On 8/1/2012 6:43 PM, Stirling Westrup wrote: > On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Stirling Westrup <swestrup@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 5:24 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> On 7/28/2012 6:41 PM, Stirling Westrup wrote: >>> >>>> Okay, it looks like its a known hardware chipset problem, and was >>>> first reported 6-months ago. >>>> >>>> It affects all PCI cards in Asus Sandy-Bridge Motherboards. No known >>>> fix as of yet. >>>> >>>> https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/1/30/216 >>> >>> At least our discussion got you looking in multiple directions, one of >>> which led you to this information. >>> >>> Given the problem is related to legacy PCI INTx sharing/routing, whether >>> on the PCI or PCIe bus, I'd recommend you step up to a high quality PCIe >>> x8 SAS/SATA HBA, such as the LSI 9211-8i PCIe x8, which supports MSI-X >>> and should instantly solve your problem. >>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118112 >>> >>> You'll need two breakout cables: >>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116098 >>> >>> This solution will set you back almost $300 USD. I just did some >>> research on the Syba 4 port SiI 3124 PCIe x1 card. The SiI 3124 is a >>> native PCI/X chip, thus the board uses a PCI-X to PCIe bridge chip which >>> hides under the large heatsink. Thus this card will not work, as it >>> uses legacy PCI interrupts: >>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124027 >>> >>> I also looked at the Syba and Adaptec Marvell PCIe x1 SATAII 4 port >>> cards. While the Marvell chip is native PCIe I'm unable to confirm it >>> supports MSI/X. And given these cards run $80-90, that's $160-180 for >>> two of them. The LSI above is pretty much guaranteed to work for ~$100 >>> more. What's your reputation with your client worth? >>> >>> Speaking of which, don't even look at the $110 8 port Supermicro >>> SAS/SATA controller. It uses the Marvell SAS chip. Although the chip >>> itself is fine and works with Windows, the Linux driver *will* eat your >>> data, all the way up to kernel 3.4. I've personally rectified this >>> situation for a half dozen users who bought this SM SAS board on price >>> alone. I converted them all to LSI HBAs and no problems since. The >>> solution cost them 2-3x as much but they're all happy because it simply >>> works reliably, and fast. >>> >>> Or you can start swapping $150+ motherboards until you find one that >>> works with those $20 Syba 3114 cards. But then you need to ask >>> yourself, how much is your time worth. You could easily burn 20 or more >>> hours going that route. >>> >>> Get the LSI and be done with this. >>> >> >> The above sounds like excellent advice, and you have saved me several >> hours of perusing catalogs trying to figure out what to buy to replace >> the two SiI cards. I greatly appreciate the help, and I have sent off >> an order to NewEgg for the LSI board and cables. >> > > Just wanted to let everyone know that the new hardware arrived > yesterday, and today my two raid's finished rebuilding without any > problems at all, and at a fair bit higher speed than before. > > So, thanks for all your help, in getting my backup system operational. That's great to hear Stirling. Glad it's working well. Coincidentally, an OP posted today to the LInux-RAID list that he was getting silent data corruption, again, from his second set of cheapo cards, first Syba, then Rosewill. I gave him the same advice. When one spends more on a couple of large pizzas or a case of beer than on one's disk controller...need I say more? -- Stan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
