Linux Format forums

[djar]

I need to add new IDE channels on my 32-bit Athlon system by adding a PCI IDE card. Many such cards offer RAID functionality which I don't need, although it wouldn't do any harm to have a RAID card. Does anybody know which PCI IDE cards are compatible with Linux?

[emyr42]

Probably depends whether you want it to boot from them or not...
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OpenSUSE 10.2, WinXPHome
AMD Sempron 2400, 512MB DDR333, Twin 60GB Deathstars

[djar]

It doesn't matter if I can't boot from it.

[chris.clayton]

I've recently installed a PCI IDE Card. I can't remember the brand (& I've thrown the packaging away), but it's based on the Silicon Image 0680 chipset. It works very well (ATA/133). It's a RAID card but doesn't complain that I only have a CDRW and an HDD attached (i.e. I have no RAID arrays configured).

Prior to that I tried a card based on the ITE IT8212 chipset. That was a bit annoying because it always paused the bootup asking for a RAID array to be configured. When I pressed escape to tell it to caryy on without RAID, it worked fine as a non-RAID controller.

Another thing to be aware of is that if the drivers for the IDE card are compiled into the kernel (rather than as a module), the card could be detected before the onboard ide chipset and that will change which drive is hda etc. If you get this problem, you can overcome this by adding "ide=reverse" to your kernel boot parameters. If the drivers are a module, you won't be able to mount any partitions on the drives attached to the card until hotplug has loaded the drivers.

Hope this helps and good luck.

[djar]

I'll look into Silicon Image 0680 cards. I had already wondered about IT8212 based cards, but what you say about the bootup prompt is useful to know - I'll avoid them. The other tip about not compiling the driver into the module is also very useful. Thanks.