From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark Lord Subject: Re: marvell sata status? Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:09:54 -0500 Message-ID: <495E3C52.9090108@rtr.ca> References: <20090101051038.GD3386@pimb.org> <495CCE0F.7010002@rtr.ca> <20090101184450.GG3386@pimb.org> <20090101194302.GH3386@pimb.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: Received: from rtr.ca ([76.10.145.34]:48954 "EHLO mail.rtr.ca" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753356AbZABQIX (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Jan 2009 11:08:23 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20090101194302.GH3386@pimb.org> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Jody Belka Cc: Justin Piszcz , linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, Jeff Garzik Jody Belka wrote: > On Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 02:11:37PM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote: >> On Thu, 1 Jan 2009, Jody Belka wrote: >>> Cool, I think I'll go for that card then (Adaptec 1430SA). They're >>> x4, so good bandwidth, and i'll use the x16 slots on my board for >>> them. Only need one for now, but two eventually. And they're a good >>> price, at only =C2=A377 each. >> Does the card 'recognize' disks as SATA or do you have to export the= m as=20 >> JBOD? The star tech card allows you to see the sata drives directly. >=20 > Well, it's just fake-raid, so surely you can always see the individua= l drives? > Are there actually cards out there that don't? *boggle* >=20 > Hmm.... ok, checking the Adaptec knowledgebase: >=20 > Q: Can drives be used on an Adaptec RAID controller but not be used a= s > part of a RAID array? >=20 > A: Hard drives attached to an Adaptec RAID controller do not have to = be > configured as an array member to work properly. The RAID controlle= r > will recognize and access single disks. Please refer to your contr= oller > documentation for instructions on accessing drives that are not a = member > of any RAID array.=20 =2E. One caveat with any such cards: the onboard BIOS of many "RAID" cards will scribble over a sector on the drive, to store metadata. Sometimes *even when the drive is not configured as RAID*, and sometimes *even when the drive is explicitly set as JBOD*. The HighPoint RocketRAID cards do this, for example, forcing the end-user to take great care not to include the overwritten sector(s) in any partitions or filesystems. The overwriting happens long before the Linux kernel is ever loaded, and again at each power-on. Cheers