>>>>> "dl" == Derrick Lobo <derrick%givex.com@localhost> writes:
dl> Thanks Silas I will enable write cache. The controller has
dl> software raid, and that why I was told it does not support
dl> write cache through BIOS..
AIUI LSI 1068 has 0/1/1+0 RAID support and no write cache, while LSI
1078 (ex PERC) has onboard DRAM, RAID5 support, optional battery
backup unit and write cache to both speed things up and plug the RAID5
write hole.
However this doesn't agree with Silas's experience because he said his
106?E card has a write cache.
so...this is mainly a warning, ``watch out ymmv!''
These cards have a pretty big proprietary blob running on the CPU on
the card itself. They also have different firmwares you can burn on
there like IR, IT, and one more kind that I forget. I've heard of
people determining what kind of firmware they have but not of people
changing to a different kind.
Finally some have DRM in the firmware to enable some extra RAID modes
if you buy an iButton (supermicro) or some other kind of
smartcard-like thing to unlock extra firmware features. My 1068E has
a DRM iButton slot. never bothered to figure out what it's for.
They are really common OEM parts, high-performance, and confusing.
I'm using supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i under Solaris. not sure if it works
under NetBSD, but it is mpt and is lsi1068e. It's really cheap but
there's a catch (other than that it might not work with NetBSD): it's
a PCIe card with the bracket installed backwards so that it only fits
in a purpose-specific slot in Supermicro cases. You can remove the
bracket and use the card normally---it has boot BIOS and everything.
some older motherboards will only take video cards in the PCIe 16x
slot. The one I got stuck with would actually accept the supermicro
card in the PCIe 16x slot, but only after a motherboard BIOS update,
and even then it still refuses to run the boot ROM on the card. In
other motherboards the same card and its boot ROM work fine.
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