From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Robert Hancock Subject: Re: stable basic 4-port SATA card Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:16:04 -0600 Message-ID: <473BC804.9030008@shaw.ca> References: <473BBDBE.7060208@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from idcmail-mo1so.shaw.ca ([24.71.223.10]:32150 "EHLO pd4mo2so.prod.shaw.ca" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753501AbXKOESW (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:18:22 -0500 Received: from pd4mr1so.prod.shaw.ca (pd4mr1so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.212]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0JRJ00GXK56WQIC0@l-daemon> for linux-ide@vger.kernel.org; Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:16:08 -0700 (MST) Received: from pn2ml6so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.150]) by pd4mr1so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-7.05 (built Sep 5 2006)) with ESMTP id <0JRJ00IOR56U5060@pd4mr1so.prod.shaw.ca> for linux-ide@vger.kernel.org; Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:16:07 -0700 (MST) Received: from [192.168.1.113] ([70.64.130.4]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0JRJ00F3U56TNK50@l-daemon> for linux-ide@vger.kernel.org; Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:16:06 -0700 (MST) In-reply-to: <473BBDBE.7060208@gmail.com> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Tejun Heo Cc: Jeff Breidenbach , linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, Alan Cox , Mikael Pettersson , Jeff Garzik , Mark Lord Tejun Heo wrote: > Jeff Breidenbach wrote: >> I read with interest I. Straford's current trials and tribulations >> with the Promise SATA300 TX4. Do people have a favorite >> alternative to this card that plays well with Linux? I've read the >> chipset compatibility list, but am not sure how to boil that >> information down to an actual buyable SATA controller. >> >> http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-ide@vger.kernel.org/msg12398.html >> http://linux-ata.org/driver-status.html > > It's a sort of a difficult question to answer but I think it'll be nice > to develop a standard answer to this kind of question and put it on > linux-ata.org so that users can choose. It can also hopefully work as > another pressure for vendors to enhance their linux support. > > Anyways, here are what I know. > > * ata_piix: Although it lacks shiny new features (interface limitation), > it should work pretty well. No known serious bugs. > > * ahci: Well supported. Command switching PMP support is merged for > 2.6.24 too. Many (if not most) vendors now use ahci as programming > interface for storage controllers, so ahci driver supports lots of > controllers from many vendors. Bugginess depends on which vendor or > chip you're actually using but in general all are well supported and if > you report a problem, it's very likely to get fixed soon. > > * sata_sil: 3112 chips have problem with early seagate drives but both > 3112 itself and those drives have been discontinued for a long time now. > There are reports of data corruption when 3114 is connected to mobos > with NVidia chipsets. This is still being investigated. If you're on > intel mobo, 3112/3114/3512 should work good. > > * sata_sil24: 3124/3132 chips don't have any outstanding serious > problems. IRQ loss on PCI-X was the only recent serious known problem > but it's fixed now. These chips are pretty advanced and all the > advanced features are supported by Linux including FIS switching PMP > support (will be included in 2.6.24 release); however, there is a known > hardware performance limitation so you can't use full SATA bandwidth > even if you use PMP but it's more than sufficient for most cases and > this chip is my personal favorite. > > * sata_promise: Generally works okay; however there are still some > problems with recent 3Gbps chips. (Mikael, please pitch in) > > * sata_nv: Generally works okay but ADMA support still seems to have > some problems (Robert?). There aren't many in the way of specific known problems that aren't worked around. There was a hotplug issue that was reported (kernel bug 8421), but only seems to happen on a certain revision of MSI Neo4 Platinum board so I suspect it's a board issue. Also there's the ATAPI/>4GB RAM issue that's being debugged. But I haven't seen many reports pointing to driver problems. As far as the poster's question, these controllers are all built into the chipset, so it's not really relevant to their issue.. > > * sata_inic162x: Has half-working driver. We need more info from the > vendor to proceed further. Stay away from it for now. > > * sata_via: Works okay. No known serious problems but the chip is > quirky and not too dependable when errors occur. > > * marvell ones: I don't have much idea. Jeff? Mark? >