Recently there was a post to Slashdot about a Podcast called “We Hate Tech” in which two guys (supposedly tech support) rant and rave about tech stuff.
I listened to a couple of the ‘casts and just never really got into it. It was a lot of bitching without a lot of content as to why. I have decided to do this in my own style, and I hope to avoid the baseless bitching while still telling people why not to use something.
We recently purchased a Adaptec SATA II RAID card model number 1420SA. Everywhere that this was marketed, it was listed as a “Hardware Raid” card, which we took to mean that it actually did RAID in hardware. Turns out that the cards has what Adaptec laughingly calls “HostRAID”. We didn’t know at the time how HostRAID got its name, but turns out it is really descriptive. They call it HostRAID, because the damn host machine does the RAID, not the card. They are selling SATA controllers that simulate hardware RAID, by moving the software RAID into the driver and out of the OS’s control. How is it ok for them to market this as a hardware RAID solution?
Add that to the fact that all the OSes that they support already support software RAID and I don’t really see the point of this product unless it is to just bilk the consumers out of money for something they think they are getting and they aren’t.
The list of non Windows operating systems that they do support is meager at best and only includes versions that are at least a year old. The support is also tied specifically to one version of the kernel, so if you want to update your kernel to fix security issues you are screwed as well.
They don’t even have support for 64 bit Windows. I mean come on. All the new CPUs people are getting are 64 bit and they can’t even be bothered to keep up with that change.
I wrote them to ask if there was any possibility of support for something else and they were less than helpful. Here is the email exchanges:
From Me:
Create-date : 08/31/05 08:29:53
OS : Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4.x
Problem : 08/31/05 08:29:53 ardev1
Are there any Fedora Core Drivers in the works for this card. I need
to get it up with Fedora Core 4. Thanks.
Their Solution (?):
Webmail Solution : 08/31/05 08:50:02 mal23095
Greetings from Adaptec,Unfortunately, we do not support Fedora Core and currently there are no plans to do so. Since this card is also based on Host RAID technology, there is no source code available. If you need a card that will work in Fedora core we would recommend one or our regular sata or SCSI raid cards such as the 2410 (SATA) or 2120 (SCSI). There are no drivers for these cards in Fedora Core, but the source code is available for users to compile a driver for their particular O/S.
Thank you for contacting Adaptec Technical Support
My Response to that:
I don’t need the HostRAID functionality. When my boss purchased this we didn’t know that HostRAID just stood for junk software RAID. I will be using the builtin Linux software RAID now, BUT I DO need this card to run the drives. The SATA Card that you suggested DOES NOT work for me because we specifically purchased this card and drives to get the SATA II support. I understand that you don’t SUPPORT Fedora Core, but building the driver for EL3 is not that different from building the driver for FC4. Is it not possible to actually provide something for your PAYING customers that they need? I cannot believe that your solution to the problem is to either A) lose the money that we paid for this card, and purchase another card from your company at $350+ or B) change the operating system that I am using and start using a OLDER version that I have to PAY for to get it to work, especially when they are based on the same baseline sytem.
I can tell you that I personally have NO plans to purchase ANY more hardware from Adaptec and I will advise all the technology departments that I can to also follow this plan. To expect me to advise the purchase of another card from a company that obviously doesn’t care to help its customers is insane.
Their final reply:
We’ve made note of your concerns, unfortunately, there just isn’t any support for Fedora Core on this card. The closest we can come are the 2410 and 2120 cards even if we don’t provide a driver of our own.
Adaptec Technical Support
Then I get a customer satisfaction survey in email to fill out. I did fill it out even though I am sure it will get sent to the scrap heap. How is it that companies have gotten so out of control that they can just screw their customers over and nothing seems to slow them down? Adaptec used to mean that you were getting decent hardware. Now our latest server came with an Adaptec SCSI Raid Controller and lo and behold it uses this HostRAID bullshit too.
Adaptec makes crap hardware anymore.
