Re: Adaptec dpt_i2o SCSI raid card

[Ben Gollmer <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just wanted to chime in on this - I have a box with an Adaptec 2100s 
card as well. I have been very happy with the performance & features 
(probably because it was made by DPT...)

Anyway, Linux support for this product has been non-existent, especially 
as the board was advertised as being 'Linux compatible'. Until recently, 
the DPT I20 drivers were not present on linux.adaptec.com, and the only 
drivers that worked were the ones provided by Adaptec (for RedHat 6.2).

I read somewhere that the kernel team has included I20 drivers that work 
for this card in kernel 2.4.10 and up. I haven't had a chance to try 
this yet...can anyone verify? Also, if you have luck with the old DPT 
drivers, let me know. My box is due for an upgrade, RH 6.2 is getting 
pretty old. I'm tempted to move to FreeBSD (drivers are included with 
the distro), but I really would like to run XFS on this box.

Ben


On Thursday, November 8, 2001, at 05:54 AM, Bryan-TheBS-Smith wrote:

> Joost van der Locht wrote:
> > For Redhat 7.1 is on the website of Adaptec
> > (http://linuix.adaptec.com/linux_raid_unsupported.html) a driver disk
> > available for Redhat 7.1
> > Creating an own driver disk can be done like this (thanks to Richard 
> > Sharpe,
> > sharpe@xxxxxxxxxx)
> > www.cantech.net.au/plug/2001-06/msg00248.html
>
> I hope everyone notes these are DPT's old drivers, which I've used in
> Linux over the years.  Unlike Adaptec, they actually created their
> hardware to an open standard interface (I2O) so one driver could power
> any board, ATA, SCSI, etc...  Too bad DPT has now been consumed by
> Adaptec, which means support is going out the window.
>
> Adaptec themselves are still creating endless, incompatible boards with
> splintering revisions of the same board for OEMs.  Since starting to use
> Linux in 1993 and seeing one board work and another fail with drivers,
> as well as a number under Windows as well, I gave up.  3Ware for
> ATA-RAID, Mylex for SCSI, Advansys/Symbios Logic for plain SCSI, and a
> few select others (e.g., I'll "tolerate" HighPoint's "trick BIOS" ATA
> controller chips since their Linux drivers work well) are all I'll use.
>
> Until Adaptec and Promise get their acts together (not likely since they
> get so much business from their "brand name"), I won't be using their
> products in Linux, or even Windows systems for that matter.  You'd
> figure with their size they'd actually make the best products with the
> best Linux support?  Hardly, both usually lose every benchmark I've seen
> and Linux support for their products has always been a 3rd
> party/community proposition, or increasingly binary only for only select
> products.
>
> Just my $0.02 ...
>
> -- TheBS
>
> --
> Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx   chat:thebs413
> Engineer  AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
> President    SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> * Pentium stop, Pentium SMP go, Athlon MP go ... go very fast! *