From: Harald Finnås

You seem to know what you're talking about,

Seems v. Knows is a whole new ballgame. But I have been deploying SCSI on Linux since 1993 (Advansys, now owned by LSI, was the first vendor to formally support Linux), SCSI RAID on Linux since 1997 (large ICP-Vortex), through 3Ware's original FPGA ASIC designs in the AccelATA and Escalade 5000 series in 1999+.

For a more "concept-level" dissertation on: - Software RAID via OS LDM/LVM - Fake/Free RAID (FRAID) "dumb cards" - Buffering Microcontroller+DRAM intelligent cards - Non-blocking ASIC+SRAM intelligent cards see my article "Dissecting ATA RAID Options in Sys Admin magazine (http://www.samag.com) 2004 April. It's now dated, but the concepts still apply.

One of my friends called me the other day regarding problems with centos installation on 3ware 7810-8 controller.

I have several of that, same model -- 64-bit, 1MB SRAM

According to him the driver loads just fine, he can see AND partition the drive from the console, but the installation program doesn't seem to want to use the array.

The system doesn't dual-boot with Windows, does it? If so, it could be a LDM Disk Label (Dynamic Disc) which kernel 2.4.x supports, but Red Hat Anaconda (which uses GNU Parted/GRUB) does not.

Also, consider upgrading to the latest firmware. If you're booting RH3+ (RHL8/9/FC1, RHEL3), you should be at least release 7.7.x. Otherwise there might be driver-firmware interaction issues.

He says it works like a charm on mdk 9.2 beta. Any tips?

Boot with "linux expert" and hit Alt-F2 and run "fdisk -l /dev/sda".

I haven't looked into the problem yet, and I don't even know what this old controller is. :)

_All_ Escalade 7000/8000 series controllers use the same 64-bit ASIC, FPGA (field programmable) ATA logic and firmware. This includes a 7.5 (was it?) release that added LBA48 (ATA-6) addressing and UDMA Mode 6 (U133) speed support. Again., getting to 7.7.x should be a top priority - the RH3 and, especially, RH4 kernels have drivers that match these much newer 3Ware firmware-driver-3DM releaases.

FYI: For reference: 7400/7800 = 33PCI64 full-length, 64-bit ASIC, 1MB SRAM, 4/8 channel 7410/7810 = as 7400/7800 but *half*-length 7450/7850 = as 7410/7810 but *2MB* 0 wait state SRAM 7500-4/8 = 7450/7850 merely renamed 7500-12 = as 7500-4/8, but with *4MB* SRAM and 12 channels 7506-x = as 7500-x, but 66PCI64 interface (ASIC clock doubled)