HighPoint Rocket R750 40-ports vs. unRAID-6.9

[pk2]

Hello Dear Friends - I'm Piotr (Peter) from Poland - Nice to meet you!

 

This is my first post here. I'm still reading and reading but finally I started to buy elements for my first Array and... I'm about to buy the HBA Controller: HighPoint Rocket R750 40-ports

 

I initially understood that it works with unRAID and I was happy to get a Controller with so many ports but now I noticed/found in the Forum that R750 will not be supported in unRAID v.6.9... correct?

 

I generally use Debian 10 and plan to switch to Debian 11 as it is released.

I'd like to understand with your help - should I abandon the idea and not buy this Controller? I don't understand the real impact of the above information and on the other hand I need a prompt help/advice as I'm about to buy and pay for the R750 in the next few days (preliminary order was done so I don't have to finalize the purchase).

 

I'm trying to figure out if I can install Debian 11 + unRAID v.6.8 and everything is fine or maybe it causes problems - what sort, if so? Could you explain it for me in simple words, please, as I'm an unRAID dummy for the moment...

 

I'm trying to collect all the pieces of the puzzle and guess a bit, what decision I should take... I'm confused...

 

I suppose it might be related to the information that the driver has Support up to Linux Kernel v4.9?

https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_r750-Download.htm

 

Thank you in advance for your Advice and Patience and Kind Regards, Piotr.

[uldise]

First, it's all about the bandwith available. it's a PCIe 2.0 x8 card, so about 4000MB/s available. if you connect 40 drives, then about 100MB/s available per drive IF all drives used at once.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, pk2 said:

I'm about to buy the HBA Controller: HighPoint Rocket R750 40-ports

You will be fine with unRAID 6.8.x with that HBA, but if you upgrade to unRAID 6.9.x, that card will not be supported as the drivers are no longer included per the 6.9.0 release notes:

 

Note that as we update the Linux kernel, if an out-of-tree driver no longer builds, it will be omitted.

These drivers are omitted:

• Highpoint RocketRaid r750 (does not build)
• Highpoint RocketRaid rr3740a (does not build)
• Tehuti Networks tn40xx (does not build)

If you require one of these drivers, please create a Bug Report and we'll spend some time looking for alternatives.  Better yet, pester the manufacturer of the controller and get them to update their drivers.

 

Although you are not limited to just cards from LSI, they and their clones are the most commonly recommended HBA cards for use with unRAID.  They come in 8-port, 16-port and even some 24-port variations in PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 support.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Hoopster

[pk2]

1 hour ago, uldise said:

First, it's all about the bandwith available. it's a PCIe 2.0 x8 card, so about 4000MB/s available. if you connect 40 drives, then about 100MB/s available per drive IF all drives used at once.

Thank you, Dear @uldise and yes, the idea that I have is to build an Array with as many drives as possible, just to experiment with different RAIDxyz combinations, such as RAID5/50, 6/60, 100 and so on, trying always to use the maximum of 32 HDDs per leg and as many legs as possible To start I plan to use at least 1 x 32 x 320GB 2.5" or (3-4) x 32 if I get cheaper HDDs even a bit smaller and manage to implement the required number of Controllers + Expanders . That's why I'm trying to catch one or two R750, to easily attach a bigger number of such drives.

Edited March 23, 2021 by pk2
changed "dear" to "Dear", for respect :)

[uldise]

sorry, unraid is not raid, so if you plan use these with unraid, then newest version is not for you. and with unraid you get less but bigger drives - therefore again unraid is not raid.

[Vr2Io]

This seems joking for test different RAID on Unraid. 😁
I am not sure this is a good or bad idea.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Vr2Io

[pk2]

18 minutes ago, uldise said:

sorry, unraid is not raid, so if you plan use these with unraid, then newest version is not for you. and with unraid you get less but bigger drives - therefore again unraid is not raid.

 

18 minutes ago, Vr2Io said:

This seems joking for test different RAID on Unraid. 😁
I am not sure this is a good or bad idea.

