> However, the latest C7 server I built, ran into problems with them on > on a Intel C236 board (SuperMicro X11SSH) with tons of "ata bus error > write fpdma queued". Googling on it threw up old suggestions to limit > SATA link speed to 1.5Gbps using libata.force boot options and/or > noncq. Lowering the link speed helped to reduce the frequency of the > errors (from not getting a smartctl output to getting a complete > listing within 2 tries). > I discovered, amidst great initial pain, that most, if not all, of the problems I had with SATA disks were caused by SATA cables and not by the disks themselves. Intermittent problems, such as disks randomly not showing up in RAID groups, were solved when I replaced the cables with proper ones. Some of the bad cables even came from well known names.