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Last Review by Cybertinus - posted: 06-06-2006 02:55 PM [ Post a Review ] 


Views: 38923

 It is a good RAID controller. Stable and fast. The installation is a bit tricky though. The README which comes with the driver has an installation howto for you to get is as a kernel module. But a module is useless if you need/want to boot from a RAID array. Then the drivers must be inside the kernel (or you must use an initrd file, I tried it, it didn't work for me). The tutorial below discribes how to get the driver inside the kernel. You need an IDE disk to get to your RAID sets. You need an IDE disk to boot from, because (in my experience) Linux/Grub isn't able to boot from a RAID array (I must try it without a IDE disk, haven't done that, so without it, it might work, I don't know). The only thing that is read from the IDE disk is the kernel. All the rest is read from the RAID set. You also need the kernel source if you want to do this. The installation:
  1. Install the Linuxdistribution of your choise onto the IDE disk
  2. Download the Linux drivers from the Promise website
    3. [*}Extract the drivers in a directory
  3. Buid the drivers with the make command.
  4. Copy the file shasta.o (for a 2.4 kernel) or shasta.ko (for a 2.6 kernel) to drivers/scsi subdir of the kernel-source directory (usually it is /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi, for the rest of the review I assum /usr/src/linux is the directory where the kernel sources are. If you have them in some other directory, you must change /usr/src/linux into the directory you have your kernel sources in.)
  5. Open the file /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/Kconfig
  6. Add after
    depends on SCSI_LASI700 default y
    and before
    config SCSI_SYM53C8XX_2 tristate "SYM53C8XX Version 2 SCSI support" depends on PCI && SCSI
    the following text:
    config SCSI_SHASTA tristate "Promise SuperTrak EX16350/16300/8350/8300 support" depends on PCI && SCSI ---help--- This driver supports Promise SuperTrak EX8350/8300/16350/16300 SATA Storage controller This controller default has RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD support With a new BIOS version you can also have RAID6 support. The new BIOS can be downloaded from http://www.promise.com/ support/download/download2_eng.asp?productID=156&category=all &os=100 If you change the BIOS version, you also must install a new driver version, because the 2.8.x.x versions are not compatible with the new 2.9.x.x versions (2.9 has RAID6 support). The 2.9.0.10 driver is included in this kernel. If you have a 2.8 BIOS in your controller you can do 2 things: 1. Update the BIOS to the new 2.9 release 2. Download the older 2.8 driver from promise.com (the URL is stated above) and extract shasta.c from it. Replace the file /drivers/scsi/shasta.c with the downloaded version. I think it should work (IMPORTANT NOTE: I haven't tested it, I only think and assum this trick will work). The only differences between the different versions of the controller are, that the EXx350 range has a PCI-Express interface. The EXx300 range has a PCI-X interface. The EX16xxx are controllers with 16 SATA ports, the EX8xxx range has 8 SATA ports. If you don't know if you have this hardware, you don't have it. Say Y if you have it, say N otherwise.
  7. Save the file and exit your editor.
  8. Open the file /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/Makefile
  9. Add after
    obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_NSP32) += nsp32.o obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_IPR) += ipr.o obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_IBMVSCSI) += ibmvscsi/
    and before
    obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI) += libata.o ahci.o obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SVW) += libata.o sata_svw.o obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX) += libata.o ata_piix.o
    the following line:
    obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI_SHASTA) += shasta.o
  10. Save the file and exit your editor.
  11. Go to the directory /usr/src/linux and give the command
    make menuconfig
  12. After a while you see a menu. Go to Device Drivers --> SCSI Device support --> SCSI low level drivers. In that list you see the Promise SuperTrack EX16350/1600/8350/8300 driver. Go to it, and press the space-bar as many times as needed, until you see in front of it (if you see < > the driver isn't build into the kernel. If you see your still building it as a module)
  13. Go back to the top menu, and choise the option exit there. Save the new kernel configuration
  14. Then give the command make on the prompt. You're new kernel is created now. This can take a while. On my AMD64 3500+ a complete build takes about 20 minutes.
  15. If the build is done the make program tells you where you can find the new kernel (the location is usualy someting like /usr/src/linux/arch//boot/bzImage). Copy that new kernel to /boot (TIP: DON'T overide your current kernel, but copy it next to it. If you have screwed up somewhere, then you can still boot your old kernel, and you will be able to fix the problem Smile).
  16. Add the new kernel in your bootloader
  17. Reboot your computer, and choose the new kernel
  18. If everything has gone right, then your RAID array's are available at /dev/sd* (/dev/sda for your first array, /dev/sdb for your second, etc., you get the picture Smile).
    19. Because of the rather complicated installation procedure I have given this controller and 8. If it was easier to install, I would have given it a higher number. And to be honest. The hard part of this tutorial I haven't thought of myself. I found it on the internet. So here is the source from which I could create this tutorial. The credit is for the author of that post Smile, all I did was rewriting it from that newgroup post, to this tutorial (and of course: testing it Smile. The source: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypersmal/linux/kernel/0603.1/1878.html

    Rating: 8
Product Details: "Supertrack EX8350" by Cybertinus - posted: 06-06-2006 - Rating: ********* 8.67



  



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