SATA Promise TX4 (non-hw-RAID), current status?

Message

Henrik Olsen · Post by **Henrik Olsen** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 9:22 am

I'm about to setup two Gentoo-servers and haven't tried SATA yet, but want to use it now for software RAID arrays on both machines. I haven't planned to put any non-SATA in.

One of the servers needs more than two HDs and I have thought about choosing a PCI Promise SATA150 TX4 (4-channel, non-hw-raid card) to connect with. The motherboard (Via C3M266 doesn't have any SATA connectors).

I've tried to search for the SATA support here in the forums, but couldn't get a clear picture of the current support status.

Can someone help me here?

Does the current liveCD support the SATA controller right away?

If not, what do I do?

paul.lercher · Post by **paul.lercher** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:18 pm

2.6 supports the controller out-of-the-box but does not support RAID.

2.4 does not support the controller but you can install additional modules
offered by Promise (supports RAID). I posted the HowTo in another thread some weeks ago.

HTH

Henrik Olsen · Post by **Henrik Olsen** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:06 pm

Paul: Where do I see that the 2.6 kernel supports the Promise TX4 out-of-the-box?

Is there a place, where I can see a list of supported devices under kernel 2.x?

Does it matter which kernel 2.6 package I choose (gentoo-dev, mm etc.)?

Is the 2.6 branch stable enough to use? For what you ask? For a couple of servers with non-critical functions although disc corruption is not an option, since the data on the RAID arrays are going to be important.

What about experience with EVMS 2.x and the 2.6 kernel branch? I would love to setup the RAID-based file server with evms 2.x, but I got afraid when I read about the initrd modifications that it required...

/Henrik

arcterex · Post by **arcterex** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 9:13 pm

Under the drivers section of the 2.6 config there is a SATA section that has a promise driver in there.

I don't use 2.6 myself, but I have heard many people say it's stable enough for day to day use.

Henrik Olsen · Post by **Henrik Olsen** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:14 am

Can I use an experimental liveCD based on the 2.6 kernel to install Gentoo on a SATA-only system with the Promise TX4 controller?

Do I have to use the 2.6 liveCD to do this?

Will I be able to boot on the SATA discs?

I think libata should interest me, but I'm not fully up-2-date on it's support or whether it's included in the Gentoo kernels and/or liveCDs.

Henrik Olsen · Post by **Henrik Olsen** » Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:45 am

arcterex wrote:Under the drivers section of the 2.6 config there is a SATA section that has a promise driver in there.

I might be blind (sick at the moment), but I cannot find the SATA section in the kernel config menu for gentoo-dev-sources (2.6.0). Any help?

UPDATE: I found it. It was under SCSI device support -> SCSI low level drivers -> Serial ATA (SATA) support (notice that the list is NOT sorted, so I missed it the first time, when I jumped to 's' on the list)

cripwalk · Post by **cripwalk** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 4:33 am

Just a FYI, I have this same promise card and everything did work out of the box with the experimental 2.6 livecd.

Maybe im retarded but I could not get the SATA drive to boot when using grub. I switched over to LILO and it worked like a charm the first time around. So if you happen to have problems using grub, then you should give LILO a try.

SATA Promise TX4 (non-hw-RAID), current status?

SATA Promise TX4 (non-hw-RAID), current status?

Where do I see that 2.6 supports the Promise TX4?

Will a LiveCD based on the 2.6 work?

Where is the SATA support in the 2.6.0 kernel?