Thanks to the folks at 3ware we now have a released 64bit driver for their 9000 series SATA controllers...Kudos goes out to 3ware! If any of the information I provide below is inaccurate based upon your experience please reply and post your correction(s). There are a few gotchas that admins (that are not Linux masters) may want to be aware of before pulling down the latest kernel update using YOU. (This may only apply for a short period as I do not know if 3ware plans to get their code into SuSE's kernel tree before the next kernel update so it will then be a supported module.) For those that install directly to the SATA RAID array, if you do not follow the steps below your system will not find the raid array after you reboot to activate the kernel update resulting in a kernel panic and your OS not loading. (NOTE: If the kernel update breaks compatibility this method may not work and therefore you are screwed!) For those that installed to a IDE disk you will need to do as you did initially or follow the steps below if you don't want to recompile a new module. 1) After y.o.u. completes the updates DO NOT reboot. 2) copy the 3w-9xxx.ko from /lib/modules/<old version>/kernel/driver/scsi and /lib/modules/<old-version-override>/ to /lib/modules/<new version>/kernel/driver/scsi and /lib/modules/<new-version-override>/ 3) add line for 3w-9xxx dependencies in the new modules.dep (copying the old mod-dep line and modifying it worked nicely). 4) ensure that 3w-9xxx is still in the INITRD_MODULES parameter in /etc/sysconfig/kernel. 5) run mkinitrd You can then reboot and the driver will load at boot thereby allowing you to use your OS that is installed directly to the raid array. Since I don't know if 3ware plans to get their source into SuSE supported modules list I would have to say installing directly to the raid array would be risky for a production server. Since I experienced weird behavior for a directory mounted raid array (kernel reporting segmentation faults for moves and copies of files to the raid array but not from it) I am not sure if installing to a IDE disk is such a good idea either. According to a fellow from 3ware support, 3ware's code will be part of the 2.6.8 kernel source tree so if SuSE 9.2 is going to use that kernel version of later then ya gots no worries about any of the stuff I babbled on about here.