 

Thank you Dear @uldise and @Vr2Io it seems to me that I said something stupid... so again I repeat that for the moment I feel to be a complete unRAID dummy... Anyway, let me explain and thank you again for your Patience to help me clarify my ideas and sorry if I confused something... as I said I'm learning so I know theory a bit for the moment and I understand I may be completely wrong... :

 

Tomorrow I want to buy 2x HighPoint R750 to attach 80 HDDs at Debian, each drive having 1 partition to fill 100% of the drive space. Thanks that I'll have: /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdd1, /dev/sde1, /dev/sdf1, /dev/sdg1, /dev/sdh1, /dev/sdi1, /dev/sdj1, /dev/sdk1, /dev/sdl1, /dev/sdm1, /dev/sdn1, /dev/sdo1, /dev/sdp1, /dev/sdq1, /dev/sdr1, /dev/sds1, /dev/sdt1, /dev/sdu1, /dev/sdv1, /dev/sdw1, /dev/sdx1, /dev/sdy1, /dev/sdz1, [...] , and so on, and so on till my OS assigns /dev/something to all the 80 HDDs.

 

Then I plan to build a RAID6 array composed of the first 32 drives, by doing something like this:

# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=6 --raid-devices=32 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 [...] and so on till the 32nd drive

 

Then I'd like to create the second leg, i.e:

# mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=6 --raid-devices=32 /dev/something1 /dev/somethingelse1 [...] and so on till the 32nd drive

 

so in total I have a 32xHDD RAID6 1st leg : /dev/md0 and another 32xHDD RAID6 - 2nd leg /dev/md1

 

now I want to use these 2 legs to create a RAID60 array, i.e:

# mdadm --create /dev/md2 --level=0 --raid-devices=2 /dev/md0 /dev/md1.

 

As a required result I suppose to obtain a RAID60 array composed of 64 HDDs, with Double Parity and the real drive space = 2 x (32-2) x HDD size ?

 

Does that make sense or did I confuse something? Thanks that I can learn from you and sorry if I say stupid things for the moment...

 

If this what I said is wrong, then could you please explain how you do it in unRAID to create one big drive space using 64 HDDs with double parity?

 

Thank you, Piotr

[pk2]

1 hour ago, Hoopster said:

You will be fine with unRAID 6.8.x with that HBA, but if you upgrade to unRAID 6.9.x, that card will not be supported as the drivers are no longer included per the 6.9.0 release notes:

 

Note that as we update the Linux kernel, if an out-of-tree driver no longer builds, it will be omitted.

These drivers are omitted:

• Highpoint RocketRaid r750 (does not build)
• Highpoint RocketRaid rr3740a (does not build)
• Tehuti Networks tn40xx (does not build)

If you require one of these drivers, please create a Bug Report and we'll spend some time looking for alternatives.  Better yet, pester the manufacturer of the controller and get them to update their drivers.

 

Although you are not limited to just cards from LSI, they and their clones are the most commonly recommended HBA cards for use with unRAID.  They come in 8-port, 16-port and even some 24-port variations in PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 support.

Thank you, Dear @Hoopster, and firt of all I'd like to say that I understand that if I upgrage from unRAID 6.8.x to 6.9.x the two HighPoint Rockets R750 will not be supported - that's is and was clear to me Then of coure I can create a Bug Report for it, according to the Procedure to get an alternative solution I will also ask HighPoint even if I'm not sure if it makes sense, taking in consideration what I read here about the poor HighPoint Support... I also understand/feel that LSI seems to be problem less. By the way, can you mention a 24-port good Controller at a low price, please? However, I'd like to re-ask my question about the impact of the R750 removal from unRAID 6.9 When I install Debian 11 which seems to have 5.10 kernel, what happens If I want to use my 2 HighPoint Rocket R750 there? Will it be possible that I install unRAID 6.8 and voila or not? If not, then what should I do to solve/bypass these limitations/obstacles?

Thank you, Piotr.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, pk2 said:

I also understand/feel that LSI seems to be problem less. By the way, can you mention a 24-port good Controller

The LSI 9305-24i HBA is a PCIe 3.0 x8 controller that allows direct connection of up to 24 SAS/SATA drives and many more via expanders.

 

It is not inexpensive and costs about US$590 new.  If you can find a good used one on eBay or similar secondary markets, it should be much cheaper.  There are lots of fake LSI/Broadcom cards from China so don't be fooled by low-cost fakes.

