Adaptec Supporting Ultra160 On IA-64 Linux

GeorgieBoy writes: "Adaptec has announced support for Ultra160 SCSI adapters under Intel 64-bit Linux. Looks like IA-64 Linux will be pretty well supported upon Itanium's arrival." There already are SCSI adapters for the (also 64-bit) Alpha under Linux, but this move sounds like a smart one for Adaptec to tie their name to both Linux and IA-64. Other companies planning pre-emptive hardware support? Step right up, please.

Comments

Ultra 160/m - not needed for the desktop anyway.

[paled]

Even with a pair of Quantum Atlas V drives (27 MB/sec write rate), I doubt that any real performance gains will be measured running at 160 MB/sec burst rate over 80 MB/sec (U2W).
Now, when you've got a RAID 0 stripe 4 drives deep, that might show some potential for improvement.

So this one is definitely for the server room.

Those new IBM drives with up to a 16 MB cache - if you have 16 MB cache on each drive, plus 64 MB cache on the RAID controller, then the 80 MB/sec is potentially rate-limiting.

So - how many months until Ultra 4 320/m SCSI?

Paul

Feh. Adaptec is full of talk

[noop]

This is nonsense. Adaptec has this all backwards. They should be writing drivers for linux now. Or they should at least do a better job of helping developers work with their cards. The linux aic7xxx driver runs basically every newer adaptec card, and some on-motherboard chipsets. Currently it doesn't support target mode. Target mode is needed to run IP-over-SCSI (Rfc 2143). I and others have repeatedly emailed and called adaptec, attempting to get documentation so we could work on it. Adaptec was no help.

They should think about becoming more like Advansys who actually provide kernel tuning advice.
Or perhaps Symbios who have programming guides and real datasheets for much of their stuff.
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Basically Adaptec should spend some of it's time thinking about the customer now, not the the customer in a year that they are trying to create.
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