sil3114 versus sil3114a

[Brooks Davis]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 09:15:35AM -0400, Gary D. Margiotta wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, Vladimir Konrad wrote:
> 
> >>if you are planning to use the Sil3114 in a raid, I don't recommend it. 
> >>I've
> >>been using it a while, but FreeBSD doesn't support the raid that you 
> >>create
> >>using the bios. Thus, if you're planning to do a dual boot (ie. Windows),
> >>it's a bad idea because you can't use the raid features then. Besides, 
> >>I've
> >>noticed (from using it myself for half a year), that it's stability isn't
> >>really that good.
> >i am not planning using a raid in bios/harware, but raid5 using vinum.
> >
> >so the sil3114 raid is flaky but no raid sata channels are stable?
> >
> >also, are sil3114 and sil3114a both supported? (the one i am thinking of
> >using is sil3114a).
> >
> >>What I propose is to check whether the motherboard has some other raid
> >>controller (i.e. for a NForce4 motherboard, the Nvidia Raid) that is
> >>supported and use that one.
> >
> >this is not on-board chip set but an add-on PCI card (4 port serial
> >ata). basically, i need 4 serial ata ports in an older intel machine and
> >could not find info on a 4 port non-raid sata card supported by FreeBSD.
> >The one i found uses the sil3114a chip set.
> >
> >>If, on the other hand, you don't need raid features, it should work 
> >>without
> >>problems.
> >
> >with the sil3114a chip?
> >
> >vlad
> >
> >ps: i know that the description of the chip set is only different by the
> >letter "a" but in principle the hardware could differ significantly.
> 
> The Silicon Image controllers are some of the worst out there, according 
> to our ATA maintainer, and I have stayed clear of them because of this. 
> If I were you, I would as well, as if the hardware is already marginally 
> supported, it can most likely only get worse.

You're confusing the 3114 with the 3112.  I don't recall any 3114
issues.  They are entierly different beasts.  The big problem here is
that the 3112 is "value" hardware where apparent functionality under
Windows at the lowest possible price is far more important than actually
writing your bits to the disk correctly so people keep building cards
around cheap, bad hardware. :(

-- Brooks

-- 
Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE.
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