[pk2]

Dear @Hoopster, Dear @uldise and Dear @Vr2Io thank you again for your Great Help!

I'd like to summarize as I need to take decision "to buy or not to buy" the 2 x HighPoint Rocket R750

Could you, please check if I correctly understood:

1. If I use HighPoint R750 at Debian 10, kernel 4.19 and unRAID 6.8 then they should work correctly (?)

2. If I use the above Controller at Debian 10, kernel 5.10 i must use unRAID 6.9 and R750 will not work (?)

3. It is impossiblie to use unRAID 6.8 as it is based on kernel up to 4.19 (?)

4. There's a chance that HighPoint update their R750's Linux Driver to work with kernels > 4.19 (?)

5. There's a chance to find an Alternative Solution at unRAID level after i create a Bug Ticket (?)

Thank you in advance and Kind Regards, Piotr

[Vr2Io]

If R750 not support in 6.9, then I won't buy, but if you really like single card that have many port, then you may buy one.

 

I use HAB + Expander solution, I have two 36 port expander Adaptec Aec82885t.

 

I use RAID0, the last test show a BTRFS RAID5 performance really bad, my highest RAID0 pool was 10disks, have excellent performance.

[pk2]

Dear @Vr2Io thank you very much for your post and you helped me to take the decision I understood that I really like the fact that these controllers have so many ports which simplifies my crazy project  

I'll ask HighPoint to update the Linux Driver and hope they help - I read a positive review 5 minutes ago saying that they update their drivers "in 3 days" when you ask them... Would be great if it's true

Thank you and Kind Regards, Piotr

[uldise]

9 hours ago, pk2 said:

Then I plan to build a RAID6 array composed of the first 32 drives, by doing something like this

then choose simple Debian or other standard Linux distro.

with unraid array you can have up to two parity disks in whole array. more: https://wiki.unraid.net/Parity

with latest unraid version you can have multiple cache pools - in various BTRFS raid levels if multiple drives are used.

so no option to build other standard software RAIDs. 

[pk2]

2 hours ago, uldise said:

then choose simple Debian or other standard Linux distro.

with unraid array you can have up to two parity disks in whole array. more: https://wiki.unraid.net/Parity

with latest unraid version you can have multiple cache pools - in various BTRFS raid levels if multiple drives are used.

so no option to build other standard software RAIDs. 

Dear @uldise thank you very much for the clarification That's clear that for the moment I only know a bit of the Theory but I have no practice... I want to study unRAID vs. mdadm because before I thought they work together somehow and now I start to understand they are two separate Solutions - correct? So I try to study and compare them and probably I create a separate thread unless you or Someone else would like to explain it in simple words "what are the main differences between unRAID and mdadm"

 

12 hours ago, Hoopster said:

You will be fine with unRAID 6.8.x with that HBA, but if you upgrade to unRAID 6.9.x, that card will not be supported as the drivers are no longer included per the 6.9.0 release notes:

 

Note that as we update the Linux kernel, if an out-of-tree driver no longer builds, it will be omitted.

These drivers are omitted:

• Highpoint RocketRaid r750 (does not build)
• Highpoint RocketRaid rr3740a (does not build)
• Tehuti Networks tn40xx (does not build)

If you require one of these drivers, please create a Bug Report and we'll spend some time looking for alternatives.  Better yet, pester the manufacturer of the controller and get them to update their drivers.

 

Although you are not limited to just cards from LSI, they and their clones are the most commonly recommended HBA cards for use with unRAID.  They come in 8-port, 16-port and even some 24-port variations in PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 support.

Dear  @Hoopster could I ask you one more thing, please?

I placed a preliminary order for 2 x R750 and I still have one or two days to pay + additional 14 days for testing when I can return them and get refund. This time I'd like to use to "pester the manufacturer of the controller to update their drivers". Could you advise me how to do it in the best way, please? Should I ask them to update the driver to support exactly the 5.10 kernel which is planned for Debian 10 or maybe it's better to ask them the most up to date one? Which Linux Kernel should I mention, based on your experience?

What else I should ask HighPoint Support that could help our Community to include R750 into unRAID 6.9?

