Re: Which SATA Combos To Consider?
Jeff, I swapped cables and tried 3 different RAM chips, so yep, did that :) Question on that - does the RAM 'matter' as the driver doesn't use it? I.e. is it used by the onboard control logic as cache? Also tried moving the card to different PCI slots, still no luck :( Now that server is my home server running off PATA drives, the SX4 card is sitting gathering dust (as I said) until I get my old PC operational again and can put the card in to re-test. A few people seem to have this problem, so it is definitely worthwhile having a look at, I'd love to have a go just out of my own curiousity. Closest I've been to this kinda programming is interfacing with telephone switches for softphone and ACD functionality, I'm hoping that'll help me get a grasp in the interrupt driven space of hardware! :) All I need is a bit of time ;) :)J Jeff Garzik wrote: On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 10:44:57AM +1000, Johny Ågotnes wrote: Just a quick note on the SX4 Card - I have seen data corruption on hard-drives too in the simplest possible setup, so I'd stay clear of that card until further notice. Mine is sitting in a cupboard right now, awaiting 'someone' (me, if I get some time to learn low-level kernel drivers) debugging the issue. Basically, accessing two drives via this card causes corruption, I had it working ok when I only accessed 1 drive, which is kinda pointless... I've not need about to reproduce this in the lab. Have you tried switching out RAM and cables? Jeff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-ide in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: Which SATA Combos To Consider?
Jeff, I swapped cables and tried 3 different RAM chips, so yep, did that :) Question on that - does the RAM 'matter' as the driver doesn't use it? I.e. is it used by the onboard control logic as cache? Also tried moving the card to different PCI slots, still no luck :( Now that server is my home server running off PATA drives, the SX4 card is sitting gathering dust (as I said) until I get my old PC operational again and can put the card in to re-test. A few people seem to have this problem, so it is definitely worthwhile having a look at, I'd love to have a go just out of my own curiousity. Closest I've been to this kinda programming is interfacing with telephone switches for softphone and ACD functionality, I'm hoping that'll help me get a grasp in the interrupt driven space of hardware! :) All I need is a bit of time ;) :)J Jeff Garzik wrote: On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 10:44:57AM +1000, Johny Ågotnes wrote: Just a quick note on the SX4 Card - I have seen data corruption on hard-drives too in the simplest possible setup, so I'd stay clear of that card until further notice. Mine is sitting in a cupboard right now, awaiting 'someone' (me, if I get some time to learn low-level kernel drivers) debugging the issue. Basically, accessing two drives via this card causes corruption, I had it working ok when I only accessed 1 drive, which is kinda pointless... I've not need about to reproduce this in the lab. Have you tried switching out RAM and cables? Jeff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-ide in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: Which SATA Combos To Consider?
Danny Cox wrote: I've been mostly lurking here for awhile now, just seeing how things are going. I've seen various drives on a blacklist, and various controllers that do this or that well, but have problems doing foo. There also seem to have been a Strange Interaction as well, but that's a fuzzy memory at best. So, my question is: if YOU were to purchase an SATA setup brand new, what would you specify? Which drives, motherboards, and PCI cards would you recommend that just work? I don't even mean work like a Mercedes, by which I mean almost perfection. I mean like a Chevy. I don't mind a little tinkering to get it right, but I want my disk subsystem to be solid thereafter! I've got important stuff here! Like my wife's backup; NEVER lose your wife's backup (shudder)! If SATA isn't ready for consumerdom, I'd like to know that too. This just isn't for Jeff and Bart either. I'd like to hear success stories from those whose systems just hum along all the time! In terms of hardware, AHCI (from Intel/SiS/ULi/others) and Silicon Image 3124 are the best of the current generation of FIS-based SATA-II controllers. With these controllers, ATA controllers are __finally__ as efficient as SCSI controllers have been for years. For SATA-I controllers, I tend to feel that the Promise SATA cards driven by the sata_promise driver are decent. The rest of the SATA-I controllers all pretty much look the same, hardware-wise: Decade-old PATA controller interface with PCI extensions, with further SATA extensions (SATA phy registers). Of these, the only thing that really distinguishes the controllers are (a) MMIO register access, or not, and (b) SATA phy access. Silicon Image 311x, nVidia, ServerWorks non-QDMA, and Vitesse chips do MMIO and offer sata phy access. The only real combination to avoid is Silicon Image 311x + Seagate. 311x is fine with other drives, and Seagate drives are fine with other controllers. Jeff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-ide in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: Which SATA Combos To Consider?
Just a quick note on the SX4 Card - I have seen data corruption on hard-drives too in the simplest possible setup, so I'd stay clear of that card until further notice. Mine is sitting in a cupboard right now, awaiting 'someone' (me, if I get some time to learn low-level kernel drivers) debugging the issue. Basically, accessing two drives via this card causes corruption, I had it working ok when I only accessed 1 drive, which is kinda pointless... :)J Ryan Bourgeois wrote: Danny Cox wrote: I've been mostly lurking here for awhile now, just seeing how things are going. I've seen various drives on a blacklist, and various controllers that do this or that well, but have problems doing foo. There also seem to have been a Strange Interaction as well, but that's a fuzzy memory at best. So, my question is: if YOU were to purchase an SATA setup brand new, what would you specify? Which drives, motherboards, and PCI cards would you recommend that just work? I don't even mean work like a Mercedes, by which I mean almost perfection. I mean like a Chevy. I don't mind a little tinkering to get it right, but I want my disk subsystem to be solid thereafter! I've got important stuff here! Like my wife's backup; NEVER lose your wife's backup (shudder)! If SATA isn't ready for consumerdom, I'd like to know that too. This just isn't for Jeff and Bart either. I'd like to hear success stories from those whose systems just hum along all the time! Thanks in advance! On my file server I run the Highpoint RocketRAID 1640. It's a software RAID five card. Basically it's just a PCI card with two HPT374 chips each with two SATA plugs (a total of four plugs). So it's a no frills PATA card with SATA converters onboard. I run three Western Digital 120gb SATA drives on it with a Linux Software RAID 5 array on them. Aside from the fact that it's a PATA card at heart (so it doesn't use libata), my only complaint is that it's slow. It's stable as a rock, though, I've had no problems with the card or drives. I have a Promise SX4 that I tried. I had those same three drives connected to it, but I was having some problems with the array when I was using it. It had a tendency to corrupt the filesystem, for some reason. I was having other problems at the time, though, so it could be unrelated to the card I was using. If I get time and money I may try and set up an array on the card for testing. Anyways, out of personal preference, I go with Western Digital hard drives. For SATA cards, the Promise TX cards seem pretty reliable. I have an onboard TX2 on my main machine running a WD Raptor. I've had absolutely no problems with it and libata. Or in Windows, for that matter. I haven't used any other cards or drives, so I cannot offer anything in that direction. -Ryan Bourgeois - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-ide in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-ide in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
