On write cache on SC40Ge on DL160G5

[Serguei Tokovenko]

The question is - is it possible to turn on cache on writing on SC40Ge
controller with SATA disks (2 SATA disk as RAID 1) in DL160G5.
Boot sequence indicates the following (CentOS 5.3 aka RHEL 5.3 , latest mpt driver from HP site):

SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 976562176 512-byte hdwr sectors (500000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3

"drive cache: write through" indicates that on write cache is not used.

Controllers driver info:

[root@venus ~]# cat /proc/mpt/version
mptlinux-4.00.13.04
Fusion MPT base driver
Fusion MPT SAS host driver
Fusion MPT SPI host driver
Fusion MPT ioctl driver

[root@venus ~]# cat /proc/mpt/summary
ioc0: LSISAS1064E B3, FwRev=01172a00h, Ports=1, MaxQ=163, IRQ=177
[root@venus ~]#

Also, if the problem with cache is actual for SATA disks, is it
possible to turn write cache on with SAS disks on this controller.
With what controller do you recommend to replace SC40Ge in order to
improve I/O with already installed SATA disks in DL160G5.

[Dustin Wildes]

I have seen this same issue of poor performance and high IOWAIT times on the DL160 G5.

Did you ever find a replacement controller or a way to improve this?