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Is this lack of support caused by the open source community not using copyrighted function code within their operating systems?
No that lack of support is because Adaptec is too lazy. They are compiling for a specific kernel version, but their code probably requires little change for other versions, but because their code is closed source and they are the only ones that can compile it, it is only available for the versions they compile it for. Which are really limited.
Make no mistake if they were to install a FC4 box and put their code on it, I bet it would take less than an hour to get their code to compile. The kernel versions are only two minor versions apart and thus there are little to no API changes in them.
I’ve had this EXACT problem with National Instruments. Our engineering group uses these PCI GPIB cards made by them, and they -only- have kernel modules for EL3. You recall me trying to get it to work with CentOS and WhiteBox.
Amusingly, our email responses from NI looked identical to the ones you posted above. Why do I get the feeling that these messages are all originating from some outsourced tech response company in Bangalore?!
So yeah… Adaptec AND National Instruments SUCK! C’mon Google! Index this.
heheheh 🙂
I so read that last part as,
“Hey Google…. INDEX THIS!!!” with a crotch grab at the end. I had stop laughing for a minute to realize what you were really saying.
Hey, I like your version better! I wish I had thought of it myself!
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i got the same problem, i also bought one of those crapy card and can’t get it to work in my gentoo linux ,
the card seems to have a marvell chip, but i have mailed them to and they aren’t willing to proivde any driver or support either
Greets
Jeroen
have a look at this: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/9/3/94
Well its been indexed , i was just wondering what the hell was wrong with this on board raid card. at least i didnt waste days find out … i will not bother using the raid option
This article just keeps getting picked up.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#adaptec-1420sa
First time I have heard it called scathing.
There is “Highly Experimental” non proprietary support for Linux in the kernel-2.6.15-rc5. I just got it running, we’ll see how stable it is. If it is stable than this could be considered a budget PCI-X 4-port SATA card.
There are also proprietary drivers for this card. You may want to have a look at these links:
http://www.edoceo.com/liber/marvell-sata.php
http://www.keffective.com/mvsata/FC3
http://www.linuxaa.com/ftopic11962.html
This is all good stuff and I am glad that everyone is posting here. I knew that eventually the card would be supported in Linux.
The point of this more than anything though is that this card is marketed as a RAID card, and it isn’t even close.
Adaptec talks like they have Linux support, but they don’t and when you ask them for it they tell you to spend more money on a worse card that doesn’t do what you want.
I think it is great that the Linux community is working around this lackluster support, but it is bad that a company can lie about things so much and still sell stuff.
I should defenitivly read this before buying it :(.
Thanks to Brent for this article, and to Mike for the links,
I ll give a try to the vanilla-2.6.15.
damn!damn! why do I find these kind of articles only after I bought the controller? 🙁
on 2 identical systems ( one with the controller, one without) the raid enabled disk performance is about 10 slower than the non-raid! Whereupon I became uneasy. So I searched on “adaptec 1420sa slow”, this site came up.
some expletives followed !
What’s the use of this card, as the os can do the same!
and this HOSTRaid stuff, the same BS as Microsoft invented with hostbased printers.
Once again it’s proven: trust someone and they’ll cheat you.
Brent, Could you not get a hyperlink on the adaptec page to warn off the next sucker like me?
Somebody need a new 1420sa card?
Sorry man. I wish there was something more I can do. I have posted the info that I have. I guess if I could get more people to link to this it would crawl its way up in the google rank.
I think it is pretty dumb that Adaptec can get away with stuff like this and I would be interested in causing them some fiscal damage for it if there was some way to do that. Is there any chance that you could return the card? If you can make sure to tell them the reason.
Also anyone who might read this and have it affect your buying choice, please post a quick comment. With the hits that I get for searches like “Adaptec 1420SA Linux” and stuff like that, Adaptec has to at least of ran across this page before. If they start to see a big long list of people who aren’t buying their junk because of it, maybe they will change their plans.
