Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Joe Blow]

>From: Erik Andersen <andersen@codepoet.org>
>What exactly is needed to get got SATA and PATA support
>comparable to the driver provided by promise?  Would it be
>possible to adapt the existing promise PATA IDE driver to drive
>the PATA port, while the libata Promise driver handles the SATA
>ports.  Or would a new driver be needed?

Is there actually a Promise supplied driver that might work with the 20378 
and PATA drives?  Someone sent me a .zip file with an open source driver 
from Promise dated 02/20/03 but it's for 2.4.x.  I emailed Promise asking if 
there was an update, and they denied it even existed.

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Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Erik Andersen]

On Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 03:10:10AM +0000, Joe Blow wrote:
> >From: Erik Andersen <andersen@codepoet.org>
> >What exactly is needed to get got SATA and PATA support
> >comparable to the driver provided by promise?  Would it be
> >possible to adapt the existing promise PATA IDE driver to drive
> >the PATA port, while the libata Promise driver handles the SATA
> >ports.  Or would a new driver be needed?
> 
> Is there actually a Promise supplied driver that might work with the 20378 
> and PATA drives?  Someone sent me a .zip file with an open source driver 
> from Promise dated 02/20/03 but it's for 2.4.x.  I emailed Promise asking 
> if there was an update, and they denied it even existed.

http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=97&category=driver&os=4
http://www.promise.com/support/file/driver/1_SATALINUXSRC1.00.0.8.zip

 -Erik

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Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Joe Blow]

>No plans.

Curiious:  How come when I disable RAID support in the BIOS and just have it 
<supposedly> act just like a dumb IDE controller, why aren't the drives 
aren't recognized that way?  The BIOS claims it is plugging them in as plain 
IDE drives, or is something still different about this controller, even in 
that mode?

>Using standard kernel drivers, Promise RAID _is_ md.

<confused> I understand what md is, but I don't understand how Promise RAID 
is md.  If I set the controller to RAID in the BIOS, and I configure a RAID 
1 mirror, for example, how is that md?  In this mode, isn't one copy of the 
data being sent to the controller and the controller "intelligence" figures 
out that one copy of the data goes to each drive?  Where is if it were 
providing two drives to the OS, the md driver would have to send two copies 
of the data across the bus, one to each drive?

Perhaps this is a dumb question, but why are these RAID controller companies 
seemingly making this so difficult?  To me it seems like the most logical 
way to design these controllers would be to make them look like standard IDE 
controllers to the system and hide the RAID complexities inside the 
controller intelligence.  The most expensive part of these controllers for 
the manufacturers has to be in providing drivers and support for all the 
different, primarily MS, OSes.  I must be missing something.

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Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Paul Misner]

On Monday 01 December 2003 09:24 pm, Joe Blow wrote:
> >No plans.
>
> Curiious:  How come when I disable RAID support in the BIOS and just have
> it <supposedly> act just like a dumb IDE controller, why aren't the drives
> aren't recognized that way?  The BIOS claims it is plugging them in as
> plain IDE drives, or is something still different about this controller,
> even in that mode?

Under Windows, the Promise driver, that you loaded, assumes that they are 
being used as a RAID controller.  If you unload the driver, you can use the 
two IDE channels as IDE channels under Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

>
> >Using standard kernel drivers, Promise RAID _is_ md.
>
> <confused> I understand what md is, but I don't understand how Promise RAID
> is md.  If I set the controller to RAID in the BIOS, and I configure a RAID
> 1 mirror, for example, how is that md?  In this mode, isn't one copy of the
> data being sent to the controller and the controller "intelligence" figures
> out that one copy of the data goes to each drive?  Where is if it were
> providing two drives to the OS, the md driver would have to send two copies
> of the data across the bus, one to each drive?

Repeat after me... Hardware raid is smart, wonderful, and expensive.  Software 
raid is cheap, the controller card is dumb, and is what people put on 
motherboards, and inexpensive controller cards.

There are two IDE controller channels on the Promise RAID controller card, a 
bios chip, and not much else.  They have no processor.

The bios is only used for booting, since the operating system drivers aren't 
loaded yet.  Once booted, the Windows driver pretends it is a hardware Raid, 
by using software in the driver (I.E. Software Raid).  Linux uses the md 
driver to map access to the of drives, which it makes into a Raid set (I.E. 
Software Raid).

