual details more than useful features. The board comes with a 16Mb flash EEPROM with support for ACPI 3.0b and the “Platform Innovation Framework for EFI Plug & Play.”
If you connect four hard drives to the ICH10R SATA/300 ports to create a large RAID array, you will run into issues. Although it’s easy to create a large array (we used two 2TB hard drives), you cannot boot from them if you use Intel’s Matrix RAID solution. This isn’t critical today, but larger hard drives are on the way and will create these issues soon. Therefore we decided to use an external storage box from LaCie for our testing. This offers 3TB capacity in RAID 5 mode via one eSATA connection.
UEFI Settings
We switched on the UEFI boot feature in the system setup menu of Intel’s DP55KG.
On-Board RAID: No Support for Bootable Partitions at > 2 TB
Putting several large hard drives into RAID 0 to create a large RAID array will render it useless if you intend to install your OS on that array. Two terabytes is the limit introduced by Intel’s Matrix Storage Manager.
Reducing the size of the array results in it becoming bootable.
Using Intel’s on-board RAID solution does not allow you to create a large partition that could function as a system drive. We needed to switch to a dedicated 2TB+ drive for our testing.
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an yet another reason to dump the whole x86 architecture and start from scratch...
typo on page 5, "this drive can reach up to 8GB maximum capacity with its four bays fully populated." should be 8TB
Would it not be prudent to at least mention Linux being able to support GPT without the actual need for EFI:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-gpt/
Why would you want to boot from a system drive over 2 TB!?
So, this is start of new generation computers. Again I must backup all
software for old machines. What's about compatibility between BIOS and
UEFI? Will UEFI make more secure computers? Anyway,I am glad for this change, we will have better computers...
Not really. Windows XP is still the most widely used operating system after all this time, and it can't work with EFI/UEFI... thus, there hasn't really been a great incentive for hardware vendors to implement it. Besides which, I doubt people have been eagerly anticipating it in droves - not being able to create a bootable partition larger than 2TB is a drawback? The vast majority of users won't need a single bootable partition that large any time soon.
There's no denying that EFI/UEFI provides benefits, but from my point of view they're mostly future benefits... there's just not enough reason to implement it on a large scale right now. Perhaps a few years from today, when W7 is more widely adopted - sure, why not, as it doesn't hurt anything. At the moment? Can't see much justification for it personally, but hey ho - just my thoughts.
Wasn't there an article, in this same website (long before the overhaul), like this years ago?
It got me reading on bios openbios and other stuff but where was it?
I'll give it a few more years I agree with hohum83
apple have been using the efi bios since the introduction of the intel based mac line. i guess it was part of the deal they struck with intel at the time (as intel pioneered the efi solution). booting a mac is a very straight forward process when compared to the pc.
apple are very difficult to work out as they seem to use a lot of "standardised" options such as the linux base underneath os x, the efi boot system, they embraced guid partitions before windows did to name but a few, but then they build "proprietary" system on top of these technologies that they lock down and defend with their lives, so on the one hand they embraced open source ideas and standards, and on the other hand they defend their own i.p. rigorously..
one can only wonder what microsoft would be capable of if they gave in trying to "invent" everything themselves and embrace more open standards giving their huge programming teams more time to write innovative stuff instead of reinventing the wheel over and over so to speak..
MCA = Micro Channel Architecture, surely?