Serial ATA (SATA) Linux Support

studpenguin · 01-30-2004, 03:10 AM

I thought it would be a simple matter of someone showing me a simple link with the exact little driver program I needed for this:

seagate 80 gig 8MB SATA, MSI delta 6 mb to run

Mandrake 9.2,

but no, no, no,

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...102#post730102

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=135933

Pardon me, but how exactly does one enjoy an operating system that doesn't know it's ass from a hole in the ground, let alone, modern hardware?

studpenguin · 01-30-2004, 03:34 AM

as near as I can tell, 9.2 is still a piece of sh-t with a seagate sata.

No one seems to be able to dispute this fact.

Quote:

Originally posted by coolersites
Just thought I would post an update since it's been a while for me:

Just installed a fresh copy of Mandrake 9.2 (with the default kernel 2.4.22) and the SATA support works out of the box:

[root@localhost root]# hdparm -i /dev/hde

/dev/hde:

Model=ST3120023AS, FwRev=3.01, SerialNo=3KA1FB98
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=234441648
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2:

* signifies the current active mode

******************
[root@localhost root]# hdparm -t -T /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2860 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1430.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 108 MB in 3.02 seconds = 35.76 MB/sec

**********
Good enough for out of the box! Now I am heading off to tweak this properly!

-Aaron

ijg0 · 02-03-2004, 05:31 PM

Has any one managed to get the Silicon Image® Sil 3112A chipset (running mirror raid or just seperate drives) on debian? If so did you use a stock debian kernel-image?

Thanks!

enyawix · 02-04-2004, 01:05 PM

i got it to work using a chroot from a gentoo disk. the debian kernels are too old to support that. you will have to install a kernel by hand

Random Logic · 02-17-2004, 05:07 PM

@ijgo,

Yepp I got the Sil3112A running with a RAID1 setup for a data disk (not /).
Used mdadm to do the raid setup (and cfdisk / sfdisk and mkfs.ext3) on debian testing.

I had a lot of hard lockups when the controller was busy mirroring to the other disk. Only current workaround is to boot with options acpi off and no apic (add append="acpi=off noacpi nolacpi" for your lilo config)

So far it works fine, but speed is still an issue (well it actually is fast, but not as fast as one would expect from the serial ata drives).

AT least the samsung spinpoint are quite as a dead goat.

Cheers

gromer · 02-17-2004, 05:19 PM

I got my Promise 20376 SATA to work under linux 2.6.x under Debian (MoBOA7V8X) as "/" and RAID1 (md0=swap md1=/)
It is actually not that difficult to get 2.6.2 to work (I am a newbie).
Note that the SATA support for VIA and Promise is "hidden" under SCSI something and not were the other IDE driver stuff is located.

jago25_98 · 02-18-2004, 08:20 AM

What's the point in using SATA with drives slower than 120mb/sec?

Do they behave better somehow, like a half-way house to SCSI?

gromer · 02-18-2004, 09:49 AM

A hdparm with my SATA-drivers yields 57 MB/s compared to the only about 30-40 (max!) of my PATA (optimised!!).
Since Maxtor offers SATA-drives with a 24/7-configuration at an affordable price they do in fact serve as "poor man's SCSI"-drives.
Furthermoer the cables are much smaller and can be longer - a nice feature in large server towers.

Regards
Stephan

jago25_98 · 02-18-2004, 11:48 AM

Ah that's good new to hear - what I was hoping.

So what size, make and speed HD is that? I'm hoping to upgrade to S-ATA now, though I'll have to buy a PCI card to use it.

What's the biggest SATA drive available at the moment? I'd like to get the fastest output possible without SCSI basically.

gromer · 02-18-2004, 05:43 PM

I use a Maxtor MaxLine II Plus 250 GB. They are build for 24h 7days a week. They are however not the fastest drives on the market.
Samsung is faster but to my knowledge not build for 24/7.
Either way: Ensure REALLY good cooling (passive alone won't do I guess)

But before you buy a drive, start thinking what U wanna do. Is it going to be a server or a desktop machine?
For a server it would e.g. make sense to buy 4 smaller drives and build an 2 Arrays of RAID 0 with 2 drives and make a RAID 1 (mirror) out of both.
NOte that if yu have many clients using different drives for the total capacity will increase overall performance (since two or more drives can search for different data simultaneously.)
For a desktop one big drive might be better (or 2 if you look for performabce via RAID 0 or security via RAID 1)

Regards
Stephan

etegration · 02-21-2004, 10:44 AM

anyone tried successfully run RAID 1 with 2 x Western D. Raptors on a P4P800 and with Redhat 9 installed? P4P800 uses ICH5R

Thetargos · 02-21-2004, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by etegration
anyone tried successfully run RAID 1 with 2 x Western D. Raptors on a P4P800 and with Redhat 9 installed? P4P800 uses ICH5R

It'd depend on the Kernel version.

enyawix · 02-23-2004, 11:46 AM

The Western D. Raptors are not true S-ATA. the only true S-ATA are the seagate drivers. The Raptor is a P-ATA drive with a chip to make it do S-ATA. As of 2.6.3 intel S-ATA raid is not working.

fobius · 02-23-2004, 05:29 PM

how have SATA drives using a silicon image chipset PCI card been holding up in 2.6.3? is it worth an upgrade?

ajkrishock · 03-01-2004, 12:58 AM

Hello..

I have Red Hat 9 installed in a RAID-0 configuration using the onboard SIImage SATA RAID controller (sii3112). I used the driver provided on Silicon Image's site. It's not easy top find it though.. you have to go to their homepage (http://www.siimage.com) and search for "drivers". Then, click "Downloads" on the left frame. They're well hidden.

e-mail me at ajkrishock@hotmail.com if you need more help.

Regards

Tony