Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Tejun Heo]

Hello, guys.

We've been seeing a lot of problems regarding marvell ATA controller
support.  The blame definitely is shared between marvell and libata
developers, but I don't know what to do anymore.

Regrettably, I don't have the time or energy to hunt down chipsets and
documentation myself and no one else, including marvell, seems
interested in it either.  So, I've added general advisement against
marvell ATA chipsets in the ATA wiki page and will continue to advise
against marvell chipsets.

 https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Hardware,_driver_status#Problematic_chipsets

If anyone has _any_ better idea, please share.  As it currently
stands, marvell controllers are the only problematic ones in ATA land
and it would be AWESOME to see it somehow resolved.

Thank you very much.

-- 
tejun

Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Mark Lord]

On 11-06-10 03:00 AM, Tejun Heo wrote:
..
> If anyone has _any_ better idea, please share.  As it currently
> stands, marvell controllers are the only problematic ones in ATA land
> and it would be AWESOME to see it somehow resolved.
..

It's only the Marvell AHCI controllers that are causing grief.
The ones supported by sata_mv are among the very best performing
SATA controllers that work with Linux.

So long as it clarifies that point, then great.
-- 
Mark Lord
Real-Time Remedies Inc.
mlord@pobox.com

Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Tejun Heo]

Hello, Mark.

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 08:19:40AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> On 11-06-10 03:00 AM, Tejun Heo wrote:
> ..
> > If anyone has _any_ better idea, please share.  As it currently
> > stands, marvell controllers are the only problematic ones in ATA land
> > and it would be AWESOME to see it somehow resolved.
> ..
> 
> It's only the Marvell AHCI controllers that are causing grief.
> The ones supported by sata_mv are among the very best performing
> SATA controllers that work with Linux.
> 
> So long as it clarifies that point, then great.

Ah, I was thinking about the mixed PATA/SATA thing when I was writing
"different generations".  I'll clear it up.

Thanks.

-- 
tejun

Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Tim Small]

On 10/06/11 13:19, Mark Lord wrote:
> It's only the Marvell AHCI controllers that are causing grief.
> The ones supported by sata_mv are among the very best performing
> SATA controllers that work with Linux.
>   


It looks to me like Marvell have stopped further development on sata_mv
interface cards - does anyone know if it's the case?  I couldn't find
any SATA3 6GBps, or PCI-e 2.0 chips, so I assumed that Marvell has gone
for ahci or mvsas only for it's current/future product ranges?

That's why I chose the 88SE9123 - as they seemed to offer reasonable
performance/features etc. (albeit single lane PCI express only).

Cheers,

Tim.


-- 
South East Open Source Solutions Limited
Registered in England and Wales with company number 06134732.  
Registered Office: 2 Powell Gardens, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1TQ
VAT number: 900 6633 53  http://seoss.co.uk/ +44-(0)1273-808309

Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Mark Lord]

On 11-06-10 12:05 PM, Tim Small wrote:
>
> It looks to me like Marvell have stopped further development on sata_mv
> interface cards - does anyone know if it's the case?

Those are known as "EDMA" cards.  I don't know that they've "stopped"
anything there -- their latest EDMA chips are still widely used on
boards in the shops today.  And the same core appears in their embedded
products (eg. the plug computers).

But if I were developing new SATA chips, I'd used an industry standard
interface if at all possible: AHCI.

Cheers
-- 
Mark Lord
Real-Time Remedies Inc.
mlord@pobox.com

RE: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Hubert Bailey]

Tim,

The SATA_mv supported devices stopped at SATA 3Gb and either PCI-e G1 or PCI/PCI-X.

The mvSATA supported devices were either SATA 3Gb or SAS/SATA 6Gb.  SATA 3Gb devices were PCI-e G1.  The newer SAS/SATA 6Gb are PCI-e G2.  There are x1, x4, and x8 PCI-e lane widths available.

The newer 88SE91xx parts are AHCI compliant, so no need for 3rd party driver.  Currently these parts are PCI-e G2 x1.  There is a newer version that is sampling that is PCI-e G2 x2.

Hope this helps clears this up.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Small [mailto:tim@seoss.co.uk] 
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 11:05 AM
To: Mark Lord
Cc: Tejun Heo; linux-ide@vger.kernel.org; Jeff Garzik; Saeed Bishara; Hubert Bailey
Subject: Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

On 10/06/11 13:19, Mark Lord wrote:
> It's only the Marvell AHCI controllers that are causing grief.
> The ones supported by sata_mv are among the very best performing SATA 
> controllers that work with Linux.
>   


It looks to me like Marvell have stopped further development on sata_mv interface cards - does anyone know if it's the case?  I couldn't find any SATA3 6GBps, or PCI-e 2.0 chips, so I assumed that Marvell has gone for ahci or mvsas only for it's current/future product ranges?

That's why I chose the 88SE9123 - as they seemed to offer reasonable performance/features etc. (albeit single lane PCI express only).

Cheers,

Tim.


--
South East Open Source Solutions Limited Registered in England and Wales with company number 06134732.  
Registered Office: 2 Powell Gardens, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1TQ VAT number: 900 6633 53  http://seoss.co.uk/ +44-(0)1273-808309


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1382 / Virus Database: 1513/3695 - Release Date: 06/11/11

Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Tejun Heo]

Hello,

This is bz entry for the combined SATA/PATA marvell ahci, which we
never properly supported.

  https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12075

Thanks.

-- 
tejun

RE: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

[Hubert Bailey]

 Tejun,

Removing Saeed and adding Larry.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tejun Heo [mailto:htejun@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Tejun Heo
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 4:57 AM
To: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org; Jeff Garzik; mlord@pobox.com
Cc: Saeed Bishara; Hubert Bailey
Subject: Re: Added advisement against marvell ATA controller in the ATA wiki page

Hello,

This is bz entry for the combined SATA/PATA marvell ahci, which we never properly supported.

  https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12075

Thanks.

--
tejun

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1382 / Virus Database: 1513/3719 - Release Date: 06/22/11