Thank you in advance for your FeedBack and Kind Regards, Piotr

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by pk2
I changed "unRAIND" to "unRAID"

[uldise]

6 minutes ago, pk2 said:

they are two separate Solutions - correct?

Yes, i think you cant compare them at all. yes, both are software raids, but that's all..

 

[pk2]

Dear @Hoopster, @uldise, @Vr2Io and other unRAID Friends!

1. My 2 HighPoint Rocket R750 40-ports Controllers are ordered

2. I asked HighPoint to update their Linux Driver to support 5.10 Kernel.

3. Thank you one more time for your Great Patience, Advice and Help!

It seems to me that I start to understand the context - unRAID is not a program/module or something like that but the whole Operating System, developed/lead by Lime Tech (similar as Cannonical and Ubuntu?), I suppose it can be booted from a USB stick (?) Before I thought that in each Linux/UNIX Distro we can have mdadm and unRAID as Components to create Disk Arrays - dummy me... On the other hand, it's a bit strange for me that unRAID OS seems to be somehow hidden, you know. You're not present at distrowatch.com and to be honest I only got to know that unRAID exists thanks the fact that I wanted to build a home "quasi-server" with many HDDs and while looking for Controllers I noticed that there are two types of them "RAID" and "unRAID". That's what I wanted to share with you that in the world outside your Great unRAID OS is somehow hiddent/invisible...

Thank you once again and Kind Regards, Piotr.

[Hoopster]

20 hours ago, pk2 said:

unRAID is not a program/module or something like that but the whole Operating System,

Some points that may help you understand unRAID better:

• unRAID is an OS, but it is not a full Linux distribution.  It is a stripped-down version of Slackware Linux which only includes the pieces necessary to run your chosen hardware as a NAS appliance.  It is not a separate Linux distro.
• In addition to being a NAS OS, unRAID supports plugins, Docker containers and virtual machines to expand functionality and fully utilize the server hardware.
• unRAID boots from a USB flash drive, but the OS is not "installed" on this flash drive.  The archive files for the OS are on the flash drive but the OS is unpacked into RAM when the server is booted.  unRAID runs in RAM and not from a hard drive, SSD or flash drive.
• The USB flash drive stores configuration information and the unRAID license and is portable to other hardware.
• unRAID provides protection against disk drive failure much like RAID does but without the limitations of RAID.  RAID requires disks of the same sizes and stripes data and parity across all drives.  If more drives fail than you have protected via parity EVERYTHING in the entire RAID is lost.  UnRAID does not stripe data and has separate disks for parity and data.  The disadvantage of unRAID is disk access speed vs. RAID as you are limited to the speed of a single disk due to no striping.
• Disks of any size can be added to the array to increase storage (Parity disk(s) must always be larger or at least as large as the largest data disk).
• unRAID does not recognize disks attached to a RAID controller unless they are all defined as separate RAID0 disks or the controller has a JBOD mode.  RAID controllers that can have IT firmware installed for individual disk pass through work very well with unRAID.  Many LSI models support this which is why they are popular with unRAID users.
• Cache drives/pools (SSDs recommended) can be created to limit hard disk spinup by storing Docker and VM files.  Cache drives/pools can also be used to cache initial writes to the array making them much faster.  Later, during periods of little or no use on the array, the Mover moves cached files to array hard drives and Parity is written then.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Hoopster

[uldise]

6 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Some points that may help you understand unRAID better:

• unRAID is an OS, but it is not a full Linux distribution.  It is a stripped-down version of Slackware Linux which only included the pieces necessary to run your chosen hardware as a NAS appliance.  It is not a separate Linux distro.
• In addition to being a NAS OS, unRAID supports plugins, Docker containers and virtual machines to expand functionality and fully utilize the server hardware.
• unRAID boots from a USB flash drive, but the OS is not "installed" on this flash drive.  The archive files for the OS are on the flash drive but the OS is unpacked into RAM when the server is booted.  unRAID runs in RAM and not from a hard drive, SSD or flash drive.
• The USB flash drives stores configuration information and the unRAID license and is portable to other hardware.
• unRAID provides protection against disk drive failure much like RAID does but without the limitations of RAID.  RAID required disks of the same sizes and stripes data and parity across all drives.  If more drives fail than you have protected via parity EVERYTHING in the entire RAID is lost.  UnRAID does not stripe data and has separate disks for parity and data.  The disadvantage of unRAID is disk access speed vs. RAID as you are limited to the speed of a single disk due to no striping.
• Disks of any size can be added to the array to increase storage (Parity always to be larger or at least as large as the largest data disk).
• unRAID does not recognize disks attached to a RAID controller unless they are all defined as separate RAID0 disks or the controller has a JBOD mode.  RAID controllers that can have IT firmware installed for individual disk pass through work very well with unRAID.  Many LSI models support this which is why they are popular with unRAID users.
• Cache drives/pools (SSDs recommended) can be created to limit hard disk spinup by storing Docker and VM files.  Cache drives/pools can also be used to cache initial writes the array making them much faster.  Later, during periods of little or no use on the array, the Mover moves caches files to array hard drives and Parity is written then.

