Adaptec 2810SA SATA RAID with FC3

[Randy]

Hello,
    I have installed an adaptec 2410SA back in late October.  It had the 
latest BIOS at the time, 7244.  It works perfectly well in the initial FC3 
kernel using the aacraid module, but the updated FC3 kernel locks up at 
intervals of under two days.  I know it has something to do with the card 
driver, because an IDENTICAL setup (same board, even the same case) without 
the raid controller works with the newest kernel just fine.
    I also found that I had to put a small 4cm fan in the case about six 
inches from the card, or it would lock up if it had been very active for 
15-20 minutes.  The additional air flow around the raid card fixed the problem.

    That's all I know about setting one of these up in Fedora Core 
3.  Other than that, it just worked.  Do you know if there's any reason to 
update beyond the 7244 kernel?  The adaptec site says the new BIOS has 
somewhat better performance, but I have to make a TOTAL backup, flash the 
card, then wipe & rebuild the array!  The network interface is only 
100Mbps, so whether the array can fill 200% or 300% of the interface 
bandwidth doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. :-)  And it's a lot 
of work to wipe & rebuild the array & re-load everything.  Unless there are 
some other stability fixes or something else very useful, I'll probably 
wait until FC4 to do this.  Around that time I should be able to upgrade to 
a board with gigabit ethernet.

Regards,
Randy

At 05:11 PM 12/23/2004, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I am working on getting a RAID 5 array (5 x 150GB SATA drives) up and 
>running under FC3. In my initial attempt, the array built and verified 
>with no problem, and I was able to complete a FC3 install with everything 
>working. I came back to the office this morning to continue working on it, 
>performed a reboot, and received a degraded array message. I tested the 
>drive in question independently and found nothing wrong with it, and after 
>a bit more sleuthing it looks like there's a newer BIOS for the Adaptec 
>2810SA card that fixes some problems that may lead to this (specifically, 
>a SATA RAID degrading after reboot on an Intel server board, in this case 
>an Intel SE7520AF2).
>
>Adaptec has provided drivers for the new BIOS (7348) for RedHat, so my 
>question is, can I install, use, or otherwise modify these to get them 
>working under FC3? My understanding of the new BIOS is that it changes 
>some things and will not work with the standard drivers; FC3 picked up the 
>card with no problem when I installed it the first time, but I am not sure 
>if there is a specific driver or just a generic one (since the 2810SA card 
>is a full hardware implementation, unlike some of the lesser Adaptec cards).
>
>I am still learning my way around Linux, although this is my first foray 
>into drivers, RAID and such.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Shane
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