[CentOS] SATA controler req

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Philip Gwyn liste-at-artware.qc.ca
|CentOS| <...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for a recomendation for a SATA controlers.  In the range of 4-8
> ports, either PCI or PCIe (for desktop use) and/or PCI-X, PCIe (for server
> use).  I'd especially like it if the Linux driver was already in CentOS or
> easily added.  Everytime I find something interesting, a google search shows up
> either the drivers is for 2.6.30 (ie, not CentOS), someone tried it and it was
> unstable, or it has a proprietary driver.

I did the same search a year ago with similar results.  Additionally,
once you find something that uses an included driver, it turns out
that driver is not especially stable, either.  This seemed to be
especially true for cards supporting command queuing.

The best driver I found was the sata_sil24.  It seemed to offer a good
balance of stability and performance.

> They will be used as JBOD, with mdadm for RAID where I need it.

I'm running the same setup (md software RAID) on CentOS 5.  These $50
four port cards work wonderfully with the sata_sil24 drived included
with CentOS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132017

They only come as PCI.  I never found anything stable enough for me
(which is VERY stable) for PCIe.  Perhaps someone else has found
something good for that slot.

  -- Steve Bonds