Hi Stuart,
> Who knows, if you don't write much to disk, you
> might be alright for weeks at a time.
i cannot confirm that the AAC problems were related to load.
To the contrary, my impression was that the crashes
caused by my Adaptec AAC 2410-SA occurred at random,
even when there was no load whatsoever on the controller.
Admittedly, i did not attempt any systematic measurements.
> though it's rumoured there's some linux driver
> which works ok with some firmware version
Confirmed.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] $ cd /lib/modules/2.6.11.11/kernel/drivers/scsi/
[EMAIL PROTECTED] $ modinfo aacraid/aacraid.ko
filename: aacraid/aacraid.ko
author: Red Hat Inc and Adaptec
description: Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di,
Adaptec Advanced Raid Products,
and HP NetRAID-4M SCSI driver
license: GPL
version: 1.1.5-2391
vermagic: 2.6.11.11 preempt K6 gcc-3.3
depends: scsi_mod
[...]
This Linux driver which i got directy from an Adaptec engineer
works stably together with firmware 4.2-0 (build 7348).
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uname -a
Linux donnerwolke.usta.de 2.6.11.11 #1 Sat May 28 12:15:09 CEST 2005
i586 GNU/Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uptime
18:28:35 up 44 days, 2:00, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ lsmod | grep aac
aacraid 61728 1
scsi_mod 128200 5 sym53c8xx,scsi_transport_spi,st,sd_mod,aacraid
As far as i understood the Adaptec engineer in charge, the reason
for the stability of this driver is that he went to great lengths
in order to code around various firmware issue, in particular
setting up recovery routines in case something goes seriously
wrong with the controller or disk drive firmware. The driver will
allow up to 120 seconds recovery time (2 minutes!) in such cases.
During those up to two minutes, no SCSI commands will be processed,
but after that time, the machine will continue normal work without
freeze, crash or reboot.
I don't know about the current AAC status under OpenBSD.
Since the AAC crap is at least running without crashing under Linux,
i'm holding my breath and trying not to touch it any more.
Yours,
Ingo
