Highpoint 1820A

Highpoint 1820A

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

Hi.

I have struggled with an 1820A for a while, trying to verify it's properly 
functioning and failing. Does anyone have a success story with this card 
under linux?

Quite a long story.

First I download the linux package, flash the controller with the attached 
BIOS, compile the driver etc, everything looks fine. I create the raid, I 
sync it up, write to it, everything looks fine and dandy. Then I pull a 
drive, it's properly detected, I replug it and that's also detected. I 
start a rebuild in the CLI under linux and it starts resyncing. After 
resyuncing the computer just freezes, the very instant after it says 
"rebuild complete". After some contact with support@highpoint I end up 
installing XP and trying it there. I have to reflash into a windows 
BIOS on the 1820A, but then it works perfectly.

I then re-install linux and run the linux driver on the windows BIOS. Now 
it's rebuild properly, but after I try to use the verify command, it says 
"inconsistant" and starts rebuilding again. This can be done three times 
in a row, it never seems to be consistant.

That's my current situation. I am currently trying software RAID5 instead, 
we'll see if that works better.

I would be very happy to hear from anyone with good experience with this 
and their open source driver, and hear what configuration you're using and 
if you had to do anything special.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se

Re: Highpoint 1820A

[Tyler]

Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

>
> Hi.
>
> I have struggled with an 1820A for a while, trying to verify it's 
> properly functioning and failing. Does anyone have a success story 
> with this card under linux?
>
> Quite a long story.
>
> First I download the linux package, flash the controller with the 
> attached BIOS, compile the driver etc, everything looks fine. I create 
> the raid, I sync it up, write to it, everything looks fine and dandy. 
> Then I pull a drive, it's properly detected, I replug it and that's 
> also detected. I start a rebuild in the CLI under linux and it starts 
> resyncing. After resyuncing the computer just freezes, the very 
> instant after it says "rebuild complete". After some contact with 
> support@highpoint I end up installing XP and trying it there. I have 
> to reflash into a windows BIOS on the 1820A, but then it works perfectly.
>
> I then re-install linux and run the linux driver on the windows BIOS. 
> Now it's rebuild properly, but after I try to use the verify command, 
> it says "inconsistant" and starts rebuilding again. This can be done 
> three times in a row, it never seems to be consistant.
>
> That's my current situation. I am currently trying software RAID5 
> instead, we'll see if that works better.
>
> I would be very happy to hear from anyone with good experience with 
> this and their open source driver, and hear what configuration you're 
> using and if you had to do anything special.

You don't provide any details as to what kernel version (and if its 
vanilla or not), what versions of the highpoint driver(s)/programs and 
bioses are you using, if there are any other messages in the system 
logs, what type of raid you are using (raid 1 or 5 since it sounds like 
you are using redundancy (re: hotplug, rebuild, etc)).

Make your story longer :)

Tyler.


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Re: Highpoint 1820A

[Tyler]

Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

>
> Hi.
>
> I have struggled with an 1820A for a while, trying to verify it's 
> properly functioning and failing. Does anyone have a success story 
> with this card under linux?
>
> Quite a long story.
>
> First I download the linux package, flash the controller with the 
> attached BIOS, compile the driver etc, everything looks fine. I create 
> the raid, I sync it up, write to it, everything looks fine and dandy. 
> Then I pull a drive, it's properly detected, I replug it and that's 
> also detected. I start a rebuild in the CLI under linux and it starts 
> resyncing. After resyuncing the computer just freezes, the very 
> instant after it says "rebuild complete". After some contact with 
> support@highpoint I end up installing XP and trying it there. I have 
> to reflash into a windows BIOS on the 1820A, but then it works perfectly.
>
> I then re-install linux and run the linux driver on the windows BIOS. 
> Now it's rebuild properly, but after I try to use the verify command, 
> it says "inconsistant" and starts rebuilding again. This can be done 
> three times in a row, it never seems to be consistant.
>
> That's my current situation. I am currently trying software RAID5 
> instead, we'll see if that works better.
>
> I would be very happy to hear from anyone with good experience with 
> this and their open source driver, and hear what configuration you're 
> using and if you had to do anything special.

I failed to mention it in my last email, but you may want to save 
yourself alot of grief anyways, and just use software raid, chances are 
it will be faster, and doesn't require such finicky drivers and support 
from highpoint or any other company for that matter, as long as there 
are drivers to see the card, and the ports as standard sata/ata ports 
(and possibly some different settings in the cards bios).

Tyler.


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Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
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Re: Highpoint 1820A

[Norman Schmidt]

Tyler schrieb:


> and doesn't require such finicky drivers and support
> from highpoint or any other company for that matter, as long as there 
> are drivers to see the card, and the ports as standard sata/ata ports 
> (and possibly some different settings in the cards bios).

Unfortunately, that isn´t the case, at least the highpoint support,
which I connected in the driver matter, says you need at least their
open source driver (which contains some pre-compiled object code,
anyway) and build a module from it, even to use just the SATA ports
without the hardware raid functionality.

So it doesn´t work without drivers and changing the kernel (at least
that´s what Highpoint thinks).

Norman.

-- 
Norman Schmidt          Institut fuer Physikal. u. Theoret. Chemie
Dipl.-Chem. Univ.       Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet
schmidt@naa.net         Erlangen-Nuernberg
                         IT-Systembetreuer Physikalische Chemie

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Re: Highpoint 1820A

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 556 bytes --]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Norman Schmidt wrote:

> So it doesn´t work without drivers and changing the kernel (at least 
> that´s what Highpoint thinks).

Quite. I had to compile a standard kernel (2.6.11.12 in my case) which I 
tried everything on.

The HPT driver for the 1820A won't compile on 2.6.13 because something was 
depreciated that they're using in their driver.

I wish I knew all this before I bought the unit. The 1820A is a nicely 
priced unit, too bad it doesn't seem to work well under linux.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se

Re: Highpoint 1820A

[Greg Brackley]

"Mikael Abrahamsson" <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote in message 
news:Pine.LNX.4.62.0509170714560.21650@uplift.swm.pp.se...
> functioning and failing. Does anyone have a success story with this card 
> under linux?

I've generally had quite positive experiences with the card under FC3 and 
FC4 x86_64 using Linux software RAID 5 and the OpenBuild driver.  The driver 
has generally been quite good, however it doesn't appear to support SMART 
I/O controls.  I like to monitor SMART parameters so I can swap out disks 
before they catastrophically fail.

I have started using the now GNU licensed Marvell driver [1] with my 1820a. 
I haven't had a chance to benchmark it, however it works and it does support 
SMART I/O controls. It seems to require a full kernel source tree to build. 
I'm using it with FC4 x86_64.

In the future I am looking forward to using the Brett Russ libata Marvell 
driver that is going in the kernel. I haven't tried the PIO only driver.

Greg :-)

[1] http://www.keffective.com/mvsata/