14.04: Trouble with RocketRaid eSATA card. Alternative driver available or return card?

[E-Neutrino]

 Dear All,

 I have difficulties getting the RocketRaid 622 eSATA Raid card from
 HighPoint working under Ubuntu 14.0 in a ProLiant Gen8 Microtower.


 Setup of rr62:

 I followed the instructions in the Ubuntu wiki at
     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RocketRaid
 section on
     "Updated and simplified procedure for Ubuntu 13.04 or later"
 to build the v1.2 sources available from HighPoint's website.  These
 seem to be the latest drivers available at HighPoint.

 Build succeeded using the patch
    "rr62x-linux-src-v1.2-kernel-3.11v2.patch"
 found following links from that page (I think I found it that way)

 Build and installed the module using dkms, as described on the wiki
 page.

 The module failed to load with "out of memory", so I changed all
 "GPF_ATOMIC" allocations in the initialization to "GPF_KERNEL", which
 allows the kernel to suspend the allocation and try to free up some
 pages.

 Loading after system boot (and as such after loading ZoL) still fails,
 but the module rr62x now autoloads at boot time.

 Kernel currently in use is (uname -a)
 "Linux hpmicro 3.13.0-24-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:11:08
 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux"


 Hardware:

 HP ProLiant Gen 8 Microtower server with 2x 8 GB ECC RAM (Kingston)

 Four internal spinning SATA disks in the four drive bays.  Not used
 for system files.  Part of a larger ZoL ZFS Pool.

 One internally installed USB thumb drive holding the 14.04 server
 install image

 One internally installed SSD holding the ext4 root filesystem "/" (no
 further "var" or "usr" partitions, everything under "/").  This SSD is
 connected to the SATA connector reserved for an optical drive and
 occupies the space meant for an optical drive.

 One eSATA port of the rr622 card is connected to a FanTec 4-bay SATA
 enclosure holding 2 more spinning SATA disks which are part of the
 same ZFS Pool as the four internal disks.  The FanTec uses a
 Port Multiplier to drive up to four disks over a single eSATA
 connection.


 Actual Problem:

 As soon as moderate traffic goes over the eSATA link, rr62x complains
 about port delays and goes into a reset / soft reset / reset / ...
 cycle until eventually declaring all disks behind the Port Multiplier
 as dead.

 While doing so, it partially locks up the system to the point the
 hpwdt watchdog seems to fire, causing a constant beeeeeep which only
 goes away by power cycling the box.  The system recovers once no more
 attempts are made to use the eSATA connected disks and all in-flight
 IO requests have terminated with error.


 Questions:

 Has someone managed to get the rr622 card working reliably under 14.04
 and kernel 3.13?

 If so, with which driver or options etc.?


 I bought this card because it advertises as "Linux compatible".  As
 this looks like not (any longer) being true, I consider sending it
 back for a refund.

 Can someone suggest a PCIe card with 2 (or more) eSATA ports that
 support Port Multipliers and that is actually supported under 14.04?
 I do not need any Raid functionality, I only need to connect a bunch
 of SATA disks mounted in FanTec 4-bay enclosures.


 Thanks for reading!

    Neutrino

-- 
Computers help us to solve problems we don't have without computers.