Re: SAS disk from RAID card (no RAID mode) problems

[Thomas Fjellstrom <thomas@fjellstrom.ca>]

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 12:09:52 PM MST Joe Landman wrote:
> On 12/27/2016 11:57 AM, IW News wrote:
> > On 27/12/16 17:12, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 8:53:07 AM MST IW News wrote:
> >>> On 26/12/16 22:25, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> >>>> On Friday, December 23, 2016 9:01:40 AM MST IW News wrote:
> >>>>> Hello,
> 
> [...]
> 
> >>>>> If thats the mvsas driver, god help you. I had nothing but
> >>>>> troubles with
> >>>> 
> >>>> it
> >>>> for a good year or two or possibly more and it was never fixed or
> >>>> really
> >>>> acknowledged, so I sold that card (a supermicro aoc-saslp-mv8) and
> >>>> picked
> >>>> up a IBM m1015 (LSI 9211-8i a-like) and haven't looked back.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Basically it would reset a lot, and lock up. AND I believe it
> >>>> caused a lot
> >>>> of silent corruption as well.
> >>> 
> >>> Hi,
> >>> 
> >>> So there is no support for the mvsas driver?
> >>> 
> >>> The controller is integrated in the motherboard. I could by a PCIe one
> >>> but, what's the deal them?
> >>> 
> >>> Thank you.
> >>> 
> >>> Iñigo.
> >> 
> >> I don't know that there isn't support, there has been commits to that
> >> driver
> >> pretty regularly even when i was having problems. I just found there
> >> was no
> >> support for my particular chipset. I hope you fare better than I did.
> >> Contact
> >> linux-scsi as was suggested, maybe they can help.
> > 
> > I already contacted. No answer.
> > 
> > Maybe there is no mvsas developer active there now.
> 
> mvsas support under Linux is terrible.   I know you probably don't want
> to hear this, but get another card.   Someone recommended an LSI9211
> card.  Past experience with those have been spotty.  They are cheap, but
> I'd recommend a 9207-8i.  Costs a little more, but generally works very
> well.
> 
> Again, if you are using an mvsas based card, you should expect problems
> and data corruption.  If you use the 9207, it should work nicely.
> 
> The windows world has all sorts of workarounds for wonky cards/chipsets
> in their drivers.  Generally, if the driver is not actively supported in
> linux and up to date, you are likely going to have problems.  If others
> are reporting problems (google "mvsas problems in linux" if you want to
> see how long people have been having problems with the cards), stay far
> away from it.

I had hoped things improved :( when I was having problems with my mvsas based 
card, there was someone making commits to the code from marvell and I got some 
kind of response once or twice, but stopped replying and problems were never 
fixed.

I however haven't had any real issues with my dirt cheap ($50-100) IBM M1015 
cards (I have three). A lot of people have had good results with them. 
Technically its a 9220, which is quite similar to a 9211, but has some slight 
differences.

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
thomas@fjellstrom.ca