Any news on a higher performance sata_sil SIL_QUIRK_MOD15WRITE workaround?

[Clem Taylor]

I've been really disappointed by the performance of the Silicon Image 
3114 on my new x86_box. I spent a bunch of time looking into the 
problem, thinking it was a software RAID5 or xfs issue causing 4K IOs.
I don't know why I didn't notice the 'applying Seagate errata fix' in 
dmesg until after I did a bunch of performance testing and realized that 
it was a sata_sil issue.

So, I was wondering what I can do about this problem? I am not currently 
getting enough disk performance to justify the amount spent on the 
system or enough to satisfy the application I'm working on. Before I go 
out and purchase a 3ware controller and re-install the machine (ouch), 
is there any chance of a better work around in the near future? I'd be 
more than willing to test out a patch.

Is the problem with really with nblocks % 15 == 1? Or is the problem 
with nblocks % 15 == 0? If it is the later and I'm using xfs with 4K 
blocks, couldn't I just turn off the workaround or will the RAID5 driver 
potentially break up larger requests?

It would seem that the root of the problem is a Seagate issue. Does 
anyone know if Seagate fixed the problem with a firmware update? 
Updating the firmware on Seagate fibre channel drives was pretty 
painless, I'd assume that a method exists for SATA drives as well, or is 
that asking too much?

                Thanks,
                Clem

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