I was also duped into thinking the 1420sa was a true hardware raid card. It honestly should be marketed as an expensive sata controller, not an affordable sata raid controller. I usually use 3ware sata 8006-2 controllers as they are supported by all modern linux distro’s and cost about the same as the 1420sa/1410sa, unfortunately Monarch computer only offered adaptec cards with this particular server series.
This will be the last Adaptec card I purchase, as of now, 3ware has 100% of my raid adapter business.
I also recently bought such a card and had excacly the same troubles. (they support rh enterprise 4 oh that means they will prolly support fedora core 4 also)
however while snooping around i found this page http://tinyurl.com/yjkq77
which has the interesting wording:
“There may be additional files included for some operating systems that are not officially supported such as United Linux, CENTOS and Fedora Core. These are provided for your convenience.”
i’m now downloading the file, so i’m not sure if fedora core drivers are on it. but as they say, there “MAY” be drivers yet.
Thanks for posting this info.
I nearly brought one but will look for something better now.
Hi guys,
Just thought you might like to know, the latest release of the 2.6 kernel 2.6.16 works great with this card. Have just got FC4 up and running after messing around with older kernels for ages! I too bought the card before reading this 🙁
2.6.15 worked but hung when the drives were connected. Go on upgrade ya kernels and enjoy sata speed 🙂
Rich
Nice, but Itried and it didn’t work. How did you made it work?
I’ve been mucking around with this for hours trying to get it to install in a Debian Sarge system. I found the source on the Adaptec website – I can’t for the life of me get it to compile. It seems that there are build dependencies that point to SuSE config info. Now I have to figure out how to return the damn thing to buy.com.
has anyone been successful with doing hot-plugging with this card ??
i am also greatly dissapointed that adaptec made such a crap…hopefully at least hot-plug works ??
Sai, sorry I can’t answer this for you or any of the other questions that are in this thread. The one and only card that I have is in production on a Windows machine now and I can’t test anything on it. Hopefully, so of the other people in this thread will be able to help or there will be some more drive by posters that might be able to.
I also wanted to thank everyone for posting something here. I hope that other people that are finding this thread are getting something out of it that might help them with this POS card that adaptec put out. The sad thing is that I am sure Adaptec doesn’t even care as they have already bilked the customers with this card and are moving on to make a newer junk card that they will try to get people to buy by conning them into thinking it has features it doesn’t.
That seems to be the way companies work now days. Make a product. Sort of support it for a couple months and then move on to something else, leaving the customers to fend for their own.
oh well…
i hope someone else can help me on this issue ?
It’s just a minute or 2 to check if hot-plug works or not
regards
Okay, a very sh!t RAID card. I spent two days with finding drivers for Red hat Enterprise 3 to set up hard raid. I don’t know this is a fake raid card. So ….thnks for all !
Doing some research on getting a fake RAID controller working under FC4, and I stumbled across this link.
It’s not just Adaptec, man. A lot of companies are going this route.
The sad part is when a (non-technical) purchasing person sees a RAID card for $50, they think they’ve found the buy of the century.
And good luck trying to convince them otherwise.
“It *SAYS* RAID, doesn’t it?!”
*shudder*
Expecting the 1420sa to be as cheap as it is while still providing hardware RAID is not unreasonable since it’s RAID 0/1, not 5. There is no parity calculation/engine required so they should be able to make it this cheap, right?
I’m running 2.6.16-1.2122_FC5 and when the machine starts up it still sees the component drives instead of the mirrored array. I thought 2.6.16 was supposed to have this fixed?
I haven’t been able to try. My card is in a Windows machine and I refuse to buy another one of these. I guess if Adaptec sends me one, maybe I will take the time to see if it works. Other than that, this page stands as my desire to see adaptec lose sales on this card.
Bought one of these for a home Linux server..big mistake. Regular freezes and hangs, eventually after 5 rebuilds I tracked the problem down to this card. Bit the bullit and spend the extra to buy a 3ware controller, what a differnce.
