I'm looking to install Solaris 10 on my Dell Precision 380, which uses a variant of the ICH7-R, but the vanilla install disc from Sun doesn't support AHCI, ignoring the SATA controller because it's configured for "No RAID / AHCI," providing NCQ on the boot disk, and I don't want to disable NCQ by setting the controller to PATA-compatibility mode.
The two HDDs are both Seagate 7200.9 160Gb SATA drives. One is 1.5GB/s and the other 3.0GB/s compatible. I don't intend to RAID them, so I'm not worried about the interface performance difference between them.
My question is, if I set the controller to RAID mode in the BIOS, risking erasing my boot disk and having to reinstall everything, will Solaris then recognise the SATA disks?
Failing that, could somebody please recommend an (inexpensive) SATA RAID card for PCI Express or PCI that is Solaris compatible?
Alternatively, can anyone report success using Nevada (OpenSolaris Community Edition) with the ICH7-R in AHCI mode?
Apologies for mixing topics, my excuse is that I'm primarily asking about the RAID controller!
Thanks!
PS. Before anybody asks, yes I do have valid reasons for tormenting myself with Solaris specifically!