>
> Perhaps this is a dumb question, but why are these RAID controller
> companies seemingly making this so difficult?  To me it seems like the most
> logical way to design these controllers would be to make them look like
> standard IDE controllers to the system and hide the RAID complexities
> inside the controller intelligence.  The most expensive part of these
> controllers for the manufacturers has to be in providing drivers and
> support for all the different, primarily MS, OSes.  I must be missing
> something.

A hardware Raid card is a complete computer, that happens to plug into your 
PCI bus, and it has a software Raid driver.  It frequently costs more than 
the motherboard it is plugged in to.

Paul

Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Joe Blow]

>From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
>
>Nope, libata Promise driver only supports Serial ATA.

Bummer.  Will it ever support PATA?

Is the Promise RAID support noticably faster than using md and a dumb 
ATA/133 controller?

I'm trying to decide now if I should get a couple SATA<>PATA convertors, or 
just get a dumb ATA/133 controller and go that way with md.

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Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Jeff Garzik]

Joe Blow wrote:
> 
>> From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
>>
>> Nope, libata Promise driver only supports Serial ATA.
> 
> 
> Bummer.  Will it ever support PATA?

No plans.


> Is the Promise RAID support noticably faster than using md and a dumb 
> ATA/133 controller?

Using standard kernel drivers, Promise RAID _is_ md.

	Jeff

Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Erik Andersen]

On Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 10:04:42PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Joe Blow wrote:
> >
> >>From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
> >>
> >>Nope, libata Promise driver only supports Serial ATA.
> >
> >
> >Bummer.  Will it ever support PATA?
> 
> No plans.

What exactly is needed to get got SATA and PATA support
comparable to the driver provided by promise?  Would it be
possible to adapt the existing promise PATA IDE driver to drive
the PATA port, while the libata Promise driver handles the SATA
ports.  Or would a new driver be needed?

How would the two drivers share the same PCI device?

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--

Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Jeff Garzik]

Erik Andersen wrote:
> On Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 10:04:42PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
>>Joe Blow wrote:
>>
>>>>From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
>>>>
>>>>Nope, libata Promise driver only supports Serial ATA.
>>>
>>>
>>>Bummer.  Will it ever support PATA?
>>
>>No plans.
> 
> 
> What exactly is needed to get got SATA and PATA support
> comparable to the driver provided by promise?  Would it be
> possible to adapt the existing promise PATA IDE driver to drive
> the PATA port, while the libata Promise driver handles the SATA
> ports.  Or would a new driver be needed?
> 
> How would the two drivers share the same PCI device?

It looks like libata pretty much needs to do PATA, in this case and a 
couple others.  Promise sent me a couple 2037x test cards with a PATA 
port on them, so just now need the time... :)

Getting PATA disks working should be very, very easy.  Getting ATAPI 
devices working requires some libata core hacking, though the ATAPI code 
is mostly there already.

	Jeff

Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Joe Blow]

I have applied the libata patch 1 to kernel 2.6.0-test10.  I can now see the 
PDC RAID controller via the hardware browser, but I can not see any of the 
attatched PATA drives.  (I do not have any SATA drives).

I have tried the controller set to RAID and IDE.  I can not locate the 
attached PATA drives in /proc/ide or /proc/scsi, nor does the hardware 
browser see them.  I #define ATA_VERBOSE_DEBUG and I did not find any 
addtional output in dmesg.

Does this driver not support PATA drives attatched to this controller?

Thanks for any help.

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Re: Promise 20378 + 2.6.0-test10 + libata patch 1

[Jeff Garzik]

Joe Blow wrote:
> 
> I have applied the libata patch 1 to kernel 2.6.0-test10.  I can now see 
> the PDC RAID controller via the hardware browser, but I can not see any 
> of the attatched PATA drives.  (I do not have any SATA drives).
> 
> I have tried the controller set to RAID and IDE.  I can not locate the 
> attached PATA drives in /proc/ide or /proc/scsi, nor does the hardware 
> browser see them.  I #define ATA_VERBOSE_DEBUG and I did not find any 
> addtional output in dmesg.
> 
> Does this driver not support PATA drives attatched to this controller?


Nope, libata Promise driver only supports Serial ATA.

	Jeff