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VIA, VT6421, PCI, Sata, Controller, Hardware, BSD, Unix, Linux, Slackware
We'd like to share an experience about PCI Sata controllers with VIA VT6421 chipset and solid state drives. This PCI cards support software raid. You can set raid with jumpers on the card. We have not tested this system with a Windows or another operating system. The test consist on BSD Unix.
We've tested this card on both FreeBSD 8.0 and Slackware Linux 13. To be honest, the card alone is awfull. It gives so much read/write errors on both BSD Unix and Linux.
The card detected both the HDD and SSD. The dmesg output includes the drive information. However, operating system don't see slices. Yes, you see the main drive on /dev, but you can't see the slices for even fdisk the drive. At least, we couldn't get succeed.
We don't hear but of couse somebody might use this system without any problem before, however we couldn't.
We do not suggest this VIA sata controller to Unix and Linux users. If you have an SSD, do not get close.