[CentOS] CentOS and Marvell SAS/SATA drivers

Mon Mar 7 03:07:03 UTC 2011
Charles Polisher <cpolish at surewest.net>

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> 
> I like Adaptec for price/performance, and good Linux overall
> compatibility (including CentOS). Just don't order those "fell off the
> truck" Taiwan specials that are clearly Adaptec chipsets, but have
> actually had the numbers filed off. 

Adaptec is proud of their "HostRAID" technology that has a spotty
record with Linux compatibility. The manufacturer's descriptions
have led people to mistakenly think they bought a hardware RAID
card when in fact the RAID functions are implemented in software.
This approach has been dubbed "fake RAID". It's not clear to me 
that this is a win compared to using the kernel's software RAID 
features. 

http://www.brentnorris.net/blog/archives/158 tells the sorry tale
of a company whose products used to be a safe bet. The comments
tend to confirm the sad state of affairs.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fakeraid#Firmware.2Fdriver-based_RAID
covers fake RAID.
-- 
Charles Polisher