great info. i searched for this in unraid docs, but found nothing similar.. 

[pk2]

On 3/24/2021 at 7:46 PM, Hoopster said:

Some points that may help you understand unRAID better:

• unRAID is an OS, but it is not a full Linux distribution.  It is a stripped-down version of Slackware Linux which only includes the pieces necessary to run your chosen hardware as a NAS appliance.  It is not a separate Linux distro.
• In addition to being a NAS OS, unRAID supports plugins, Docker containers and virtual machines to expand functionality and fully utilize the server hardware.
• unRAID boots from a USB flash drive, but the OS is not "installed" on this flash drive.  The archive files for the OS are on the flash drive but the OS is unpacked into RAM when the server is booted.  unRAID runs in RAM and not from a hard drive, SSD or flash drive.
• The USB flash drive stores configuration information and the unRAID license and is portable to other hardware.
• unRAID provides protection against disk drive failure much like RAID does but without the limitations of RAID.  RAID requires disks of the same sizes and stripes data and parity across all drives.  If more drives fail than you have protected via parity EVERYTHING in the entire RAID is lost.  UnRAID does not stripe data and has separate disks for parity and data.  The disadvantage of unRAID is disk access speed vs. RAID as you are limited to the speed of a single disk due to no striping.
• Disks of any size can be added to the array to increase storage (Parity disk(s) must always be larger or at least as large as the largest data disk).
• unRAID does not recognize disks attached to a RAID controller unless they are all defined as separate RAID0 disks or the controller has a JBOD mode.  RAID controllers that can have IT firmware installed for individual disk pass through work very well with unRAID.  Many LSI models support this which is why they are popular with unRAID users.
• Cache drives/pools (SSDs recommended) can be created to limit hard disk spinup by storing Docker and VM files.  Cache drives/pools can also be used to cache initial writes to the array making them much faster.  Later, during periods of little or no use on the array, the Mover moves cached files to array hard drives and Parity is written then.

Dear @Hoopster - thank you very much for the Great Portion of unRAID Knowledge I'd like to share the good news with you, @uldise, @Vr2Io and other unRAID Friends:

* My two HighPoint Rockets R750 arrived

* The HighPoint Suport answered my e-mail however I needed to re-ask the question about their Linux Driver Update to Kernel 5.10. Instead, I got to know that they will release a new Controller with a huge numbers of ports - 48 !!! - i.e.: "Rocket 860-48-port SAS/SATA HBA" I don't know how about you but I like that information It might happen that I could participate to a Zoom Presentation of it (not confirmed for the moment) That's what they wrote by e-mail.

 

Thank you again and I must say I'm honored that I can talk to you and strongly impressed when I read professional discussions, as for example about a new Feature Request related to the Double Parity Error which can be propagated to good drives for example. I also got to know that to keep HDDs in good health it's recommended to pass with the head of drive over each sector of the drive from time to time as the corruption seems to occur there where the drive head rarely arrives so I plan to execute smartctl -t long /dev/sdX periodically. Finally, it's a shame... I didn't know it but I start to understand the Great Concept and the Uniqueness of unRAID!!! Thank you again!

 

Back to the real world... Could I ask another question, please? I bought 2 x DL380 Caddy for 2.5" drive and would like to ask you, what is the missing / complementary part for it? I suppose that there has to be a kind of a Bay with many holes where I can insert this Caddy (?) Could you give me some links for it or the Product Name, please? Otherwise, I'll have to invent something manually as I'm afraid that the missing part can be very expensive... I would like to look for in Asia first but I don't know what is the name of it...

