[Pc_Support] ServerWorks IIILE SuperMicro 370DLE mdma2?

[Bryan J. Smith]

Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com> wrote:
> I thought it was supposed to do udma2?
> I'm stuck in mdma2.  Is that right?

Probably not.

The OSB4 southbridge is capable of "Ultra33" aka Ultra DMA mode 2
(8MHz DDR @ 16-bit = 33MBps).  This not only which not only provides
a significant speed boost over Multiword DMA mode 2 (8MHz SDR @
16-bit = 16MBps), but more importantly, gives you CRC checking. 
There is _no_ error checking pre-Ultra DMA, which is the #1 reason
why I didn't adopt ATA for hard drives (stuck with SCSI and its
parity checking) until Ultra DMA became available.

There is a newer revision of the OSB4 in the "-SL" editions that
offers improved ATA compatibility.

In all honesty, the ServerWorks ATA and select other peripherals are
rather immature/low-featured.  ServerWorks excels at bridging
peripheral busses/channels (so much so that all current Intel designs
are licensed from them -- especially the ServerWorks designed
E7200/7500 series), but they leave much to be desired in peripherals
before their Intel cross-licensing agreement.

Hence why I use off-chipset controllers for fixed disk storage. 
Although the OSB4 seems to work fine as a Ultra33 controller for
ATAPI optical devices.  I use the Matsushita/Panasonic and LG GSA
DVD-RAM/R drives on them without issues.

Consider a low-cost 3Ware Escalade 7006-2, or try to find an Escalade
6200/6410 (for kernel 2.4 or earlier) or 7200/7000-2/7410/7500-4LP on
eBay.

> nebula:/tmp# hdparm -i /dev/hda
> /dev/hda:
>  Model=Maxtor 6Y120L0, FwRev=YAR41VW0, SerialNo=Y41NK87E
>  Config={ Fixed }
>  RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57
>  BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16,
> MultSect=off
>  CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=240121728
>  IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
>  PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
>  DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
>  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
>  AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
>  Drive conforms to: (null):
>  * signifies the current active mode
> nebula:/tmp# hdparm /dev/hda
> /dev/hda:
>  multcount    =  0 (off)
>  IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
>  unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
>  using_dma    =  1 (on)
>  keepsettings =  0 (off)
>  readonly     =  0 (off)
>  readahead    = 256 (on)
>  geometry     = 65535/16/63, sectors = 240121728, start = 0

Try running this command:  
  hdparm -X66 /dev/hda

The "-X" sets the mode.  64 Ultra DMA +2 mode = 66.  Yes, that looks
wrong, but -X68 is Ultra66 (Ultra DMA mode 4 = 16MHz DDR @ 16-bit =
66MHz).

The OSB4's ATA bus arbitrator does have a _very_large_ "read-ahead"
buffer (128KiB), which is very nice.  Most other ATA logic have only
a small 16 sector (8KiB) readahead.

> Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
> ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override
> with idebus=xx
> SvrWks OSB4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.1
> SvrWks OSB4: chipset revision 0
> SvrWks OSB4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
> ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
> ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
> Probing IDE interface ide0...
> hda: Maxtor 6Y120L0, ATA DISK drive
> ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
> Probing IDE interface ide1...
> hdc: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:282, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
> ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
> nebula:/tmp# lspci
> 0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ServerWorks CNB20LE Host Bridge (rev
> 06)
> 0000:00:00.1 Host bridge: ServerWorks CNB20LE Host Bridge (rev
> 06)
> 0000:00:01.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. ISP1080 SCSI
> Host Adapter (rev 01)
> 0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc.
> MGA 2064W 
> [Millennium] (rev01)
> 0000:00:06.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9
> [Ethernet Pro 100] 
> (rev 08)
> 0000:00:0f.0 ISA bridge: ServerWorks OSB4 South Bridge (rev 51)
> 0000:00:0f.1 IDE interface: ServerWorks OSB4 IDE Controller
> 0000:00:0f.2 USB Controller: ServerWorks OSB4/CSB5 OHCI USB
> Controller (rev 04)
> 0000:01:01.0 RAID bus controller: 3ware Inc 3ware 7000-series
> ATA-RAID (rev 01)

Do you have a spare port on the 3Ware?
If so, then use the disk in JBOD mode on it instead.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------
*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***