Re: eSATA and NetBSD

[Giles Lean <giles.lean%pobox.com@localhost>]

Klaus Heinz <k.heinz%dezacht.kh-22.de@localhost> wrote:

> It looks like there are PCI-cards (I do not have PCI-Express) based on
> Silicon Image and Promise chipsets.  Any cards/chipsets people are
> satisfied with or anything I should avoid like the plague?

I have used PCI satalink based cards with success (NetBSD-4.0/i386), but
have not seen any with a proper eSATA port: those that have an
"external" port that I've seen have been using an internal connector.

I'd advise a card with only internal ports and use of a bracket with a
proper eSATA connector if you do need eSATA.  (There were plenty on
eBay last time I looked, mostly from Hong Kong.)

I also tried a Via card; the NetBSD driver panicked immediately. I don't
know if it was a hardware problem or software (probably software) but I
didn't get to look into it before deploying something else that worked.

No experience with Promise cards.

Giles

cpu0 at mainbus0: (uniprocessor)
cpu0: Intel Pentium III (686-class), 863.92 MHz, id 0x686
...
satalink0 at pci1 dev 9 function 0
satalink0: Silicon Image SATALink 3512 (rev. 0x01)
satalink0: SATALink BA5 register space disabled
satalink0: bus-master DMA support present
satalink0: primary channel wired to native-PCI mode
satalink0: using irq 9 for native-PCI interrupt
atabus0 at satalink0 channel 0
satalink0: secondary channel wired to native-PCI mode
atabus1 at satalink0 channel 1
satalink0: port 0: device present, speed: 1.5Gb/s
wd0 at atabus0 drive 0satalink0: port 1: device present, speed: 1.5Gb/s
: <WDC WD5000AAKS-00TMA0>
wd0: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA48 addressing
wd0: 465 GB, 969021 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 976773168 sectors
wd0: 32-bit data port
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 6 (Ultra/133)
wd0(satalink0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 6 (Ultra/133) (using DMA)
wd1 at atabus1 drive 0: <WDC WD5000AAKS-00TMA0>
wd1: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA48 addressing
wd1: 465 GB, 969021 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 976773168 sectors
wd1: 32-bit data port
wd1: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 6 (Ultra/133)
wd1(satalink0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 6 (Ultra/133) (using DMA)