 

Thank you once again for your Great Help and Kind Regards, Piotr.

 

P.S. An off-topic but an important one: My Mother was ill (COVID-19) and a Doctor who uses unofficially an old medicine "Viregyt-K" (Amantadine Hydrochloride) against coronavirus (according to the Method invented by Dr Włodzimierz Bodnar) helped my Mother and she's well now ( Thank you God!!! ) https://przychodnia-przemysl.pl/how-to-treat-covid-19-in-48-hours-scheme/ maybe it could help you or People you love

[the Goat]

Did highpoint ever supply a new Linux driver for the r750?

 

I'm looking for a r750 driver that supports Linux Kernel 5.10 (Debian 11).

[pk2]

On 4/27/2021 at 3:37 PM, the Goat said:

Did highpoint ever supply a new Linux driver for the r750?

 

I'm looking for a r750 driver that supports Linux Kernel 5.10 (Debian 11).

Dear @the Goat thank you very much for your message!

I've been asking and re-asking by e-mail the new Linux Driver update for HighPoint r750, exactly for the same 5.10 Kernel, with no success for the moment...

Let's do it together, with the hope they help us...?

Kind regards, Piotr.

[the Goat]

On 4/28/2021 at 6:44 PM, pk2 said:

Dear @the Goat thank you very much for your message!

I've been asking and re-asking by e-mail the new Linux Driver update for HighPoint r750, exactly for the same 5.10 Kernel, with no success for the moment...

Let's do it together, with the hope they help us...?

Kind regards, Piotr.

I've regretted buying the highpoint r750 cards for years because of the horrible driver and lack of support from the manufacturer.  I decided it is time to find a better solution.

[pk2]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:31 AM, the Goat said:

I've regretted buying the highpoint r750 cards for years because of the horrible driver and lack of support from the manufacturer.  I decided it is time to find a better solution.

Dear @the Goat, don't give up :) I sent another kind request a moment ago at : [email protected]

Let's ask them together :)

Kind regards, Piotr.

[Richard Lavoie]

On 3/24/2021 at 7:13 PM, pk2 said:

Dear @Hoopster, @uldise, @Vr2Io and other unRAID Friends!

1. My 2 HighPoint Rocket R750 40-ports Controllers are ordered

2. I asked HighPoint to update their Linux Driver to support 5.10 Kernel.

3. Thank you one more time for your Great Patience, Advice and Help!

It seems to me that I start to understand the context - unRAID is not a program/module or something like that but the whole Operating System, developed/lead by Lime Tech (similar as Cannonical and Ubuntu?), I suppose it can be booted from a USB stick (?) Before I thought that in each Linux/UNIX Distro we can have mdadm and unRAID as Components to create Disk Arrays - dummy me... On the other hand, it's a bit strange for me that unRAID OS seems to be somehow hidden, you know. You're not present at distrowatch.com and to be honest I only got to know that unRAID exists thanks the fact that I wanted to build a home "quasi-server" with many HDDs and while looking for Controllers I noticed that there are two types of them "RAID" and "unRAID". That's what I wanted to share with you that in the world outside your Great unRAID OS is somehow hiddent/invisible...

Thank you once again and Kind Regards, Piotr.

 

Did you get a response about the support for kernel 5.10 ? I have made the changes for the driver to work on 5.8 (https://github.com/darkrift/rocketraid750/tree/5.8.0 which might be compatible with 5.10) but I'm now on kernel 5.11 since I upgraded my ubuntu server to hirsute and it looks like the changes required are much more involving than what was necessary for 5.8 to work.

 

I sent them a support request for a driver with official support for more recent kernel, and I didn't have much luck. If you tell me they did an update for you, I'd try (or maybe you could ask them) to request support up to the latest kernels

Edited August 6, 2021 by Richard Lavoie

[the Goat]

I ditched the HighPoint r750 for the LSI SAS 9201-16i.  It supports the same cables as the r750.  The driver is built into the kernel.  So I no longer have to worry about the highpoint driver breaking with every kernel update.