Silicon Image SiI 3124 and 3132 RAID controllers

[Steve Polyack]

On 03/10/10 15:56, Leslie Jensen wrote:
>
> I'm trying to install FreeBSD 8-RELEASE on a machine with an Abit 
> aw8-max MB. This MB has a built in SiI 3132 RAID controller. I also 
> have an addon card with a SiI 3124 RAID controller.
>
> The problem is that I can see the 2 disks and the RAID1 set that I 
> want to use for the system if I connect the disks to the built in 3132 
> controller. But if I connect the disks to the 3124 controller and 
> create a RAID1 set, only the disks can be seen.
>
> I need to be able to use both controllers because I've got four disks 
> that I want to build a RAID5 set on one of the controllers.
>
> Can anyone shed some light on this. Via Google I've read some articles 
> about these controllers and I'm aware that I might have to rethink 
> because of lacking support for the 3124 controller.
>
> I've read in the ata man page that parameters can be added to 
> /boot/device.hints but I'm not sure how to handle this during 
> installation.
>
> /Leslie
>
>
Are you using the default ata(4) driver that FreeBSD-8 boots with, or 
are you loading the siis(4) module at boot?  If you are using the ata(4) 
driver, you should try enabling the siis(4) driver by placing 
'siis_load="YES"' in /boot/loader.conf.  Beware that the names of your 
disks will transition from ad -> ada and will likely be renumbered as well.

The siis(4) driver overall has a much richer feature set.  I have 
several 3124 controllers which work great with it, but I have never 
tried using the controllers RAID - I simply use them as disk controllers 
and then pool the disks using ZFS.