Recommended SATA controller?

Recommended SATA controller?

[Arve Knudsen]

Hi

As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved anytime 
soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA controller. Can 
anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller that's known to work 
well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is imperative, I just had a solid 
freeze and I'm afraid it might have to do with disk activity (playing MP3s 
while compiling). Might Promise (Ultra 150) or Adaptect (1210 SA) be worth 
considering?

Thanks

Arve Knudsen

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[Stefan Smietanowski]

Arve Knudsen wrote:

> Hi
> 
> As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved anytime 
> soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA controller. Can 
> anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller that's known to 
> work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is imperative, I just had a 
> solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to do with disk activity 
> (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise (Ultra 150) or Adaptect 
> (1210 SA) be worth considering?

I sent a list the other day about my harddrives dieing on me and after
following up my search I came across that there is some kind of either
driver or hardware error on the VIA 8237 controller's SATA part, but
ONLY if you run it in "DISK" mode. It works fine in "RAID" mode.

I can't give you specifics on what works or doesn't as I've only tried
2.4 so far but the promise one seems to work fine for me in 2.4 right
now.

So stay away from the 8237 in case you decide to get a motherboard with
SATA on instead (not much more expensive really than getting a seperate
SATA PCI card.

// Stefan

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[Stefan Smietanowski]

Stefan Smietanowski wrote:

> Arve Knudsen wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>>
>> As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved 
>> anytime soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA 
>> controller. Can anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller 
>> that's known to work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is 
>> imperative, I just had a solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to 
>> do with disk activity (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise 
>> (Ultra 150) or Adaptect (1210 SA) be worth considering?
> 
> 
> I sent a list the other day about my harddrives dieing on me and after
> following up my search I came across that there is some kind of either
> driver or hardware error on the VIA 8237 controller's SATA part, but
> ONLY if you run it in "DISK" mode. It works fine in "RAID" mode.
> 
> I can't give you specifics on what works or doesn't as I've only tried
> 2.4 so far but the promise one seems to work fine for me in 2.4 right
> now.
> 
> So stay away from the 8237 in case you decide to get a motherboard with
> SATA on instead (not much more expensive really than getting a seperate
> SATA PCI card.

Specifically three identical hard drives died on me in case you missed
the email, all in the same way. Low level formatting them cured two
but not the third. It is being RMA'd as we speak.

The problem is not only with Maxtor harddrives (as it was with me) but
with all brands. Drives that have died that I have read about are
WD, Maxtor and Seagate. I can't remember if Hitachi was on the list or
not but I wouldn't touch Hitachi (ex-IBM) with a 10 foot pole so that's
why I don't remember. Many people have seen the same problem as I did.
Some could use powermax to lowlevel the drive and some couldn't.
Using a different controller with the lowlevel formatted drive seems
to work for others as it does for me.

// Stefan

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Arve Knudsen wrote:
> Hi
> 
> As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved anytime 
> soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA controller. Can 
> anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller that's known to 
> work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is imperative, I just had a 
> solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to do with disk activity 
> (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise (Ultra 150) or Adaptect 
> (1210 SA) be worth considering?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Arve Knudsen

The SATA controller on the ICH5 chips seems to work fine here. I have an 
ABIT IC7-G motherboard with SATA controller on the ICH5 chip, all built 
into the motherboard.

Cheers
James

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz]

Hi.

On Monday 08 of March 2004 00:24, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> Arve Knudsen wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved anytime
> > soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA controller. Can

Which driver are you refferring to (siimage.c or sil_sata.c?).
They can't be improved because of lack of chipset errata info from SiI
(available under NDA only).

> > anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller that's known to
> > work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is imperative, I just had a
> > solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to do with disk activity
> > (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise (Ultra 150) or Adaptect
> > (1210 SA) be worth considering?

Adaptec 1210SA is using Silicon Image chipset.
I haven't heard about problems with Promise chipsets.

> > Thanks
> >
> > Arve Knudsen
>
> The SATA controller on the ICH5 chips seems to work fine here. I have an
> ABIT IC7-G motherboard with SATA controller on the ICH5 chip, all built
> into the motherboard.