My advice …avoid the 1420SA like the plague.
Not only Adaptec is guilty of this deceptive marketing, our company recently bought several IBM x346 servers which contain IBM ServeRAID (7e). Having good experience with IBM’s “ips” driver which is built into many distro’s it seemed like a good idea since we only needed RAID1. Turns out ServeRAID is the same as Adaptec HostRAID… proprietary driver “a320raid”.
This system is SLES9-certified and IBM and Novell-supported so I took advantage of this when a kernel update caused the machine not to boot (since the driver is shipped separately). It seems the policy is that driver-updates will be shipped for “Service Pack” releases but not for security-update kernels. Basically if you’re using this machine in a secure environment you better not use the onboard RAID since you won’t be able to upgrade your kernel. And this system is bloody certified!!
The fakeraid marketing as hardware RAID must stop, and certification of these machines should be dependent on either real open source drivers, or real driver support for *every* vendor kernel. Why else do we pay a premium for enterprise distributions? We may as well install Ubuntu or OpenSUSE and spend the saved money in a decent hardware RAID card! It is high time something was done about this…
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“Fake raid” such as this is common and is normal for controllers in this price range. Some of the functionality that would be handled by hardware in much more expensive systems is handled by the driver instead.
This allows for cards supporting RAID to be made cheap enough for consumers. Unfortunately the cards usually do not support some features of RAID such as hot swapping or a battery backup for the cache in terms of power failure. However this is a decent tradeoff for the ultra low price – hardware RAID controllers are rare in the consumer world and start at around four times the price (as far as I can tell).
At the moment (since this blog post I presume), Adaptec not only provide binary RPM drivers for various kernels but they also provide a source code package which can be compiled into different (and future) kernels. The source code driver package links together source code with binary object files. This allows you at least to recompile your kernel and have the driver compiled into the new kernel.
I purchased the 1420SA after using a SIL3112a based controller, another driver-based (fake raid) controller, which I was having problems with.
You should always check the supported operating systems list when buying any hardware.
Again it all comes back to the point that Adaptec does its best to act like this is actually some sort of hardware RAID and it just isn’t. There is very little difference between using this “Driver” based approach and just doing it inside Windows or Linux.
All that work so that Adaptec can make a few extra bucks and shaft their consumers.
I checked the box it came in and it said “HostRAID” on the box and doesn’t appear to claim to be hardware raid anywhere. Perhaps other companies marketing it have been marketing it wrongly but nowhere on the actual box or in the manual did I get the wrong impression. Also, after doing quite a bit of research it appears that the price alone is enough to prove it’s not hardware raid – this card is around $100 whereas Adaptec’s non-hostraid cards seems to start at $500 (australian).
If adaptec is ripping off their customers it’s by making their hardware raid solutions so expensive. Making a more affordable hostraid based alternative is not where they are ripping off customers in my opinion.
And I am sure right under where it says HostRAID on the box, it says “This isn’t really a RAID card. Actually you aren’t getting anything better than what you would be getting if you just use your OS’s Software RAID.
Come on. This card is a way to get people to spend money on something that really doesn’t provide anything.
I got this card so I could dual boot Windows and Linux on the same raid 1 array.
Gotcha in Windows was to install the driver without the drives attached first
(using the onboard sata).
Linux (Centos 4.3) installed fine after using the “OpenBuild” method of creating
a driver disk (kernel 2.6.9-34.EL). The perf was poor until I enabled the write
cache on the card. This boosted write performance by a factor of 9 in Linux (50MB/s)
and 5 in Windows (30MB/s). Not bad. I was getting ready to abandon this plan…
I apologize for running Windows, but I use it for video editing
and some gaming. 😉
Helpful article.
I wonder if I should not consider the $50 Adaptec Serial ATA PCI Controller Model: ASH-1205 at BestBuy (
http://tinyurl.com/yj9s4j ) and consider a cheaper Compusa ( http://tinyurl.com/ybprlr )or Belkin brand. I’m not considering RAID since it’s more than I want to pay in daughter cards or drives; just want SATA for forward compatibility.
