45 Drives Community Resources

Critical Update for Rocket 750 Linux Device Driver

December 9th 2014

We encourage all users who run Linux on direct-wired storage pods with HighPoint Rocket 750 Cards to immediately update to the newest driver V1.1.1; which handles up to kernel 3.17. The files are now available on our downloads page with installation instructions (FreeNAS and FreeBSD drivers are also available). The newest linux driver enhances the stability of the pod when defective hard drives are present.

Why Another Driver?

We had previously released a device driver V.1.0.15 that fixed certain issues that affected a small percentage of our customers. Our technical team diligently tested that driver before its release. However, we missed the fact that the new driver was not robust when defective drives were attached. The end result was that the V 1.0.15 driver would cause the Storinator unit to freeze up when contending with bad hardware. The new driver was created to reliably handle these hardware fault conditions.

Making Sure It Is Right This Time

We are acutely aware that imperfect drivers can waste one's valuable time, and thus we extend a sincere apology to all users who have experienced error handling issues. We take responsibility for not having recognized this fault, and realizing we had to do better.

Highpoint was very responsive in producing a new beta driver. Our team then created testing cells within our production environment to give the new driver thorough and extensive testing for hardware error handling. We created a number of scenarios involving defective hardware:

  • Good machines with bad cables
  • Good machines with bad drives
  • our “Frankenstein” pod (which included a machine built entirely with bad drives and bad cables)
  • Standard pod with good cables and drives

Here is a photo of our Frankenstein pod ("Frankie"); as we put the driver through worst-case scenario testing:

After pushing the driver to extreme tests and following up with beta testing with our community of users, we became confident that V 1.1.1 is rock-solid, and fit to be released.

We appreciate Highpoint’s commitment and responsiveness in partnering to fix these issues. The strength of our Storinator/Pod 4.0 is directly related to the strength of our community.