From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jul 9 16:03:30 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD5B616A4DA for ; Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:03:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jiashiun@gmail.com) Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com (ug-out-1314.google.com [66.249.92.168]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F08443D45 for ; Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:03:29 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jiashiun@gmail.com) Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id e2so490997ugf for ; Sun, 09 Jul 2006 09:03:28 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=sCL1VOHyMoLCt4C/RIDrGs/PUtAsJO+PZd6dtTee/XKhqGxYX7pVPZ1lrKA7uO/mx3zioLYRVODWIPrLsPZfXc48IFoCbiXJOikjUgMYCANGGLKev6Czh2WW8t8SyIwwCy04Ek2o6j75CnHvWrOfHWfQ0guZHpLUKMzn756Fb+4= Received: by 10.78.136.7 with SMTP id j7mr1362613hud; Sun, 09 Jul 2006 09:03:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.78.120.3 with HTTP; Sun, 9 Jul 2006 09:03:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <1d6d20bc0607090903v77007d5erc432ef0345484628@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:03:28 +0800 From: "Jia-Shiun Li" To: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren_Schmidt?=" In-Reply-To: <44AE23B6.7000607@freebsd.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <10fd06c60607051802jd9d6158ufd3406465cc64dfc@mail.gmail.com> <20060706195504.GA1252@freebie.xs4all.nl> <44AD7FF9.8010405@samsco.org> <20060706230808.GA55294@megan.kiwi-computer.com> <44AE23B6.7000607@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, rick-freebsd@kiwi-computer.com Subject: Re: SATA300 Controllers X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 16:03:30 -0000 On 7/7/06, S=F8ren Schmidt wrote: > Rick C. Petty wrote: > > I'm using a few "Promise PDC40718 SATA300 controller" with identical > > SATA300 drives and it seems to work well. My only gripe is the channel= s > > are misnumbered: > > port #1 maps to channel 3 > > port #2 maps to channel 1 > > port #3 maps to channel 0 > > port #4 maps to channel 2 > > > > I had to use the serial numbers to make sure I was writing on the corre= ct > > drives, so that was annoying. > > > Actually its the channel numbering printed on the card thats flawed, it > doesn't match the physical channel numbers that the chip uses (and hence > ATA channel numbers). > I have no idea why they did that on some of their controllers, but I > suspect historical reasons as they older controllers had the physical > connectors in that order (3 1 0 2), but the guy that did the silkscreen > layout probably ordered them "nicely" at some point :) Maybe they did it in order to be pin-compatible with older 20318 and 40518. On SATA150 TX4 (which used 20318) chip is directly connected to ports in parallel circuits but labeled in correct order (4, 2, 1, 3). On SATAII150 TX4 (40518) instead they 'worked around' switching the order in BIOS, windows and linux driver, and label the same ports as (1, 2, 3, 4). I did not know if this make any sense, since they sells most add-on cards with their own brand. Changing the board layout would be a lot easier and eliminate confusions. But if any OEM customers use these chips and did not notice odd channel order, it could be the only way to be backward 'compatible'. ;) In contrast it would be inconvenient to unofficial driver vendors like FreeBSD, which has a generic architecture for all ATA derivatives. Jia-Shiun.