Hi Samuel, > >I've just purchased a new AMD Ahtlon system, and > got > >with it an Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A as it seemed to > do > >what I wanted. > > > >Unfortunately, this card is not "officially" > supported > >by Adaptec, after emailing their support they only > >tell me "unfortunately it's not supported under > >Linux", yet they have all the Windows drivers. They > >told me the 2400A card (which is many times more > >expensive and has more features than what I need), > is > >supported under Linux and they provide the drivers > for > >it. > > They claim to support 2400A because they wrote an > open source linux > driver for it. The driver is now in the main line > linux kernel. Thus
Do you mean the driver for the 2400A is now in the main line kernel or the driver for the 1200A? > it will just work in future releases of any distro. > This is what good > linux support means!!! Not Promise says "Sure I'll > release a binary > driver, and maybe update every years or so." > Highpoint is at least > much better about providing partial source, and the > ability to use their > cards in a non raided state. Yeah.. I was able to have both drives detected under Linux as JBODs, but I installed the Linux system using the driver disk for the AMD cpu's and a redhat 8 re-install. Worked fine. HPT also have Raid Management software which I also downloaded and installed. This also worked fine and was an exact copy of the raid management software available for windows allowing you to see the raid sets, duplicate them and so on. Quite nice. > >Having googled for information on this card and > Linux, > >I've discovered that the card can be used using the > >HPT370 (HighPoint Technology) driver, since Adaptec > >use that chipset on their card. I obtained the > driver > >from: > > > >http://www.highpoint-tech.com/r100r_down.htm > > > >for Red Hat 8.0 and it works fine. > > > >I'm wondering why Adaptec don't "officially" supply > >this driver themselves??? and don't provide support > >for the card under Linux since it works perfectly > >well. All I need is mirroring facility on the IDE > >drives, so that's all I wanted in the card. The > more > >expensive 2400A (which Adaptec officially support > >under Linux) has all the bells and whistles, has a > >processor on board and supports RAID 5, but I don't > >need those features so don't need that card. > > > >If it wasn't for the HPT driver, I would have got > rid > >of the Adaptec and looked at something else, maybe > a > >Fastrack 100 or similar, whatever is supported > under > >Linux. I don't see the reasoning behind Adaptecs > >decision not to support the 1200A under Linux. > > My contacts with Adaptec lead me to the following > conclusions. > Adaptec wisely views binary drivers as > unmaintainable under linux. As > they can't give you good support they choose not to > do so at all. > This is true of all of their controllers that do > driver based raid. > Such controllers are only supported as in jbod mode > under linux. > Adapter is quick to point out linux has great > software raid support. > > Don't bad mouth Adaptec for it's linux support. Didn't mean to, just tried to understand their decision behind it since I was able to get both the driver and the Raid management software from HPT and get it to work, while Adaptec made no mention of HPT when asking their support, they just said it's not supported. > They said it didn't > work under linux. You were the one that disagreed > with them. They are Yeah true, but they could have said "Michael, you can try generic HPT drivers but these are not supported by Adaptec". > one of the best controller card vendors in terms of > linux support. They I agree, all my SCSI controllers are Adaptec. > don't make promise they can't, or won't keep. Keep > in mind they > couldn't release the driver source for this card > even if they wanted > to. They could have easily done what Highpoint and > Promise do, but they > have higher support standards. > > Promise's linux support is incredibly bad they > claim they support > Linux, but they really only support a handful of > kernels. They don't > provide drivers for newer releases of Red Hat in > timely manner. > Generally you are stuck with a release 6 to 12 > months old. Which has > secuirity holes, and bugs. Heaven help promise's > linux customers when > Promise stops support the fasttrak line. Yeah true again. > > Anyway, if anyone has experience with this card I > do > > >have one query. I'd like to upgrade my kernel from > >2.4.18-14smp which I have on the fresh RH8 install > >(installing the HPT driver upon installation via > the > >driver disk), to the newest 2.4.20-20.8smp, but HPT > >have only got a module for 2.4.20-8smp on their > driver > >disk. > > > >Can I use this module on the newer 2.4.20-20.8smp > by > >just copying the module into the kernel tree for > >2.4.20-20.8smp ? > > > > > > > > No you can't simply use a module compiled for one > kernel on another > kernel. It might work, not work at all, or > gradually corrupt your I tried it and yeah, it didn't work. > data. In theory you can find the partial source > driver below. I don't > remember which chip the adaptec card uses, and can't > check any more. (I > gave the eval cards my adptec rep gave me back.) > > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/372drivers_down.htm > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/371drivers_down.htm > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/374drivers_down.htm It uses the 370, but I found even the 372 works. > >If not, how else can I upgrade the kernel to > >2.4.20-20.8smp while still using the HPT module / > >driver. Note that I have my RAID 1 mirror as the > boot > >drive for Linux. > > You best bet going forward is to stop using the > highpoint binary > driver!!! This problem is going to come up over and > over. You got 2 > choices. > > #1) Use the card in jbod mode and use the linux > software raid driver. > This would reqire a complete reinstall, but will > just work for release > after release of any linux distro, or kernel. Maybe... the last time I tried software raid was under RH 6.2, and it didn't support Raid on the boot drives. This works now with RH8 yes? > #2) Try using the ataraid driver. Which is fairly > complex and not > support in the 2.6 kernel yet. > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ataraid-list > http://www.murty.net/ataraid/main.html Interesting... will this driver work for the 1200A ? has anyone else tried it ? Thanks for your advice Samuel. Michael. http://search.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Search - Looking for more? Try the new Yahoo! Search -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
