[IMPORTANT] Adaptec no longer supporting iir(4) driver ...

[User Freebsd]

A quick follow up on this email ... please note that I have not, in this 
email, pointed to anything but the iir(4) driver, and, more specifically, 
the GDT controller card ...

I have been using Adaptec products since the early 90's, and, until 
upgrading to FreeBSD 6.x, *never* had a complaint with them ... this email 
was meant to be a 'caveat emptor' for anyone looking to use the iir(4) 
driver, and is not meant to apply to *all* Adaptec cards, as they don't 
all use the iir(4) driver ...

Apologies to all who took this as a broad attack against Adaptec, it was 
not meant as such ...

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, User Freebsd wrote:

>
> 'k, I finally got ahold of someone @ adaptec, and the official word seems to 
> be:
>
> "FreeBSD 6 is not officially supported for the "GDT" based ICP RAID
> controllers. Nevertheless the inbox driver should work."
>
> Great, well, the inbox driver doesn't work with FreeBSD 6.x, and support 
> doesn't exist to get it fixed, mainly since, as most ppl here know, the specs 
> are closed, so even a non-Adaptec person can't do much to fix the problem(s) 
> ...
>
> For those that haven't been following the discussion on this, the iir(4) 
> driver in FreeBSD 6.x appears to have a deadlock issue under medium to heavy 
> load, where the 'blocked' state just continues to rise until file accesses 
> just no longer work ...
>
> So, if you are running a server that is using the iir(4) device driver and 
> are considering upgrading to FreeBSD 6.x and beyond, or are looking to build 
> a new machine using a device that relies on this driver, do so at your own 
> peril ...
>
> Please note that this deadlock issue exists on *both* the ICP Vortex cards, 
> *and* the Intel based RAID controllers ...
>
> If anyone from Adaptec is out there and is actually interested in seeing this 
> problem fixed, *please* let me know ... I have three servers, all three 
> exhibiting this problem, and one of them is fully loaded with the kernel 
> debug stuff so that I can (I think) give you almost *anything* you want in 
> the way of information concerning the problem ...
>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
> Email . scrappy at hub.org                              MSN . scrappy at hub.org
> Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
>

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy at hub.org                              MSN . scrappy at hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664