OK scrap this adapter! Filesystem corruption city.
I’ve gone with software raid 1 and 4 drives,
two for Windows and 2 for Linux.
What’s up with that “SHIM” source package? What a pile of shit.
My mobo’s “fakeraid” is not supported by Linux, so I am in the market for a hardware raid card. I am very glad I found this page. Not only will I not buy this card, but I will also not buy any other card from Adaptec, seeing as how their customer service is so bad.
I have an Acer Altos R310 machine delivered with the Adaptec ICH HostRaid SATA adapter. I tried for days to get SuSE 10.1 to see the Raid 1 I set up using the Adaptec utility, but the OS always showed two independent disks. I tried some hints I found on the web like brokenmodules=ach_piix as a boot parameter, but it made no difference. To make things worse in the startup screens and in the Adaptec utility nowhere is it written the Adaptec card model mumber.
Fortunately I found your site and discovered that the Adaptec card is a piece of shit and apparently so is Adaptec. In the BIOS I switched off the “Raid” and left it as a normal SATA controller. I then set up a soft raid using the SuSE 10.1 OS since at least I can use the OS tools.
I also will never order an Adaptec card. Being cheated is not the same as customer support.
Google : Find this! HostRAID SuSE single disks driver download configure troubleshooting Adaptec linux
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Hi,
there are not only problems with the Linux drivers. I have Windows 2003 Server 64-bit on M/B MSI K8D Master3-133 with 2x AMD Opteron 270 CPUs.
I’m fighting two days with low speed of the Adaptec 1420SA. I was finding why S-ATA RAID on the motherboard (Silicon Image 3114) is too much faster than Adaptec 1420SA (PCI-X 133) in real-life performance. Even RAID1 on SIL was faster than RAID10 on 1420SA!
I was trying different HDDs, latest BIOS for Adaptec, jumpers on the mobo … always same poor performance.
Now it’s pretty clear, i think. Shit from Adaptec…
Thanks for Brent!
when i found problem installing the 1420SA,(blue screen)
I read the documentation and found they didn’t provide any troubleshooting page(even information)
they assume that we will have no problem after
paying money for their card and no problem for them too.
Thanks!
I was about to buy this card because i was not able to retrieve another XFX revo64 that is working with raid 1 under ubuntu sarge and dapper not very fast but without problems and with reasonable speed.
I have two file servers running with the 1420sa card. Both are raid 1 bootable arrays. The two machines are now 4 months old and the only problem that I have encountered so far is that one of the sata ports was bad, causing a drive to fall out of the array. Once I changed to a different port the system became stable. During this process I contacted Adaptec support and found them to be very helpful. I must say that I was also duped by the “host raid” thinking I was getting a hardware based solution.
Performance on these cards seems to be good. I have a 3Ware 9550sx raid five setup with 4 drives. The two drive 1420sa raid 1 array routinely outperforms my 3Ware setup on large file reads. Files that are 100 megs or more. The 3Ware setup does seem to have better seek time and smaller file reads. If I would have known this before building this machine I would have setup the 3Ware card in raid 1. Our company does alot of large Photoshop and Indesign files, some of them reaching 600megs which are stored on the 3Ware setup. I have spoken and optimized the 3Ware card with 3Ware tech support. This is also the second 3Ware card, the first one failed last week and has been RMA’ed.If in fact hardware raid is the most optimal for performance, then I am not seeing it on my machines. I am also concerned about my 1420sa’s reliability in the case of a card failure. When my 3Ware card died, all I had to do was replace it with a new card and everything worked fine. Will this be the same with the 1420sa in the event if a card failure?
Good luck. I wouldn’t stake my data on it. Personally.
Once again I am trying to compile drivers using the SHIM package. Once again it doesn’t work whatsoever.