Re: SATA drives performance

Scott Marlowe wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Richard Neill <rn214@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
>>> This isn't true.  IBMs IPS series controllers can the checked and
>>> configured via the ipssend utility that works very well in 2.6.x LINUX.
>>>
>> Unfortunately, what we got (in the IBM) was the garbage ServeRaid 8kl card.
>> This one is atrocious - it shipped with a hideous firmware bug. And there is
>> no way to bypass it.
>>
> Can you replace the IBM RAID controller with some other controller?
> Even just a simple 4 or 8 port SATA card with no RAID capability would
> be better than something that locks up.

A replacement would have been nice, however the 8kl is very tightly
integrated with the motherboard and the backplane. We'd have had to buy
a PCI-X card, and then get out the soldering iron to fix the cables.

To be fair, the 8kl is now working OK; also there was a note in the box
mentioning that firmware updates should be applied if available. What I
found unbelievable was that IBM shipped the server to me in a state with
known crashing firmware (a sufficiently bad bug imho to merit a product
recall), and hadn't bothered to flash it themselves in the factory.
Usually BIOS updates are only applied by the end user if there is a
specific issue to fix, and if the product line has been out for years,
but that particular server was only assembled 3 weeks ago, why would one
expect a company of IBM's standing to ship it in that state.

Richard