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  1. #1

    as-1020A, sata, and linux

    recently got an as-1020a from supermicro, and am pleased with the machine entirely, other than the linux support for the onboard sata controller. while it's getting better in 2.6.16/2.6.17 it still spits the occasional error that scares me.

    I know switching to the official 'marvell' driver, or redhat ES or something is an option, but I'm a bit of a stickler, and would rather be able to stick with supported debian kernel confs. it matters enough to me that i'd be willing to shell out for a hardware raid controller (plus the performance boost would be nice). I was reading in here that the 9550sx-4lp won't fit nicely into the machine, which was the card i was considering. Does anyone know of any other similar adapters that will fit in my as-1020a AND that enjoy linux main branch kernel support?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
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    3,872
    9550SX will never fit in there because DIMM slots or CPU heatsink are in the way.

    areca ARC-1110 can fit the low-profile riser slot (component side facing up) nicely. however, you must use "linux dd" to install areca driver for RHEL/ES/WS/CentOS varients.
    C.W. LEE, Apaq Digital Systems
    http://www.apaqdigital.com
    sales@apaqdigital.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    San Francisco, CA
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    1,912
    I believe the AS-1020A has its own zero channel raid controller model - AOC-lpzcr1
    We buy the scsi version of this server moel (as-1020A-8) and we use the aoc-sozcr1 raid card (which is essentially the same, but the other being lowprofile) and it works well for us both linux and windows.

    You can buy this raid controller from acmemicro.com, its a bit difficult to find elsewhere.
    Last edited by Yash-JH; 07-28-2006 at 12:20 AM.
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  4. #4
    thanks for the advice guys. with the zero-channel card, does anyone have experience with it and linux, and specifically whether or not aacraid driver in the current 2.6 kernel supports it? (or if I'm going to have to patch?).

    If it's working reliably for any of you, I may go that way after all.

    one question that demonstrates my ignorance about zero-channel. will i need to continue using the marvell sata drivers _in addition_ to the aacraid drivers? (as the sata I/O with zero-channel is handled on-board i assume). part of my reason for getting hardware raid was to get away from those drivers.
    Last edited by nonent; 07-28-2006 at 01:46 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    3,872
    the only hardware 4-port SATA RAID cards can be supported by 2.6 kernel are 3ware 8506-4LP, Adaptec 2410SA, LSI megaRAID 150-4. they all are first gen SATA RAID cards, meaning performance sucks! all the newer ones such as Areca ARC1110, 3ware 9550SX, Adaptec 2420SA do require non-kernel driver except FC5 which seems to have kernel drivers for everything including the on-board Marvel SATA on AS-1020A-T barebone....
    C.W. LEE, Apaq Digital Systems
    http://www.apaqdigital.com
    sales@apaqdigital.com

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Waco, TX
    Posts
    5,623
    CWL,

    You mean to say this card is not supported?
    http://supermicro.com/products/acces...AOC-LPZCR1.cfm

    We are using the sozcr1 which is the same card in config just a different slot, with CentOS 4.3 with no problems at all.

  7. #7
    Just following this up to say I went ahead and tried the: AOC-LPZCR1 with debian sarge and a backported 2.6.16 kernel (xen kernel actually), and so far it's working superbly with the aacraid drivers. No custom-patching, and very nice results. The only trick at all was that in order to monitor the raid device on amd64 sarge, i had to alien afacli rpm (from dell). install the lib32 libraries, then copy the missing glibc ++ library into /usr/lib32 from the x86 sarge.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Seattle, WA
    Posts
    490
    It's so nice to hear from other Debian users

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