From: Alan Hodgson ahodgson@simkin.ca
Does anyone have any good or bad driver/performance/stability experiences with either: LSI Logic LSIU320 Adaptec 29320ALP-R or (or other current boards using the same driver) in Opteron servers running RHEL 4 or CentOS 4, x86_64? Thanks in advance.
I can't remember if I brought it up on this list, but my permanent home is less than 5 miles from Adaptec's major support center in Orlando. I know several gentlemen who have worked their throughout the years, and many of them have told me the same thing.
If you use Adaptec, use the _retail_ products. The OEM editions have custom firmware and changes, and the Linux drivers are often not guaranteed to work. Indeed I have regularly run into numerous issues with many Adaptec products that have come with servers, even a few of the tier-1 OEMs who ship and support Linux for servers (this is less commonplace in more recent years).
As such, I have always preferred Symbios Logic / LSI Logic products because the overwhelming majority of their products are the same -- either retail or whitebox OEM. I've yet to have an issue with the former Symbios Logic 53c8xx/1xxx products or LSI solutions under Linux.
If you have an OEM or integrator providing you solutions, especially if you have a SLA with them, then by all means, use what they will support. Otherwise I tend to prefer Symbios/LSI products.
-- Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org