sil3112 question

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Eugeny Kuzakov wrote:

> On 7/11/06, Alex Zbyslaw <xfb52 at dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Lowell Gilbert wrote:
>>
>> Er, no, unless I am much mistaken  it doesn't imply that at all (see man
>> ataraid).  FreeBSD handles plenty of "software" (metadata only) RAIDs,
>> though I believe that an archive search will turn up that the sil3112 is
>> possibly the worst such RAID ever and was a poor choice of RAID card,
>> however cheap.  Try google.   SiL are listed among the controllers
>> supported by ataraid on 6.1 so I would expect the RAID to be recognised
>> even if it performed badly.
>
>
>
> Of course you are right in all the points!:( I know it now, at the 
> moment of
> buy I didn't know
> what chip is used  in the Tekram TR-822.. I was very surprised when I see
> chip name...
>
> I don'e think that is the solution worst, but problem is different 
> metadata
> formats in different BIOSes...
> Initially I asked who uses sil3112 and hasn't pronlems:)
>
> Today I will try to update flash bios to some older version, but it's
> designed for linux...
> I hope FreeBSD driver recongnise it's metadata format...
>
> I've not used such a RAID so perhaps some specific action with
>
>> atacontrol is required.
>
>
>
> I see at least two problems:
> 1. If I create raid1 or raid0 using atacontrol create bla-bla-bla then I
> see new device -- ar0.
> After paririoning&labeling I try to newfs it... FreeBSD hungs in same 
> moment
> without any warnings...
> 2. If I create raid1 or raid0 using bios utility of sil3112 then FreeBSD
> driver doesn'y recognise this metadata.
> It's just see disk drives and nothing more....:(
>
You might have more luck with answers to your problems on the hardware 
list, and failing that you could ask sos@ regarding metadata problems.  
Changing the metadata format between BIOS updates seems pretty scummy 
and obviously if FreeBSD expects one format and you have some other 
format, it won't work :-(  However, I believe the sil3112 has problems 
beyond this and is just a bad controller.

Here's a reference from sos@ who wrote the driver and knows what he's 
talking about:  
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2005-January/045274.html

Good luck,

--Alex