Penalty of using unsupported ServerWorks GC-SL chipset?

[Doug White]

On Thu, 27 May 2004, Vasenin Alexander aka BlackSir wrote:

> What penalty of using Tyan motherboard on unsupported ServerWorks
> chipset GC-SL? I found a message in freebsd-questions: Benjamin Thelen
> wrote that he tried using GC-SL and unable to use DMA on ATA. It's not
> my case - on MB I intrested there is a Promise 20270 RAID controller
> onboard, that supported (I asked Soren Schmidt). I apologise that there
> can be problems with USB,PCI or some other things. Damn, HP,
> Fujitsu-Siemens and some local companies using only GC-SL for low-cost
> 1U server solutions :-(

You again? :)

There are known issues with the ServerWorks ROSB4 southbridge and data
loss when run in DMA modes.  I think ROSB5 forces simplex mode so you
don't get as good a benefit as you would from a full-fledged ATA
controller.

But that is why the ATA RAID controller is on the board :-)  The ROSB[45]
were designed for CDROMs, not system disks (IMHO).

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite at gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org