Sil 3114 RAID controller issues with FreeBSD 5.3 Release AMD-64
Olaf Greve
o.greve at axis.nl
Fri Jan 7 04:16:46 PST 2005
Hi,
A client of mine asked me to install their AMD-64 machine as a MySQL
database server. Totally against my strong suggestion to use a proper
SCSI hardware RAID 10 solution (or at least a hardware SATA RAID
solution), they insist on using the internal Sil 3114 software RAID
controller in RAID 1 mode.
Now, this 'cost reduction' from them backfires, as FreeBSD 5.3 Release
AMD-64 does not properly recognise this controller. First, it locks up
when booting with ACPI enabled (easily fixable by either disabling ACPI
in the BIOS, or by booting without ACPI), then the bootstrap loader
first seemingly does recognise the RAID 1 array (at least it states
something to the effect of "Drive C from BIOS...", but when the
installation CD-ROM has booted, lo and behold! It does not see both
drives as an array, but as separate drives!
I looked around a bit on the Internet, and seemingly this issue started
to occur around mid june last year with FreeBSD 5.3 versions for these
type of Silicon RAID controllers.
Now, of course I am still trying to get my client to do it properly and
forget this el-cheapo RAID solution and simply buy a hardware RAID
controller, but if I can't succeed in convincing them, I'd really like
to enable the RAID array of this controller after all.
Does anyone know how this can be achieved? Is it possible to patch the
device driver once FreeBSD is installed, and somehow get FreeBSD to
build the RAID array?
Thanks in advance, and cheers!
Olafo
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