I'm building a new server to go into a colo facility in about six weeks;
the machine will have an Intel motherboard with an ICH5R (although I
won't use the RAID features) and a Promise SATA150 TX4 (no RAID
support). All six SATA ports will have Seagate 160GB Barracuda drives
attached, and I plan on using software RAID-5 and LVM2 on top of the array.
I will be building the system using 2.6.0-test9, so will be using libata
to drive the disks. If there's anything I can help with
debugging/testing the ICH and/or Promise SATA drivers let me know... I
see that recently Jeff posted a small patch for some SATA reset issues
against -test9, so I'll certainly start out with that included.
Kevin P. Fleming wrote:
> I'm building a new server to go into a colo facility in about six weeks;
> the machine will have an Intel motherboard with an ICH5R (although I
> won't use the RAID features) and a Promise SATA150 TX4 (no RAID
> support). All six SATA ports will have Seagate 160GB Barracuda drives
> attached, and I plan on using software RAID-5 and LVM2 on top of the array.
>
> I will be building the system using 2.6.0-test9, so will be using libata
> to drive the disks. If there's anything I can help with
> debugging/testing the ICH and/or Promise SATA drivers let me know... I
> see that recently Jeff posted a small patch for some SATA reset issues
> against -test9, so I'll certainly start out with that included.
The ICH5 should be fine. You may need to twiddle BIOS setup options,
some users have reported that both drivers/ide and libata fail in
certain BIOS modes. "Enhanced - SATA only" is usually the preferred
mode, where feasible.
You need to make sure you get the Promise SATA fixes I just pushed to
Linus. Presumably they will be available in the next 2.6.0-testX BK
snapshot on ftp.kernel.org, tonight or the next night.
Jeff
Jeff Garzik wrote:
> The ICH5 should be fine. You may need to twiddle BIOS setup options,
> some users have reported that both drivers/ide and libata fail in
> certain BIOS modes. "Enhanced - SATA only" is usually the preferred
> mode, where feasible.
I forgot to mention I will not be booting off of any of the SATA disks,
so that should cover the BIOS issues by just ignoring them.
>
> You need to make sure you get the Promise SATA fixes I just pushed to
> Linus. Presumably they will be available in the next 2.6.0-testX BK
> snapshot on ftp.kernel.org, tonight or the next night.
I saw that message; I won't have the hardware until late next week, so
I'll watch to see what happens with the snapshot/-testX situation by then.
I'll have about three weeks to use the machine for "whatever" before I
have to start preparing it for its real purpose, so if there's any
stress tests or anything I else I can run that would be useful let me know.