Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:13:07 -0800 From: Jeremy Chadwick <jdc@koitsu.org> To: Michael BlackHeart <amdmiek@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Old ICH7 SATA-2 question Message-ID: <20130224001307.GA43436@icarus.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <CA%2BAz77NHoPc2DoyQDUQQRtbLWrDndmRp91BfjTz7Gfk35r4d5g@mail.gmail.com> References: <CA%2BAz77OiEauxDK_73NgZgbJCk0HHfmALywS4ZQ3KwQiiuyGDiQ@mail.gmail.com> <20130223211932.GA41809@icarus.home.lan> <CA%2BAz77NHoPc2DoyQDUQQRtbLWrDndmRp91BfjTz7Gfk35r4d5g@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 02:28:08AM +0400, Michael BlackHeart wrote:
> 2013/2/24 Jeremy Chadwick <jdc@koitsu.org>:
>
> {snipping irrelevant stuff and fixing formatting}
>
> atapci1@pci0:0:31:2: class=0x01018f card=0x26011043 chip=0x27c08086 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
> vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
> device = 'N10/ICH7 Family SATA IDE Controller'
>
> {snip}
I had written up a significantly longer reply to this Email, but once I
finished and went back reviewing the information provided, my memory
recalled having this exact conversation some time ago. After some
extensive digging, I found it -- circa late 2008:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-October/046306.html
The result of this conversation was that FreeBSD at the time -- this
would have been probably FreeBSD 8.0 or 8.1 -- contained a bug:
ata_chipset.c (part of the classic ata(4) driver) was misidentifying the
different revisions of ICH7 and therefore limiting controller capacities
incorrectly.
Possibly a regression has been introduced as a result of the ATA-via-CAM
migration (now the default), which uses a completely different set of
code.
All the PCI IDs shown (particularly class and chip) play a huge role in
this.
I will try to review the relevant kernel bits to see if that's the case
today. I may have to review the Linux kernel code for a comparison as
well; sigh.
While I fully believe mistakes/bugs/regressions should be fixed, I'm not
sure how much time/effort should be put into this one. The ICH7 was
RTM'd in early 2007, and most people using ICH7 controllers that lack
AHCI are probably not going to be using disks that can exceed SATA150
interface speed.
If there are people out there using, for example, SSDs on an ICH7 in
non-AHCI mode, it would be good to know and get "pciconf -lvbc" output
(specifically the entry for their ATA/SATA controller). But as with all
publicly released operating systems, most Requests For Feedback are
ignored, things are then changed, and only afterwards do people crawl
out of their hobbit holes and speak up. :-)
> And can you recommend any good HDD performance test?
"diskinfo -t" is your best choice.
But none of your disks (even the WD20EARX) are going to reach throughput
rates that exceed SATA150 interface speed. You would need an SSD or
similar device to exceed it.
--
| Jeremy Chadwick jdc@koitsu.org |
| UNIX Systems Administrator http://jdc.koitsu.org/ |
| Mountain View, CA, US |
| Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP 4BD6C0CB |
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