Unfortunately Athlon motherboards with ICH5 are very hard to find. ;-)
[ Silicon Image commonly is used on nForce2 motherboards ]

Regards,
Bartlomiej

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[Arve Knudsen]

On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 01:18:52 +0100, Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz 
<B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl> wrote:

>
> Hi.
>
> On Monday 08 of March 2004 00:24, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>> Arve Knudsen wrote:
>> > Hi
>> >
>> > As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved 
>> anytime
>> > soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA controller. Can
>
> Which driver are you refferring to (siimage.c or sil_sata.c?).
> They can't be improved because of lack of chipset errata info from SiI
> (available under NDA only).
I'm using siimage.c; I'm not blaiming developers, I've simply come to 
terms with the situation not improving in the foreseeable future.

>> > anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller that's known to
>> > work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is imperative, I just 
>> had a
>> > solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to do with disk activity
>> > (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise (Ultra 150) or Adaptect
>> > (1210 SA) be worth considering?
>
> Adaptec 1210SA is using Silicon Image chipset.
> I haven't heard about problems with Promise chipsets.
The Promise alternative seems like the best alternative right now, 
googling indicates people are having success with it on Linux. Its not 
very expensive either, I think I will hold off on a motherboard purchase 
untill I (probably) upgrade to A64 this summer.

>> > Thanks
>> >
>> > Arve Knudsen
>>
>> The SATA controller on the ICH5 chips seems to work fine here. I have an
>> ABIT IC7-G motherboard with SATA controller on the ICH5 chip, all built
>> into the motherboard.
>
> Unfortunately Athlon motherboards with ICH5 are very hard to find. ;-)
> [ Silicon Image commonly is used on nForce2 motherboards ]
I have an nForce2 board, yes.

> Regards,
> Bartlomiej
>

Again thanks

Arve Knudsen

Re: Recommended SATA controller?

[Arve Knudsen]

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 22:32:48 +0100, Stefan Smietanowski 
<stesmi@stesmi.com> wrote:

> Stefan Smietanowski wrote:
>
>> Arve Knudsen wrote:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> As it seems the Silicon Image driver won't be radically improved 
>>> anytime soon(?), I'm thinking of purchasing a dedicated SATA 
>>> controller. Can anyone recommend me a fairly cheap 2-port controller 
>>> that's known to work well with Linux (2.6-series)? Stability is 
>>> imperative, I just had a solid freeze and I'm afraid it might have to 
>>> do with disk activity (playing MP3s while compiling). Might Promise 
>>> (Ultra 150) or Adaptect (1210 SA) be worth considering?
>>
>>
>> I sent a list the other day about my harddrives dieing on me and after
>> following up my search I came across that there is some kind of either
>> driver or hardware error on the VIA 8237 controller's SATA part, but
>> ONLY if you run it in "DISK" mode. It works fine in "RAID" mode.
>>
>> I can't give you specifics on what works or doesn't as I've only tried
>> 2.4 so far but the promise one seems to work fine for me in 2.4 right
>> now.
>>
>> So stay away from the 8237 in case you decide to get a motherboard with
>> SATA on instead (not much more expensive really than getting a seperate
>> SATA PCI card.
>
> Specifically three identical hard drives died on me in case you missed
> the email, all in the same way. Low level formatting them cured two
> but not the third. It is being RMA'd as we speak.
>
> The problem is not only with Maxtor harddrives (as it was with me) but
> with all brands. Drives that have died that I have read about are
> WD, Maxtor and Seagate. I can't remember if Hitachi was on the list or
> not but I wouldn't touch Hitachi (ex-IBM) with a 10 foot pole so that's
> why I don't remember. Many people have seen the same problem as I did.
> Some could use powermax to lowlevel the drive and some couldn't.
> Using a different controller with the lowlevel formatted drive seems
> to work for others as it does for me.
This sounds ugly indeed, I never quite trusted VIA (I have an nVidia based 
board right now). If I recall correctly, there was a corruption issue with 
VIA ATA controllers in the past? I think I'll go with a separate Promise 
card, its difficult to find a cheap mobo with anything but Via or SiI SATA 
anyway.

Regards

Arve Knudsen