I have had great success with the Adaptec 2810SA 8-port SATA card. It has hardware RAID, but also lets you access the "array" as JBOD. gabe On Tue, 4 May 2004 AndyLiebman@xxxxxxx wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with an 8-port (or higher) Serial ATA Host > Adapter card? I'm looking for something that will JUST give me access to the > SATA disks, and NOT give me hardware (or pseudo-hardware) RAID. Can anybody > suggest a card that can be used for Linux Software RAID? > > I had great luck with the on-board Silicon Image-based SATA ports that came > on a SuperMicro motherboard. But I need up to 16-ports so I'm going to need > ports on a PCI-X card. > > I have just tried two cards with little success. A 3ware Escolade 8506 and a > new Promise SATA II 150 SX8 card (I got a pre-production sample). I can't get > the 3ware card to show up the individual drives within Linux. I'm now making a > hardware RAID before booting up; hopefully Linux will see that. > > I have a similar problem with the Promise card. The Promise card uses a new > "block device" driver called Carmel. The drives show up in my Kernel log -- see > below -- but because they are just seen as generic devices, I'm told I may > have to create devices with 'mknod' in order to access them. I have no idea how > to do that. Can someone explain the process. I know the "major" number has to > be 160. But how about the minor numbers? And what exactly do I have to enter > for each device? > > I think the Promise card has great promise (no pun intended) for software > RAID. It's relatively cheap (US $250) and doesn't contain any on-board > processing. It's just a host adapter meant for software RAID. But I'm stumped as to how > to get access to the drives. > > By the way, I'm using the 2.6.6 kernel with Mandrake 10. > > Here are my kernel logs: > > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel version 0.8 > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): found 8 > interesting devices > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 0 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 0 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 1 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 1 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 2 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 2 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 3 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 3 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 4 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 4 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 5 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 5 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 6 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 6 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 7 device > 490234752 sectors > May 5 01:00:54 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): port 7 device > "Maxtor 7Y250M0" > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_0: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_1: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_2: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_3: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_4: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_5: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_6: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: /dev/carmel/0_7: unknown partition > table > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: carmel(0000:05:01.0): 8 ports > activated > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: carmel0: pci 0000:05:01.0, ports 8, io > fc400000, irq 96, major 160 > May 5 01:00:55 localhost kernel: SCSI subsystem initialized > > Regards, > Andy Liebman > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
