Avtar Gill wrote:
> <SNIP Michael's part, sorry Michael>
> Just out of curiosity, could you please offer more details regarding
> your experience with the 3ware SATA card? Which model, what type of
> RAID array and which operating system.
I'd also like to note that Linux support for a particular card may not
guarantee that it will function well.
I found that my 3ware 9500S (SATA) would crash randomly if I put it in a
motherboard with a Via chipset. After discussing this with a collegue I
found that this was a noted problem when combining these two types of
hardware. 3ware cards do not seem to be well tested on Via chipsets.
This forced my server upgrade to a motherboard with an Intel chipset and
I've experienced no crashes since.
The drivers for the Via chipsets in MS Windows come with many bugfixes
to compensate for their hardware. I remember corresponding with Vojtech
Pavlik on the Linux kernel team a few years ago about some issues with
the Via chipsets. Turned out the issues I asked him about always had a
fix waiting in the queue for the next kernel release. They kept finding
new issues to fix with Via.
So, I've found it best to avoid motherboards with that chipset due to
the issues with the 3ware card and also the older issues with the
chipset bugs.
So, if something doesn't work, it may not merely be an issue with the
distro or the kernel.
Hope this helps,
Shawn M. Jones
