From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 28 12:30:38 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7DFD1065670 for ; Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:30:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from QMTA09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.96]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC5FD8FC16 for ; Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:30:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from OMTA13.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.52]) by QMTA09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id YA8U1a00117UAYkA9CWeAU; Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:30:38 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([69.181.141.110]) by OMTA13.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id YCWd1a00F2P6wsM8ZCWd6j; Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:30:38 +0000 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=8pif782wAAAA:8 a=QycZ5dHgAAAA:8 a=Z2wRAiUwHsblTQCHHzYA:9 a=H5nHDbAWbaP7aQKuv2L-k9ODvDQA:4 a=EoioJ0NPDVgA:10 a=LY0hPdMaydYA:10 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 69BE5C9419; Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:30:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:30:37 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Adriaan de Groot Message-ID: <20081028123037.GA49386@icarus.home.lan> References: <20081026125017.GA88016@icarus.home.lan> <200810281517.37226.groot@kde.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200810281517.37226.groot@kde.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Cc: Charles Sprickman , freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: PCI-X SATA Card + Server Recommendation X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:30:38 -0000 On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 03:17:36PM +0100, Adriaan de Groot wrote: > [ re-visiting this thread ] > > On Sunday 26 October 2008, Charles Sprickman wrote: > > > Stay away from this card. > > Jeremy, any specific reasons for that? Yes, it's a low-end piece of crap > consumer electronics, but as a straightforward 4-port SATA card it seems to > do well enough. It's just part of ata(4) and one of the ones I've got has > been up for 395 days driving striped mirrored GEOMs under reasonable (but > certainly not high) load. A large number of problems people report to the FreeBSD lists involve Silicon Image controllers. There are confirmed problems within certain models of their SATA controllers which cause silent data corruption and other issues, affecting Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows. See "Product Alerts" below, then try Googling "silicon image corruption". I'm not talking out of my ass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Image If you have one that works, "good for you". :-) But based on the above, I **will NOT** recommend these controllers. I'm not even willing to trust later revisions like the 3124; not catching data corruption during QA/testing is simply unacceptable regardless of what "class" of product it is. I would be very surprised to hear someone advocate use of Silicon Image controllers after reading the above. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |