I'm responding to Stephan's request on 2010-09-14 for feedback on the proposed kernel.  First assumption here is that it is 2.6.35.

I have been using the stock releases of Lucid Lynx (10.0.4 and 10.04.1) and getting the SATA errors detailed below.  After installing the 2.6.35 kernel, the errors have disappeared from syslog.  I can't comment on any performance changes.

Kernel version:-
2.6.35-7-generic-pae

Controller details:-

00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6421 IDE RAID Controller (rev 50)
	Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6421 IDE RAID Controller
	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 32
	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18
	Region 0: I/O ports at bc00 [size=16]
	Region 1: I/O ports at b800 [size=16]
	Region 2: I/O ports at b400 [size=16]
	Region 3: I/O ports at b000 [size=16]
	Region 4: I/O ports at ac00 [size=32]
	Region 5: I/O ports at a800 [size=256]
	Expansion ROM at f7fe0000 [disabled] [size=64K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: sata_via
	Kernel modules: sata_via
00: 06 11 49 32 07 00 90 02 50 00 04 01 00 20 00 00
10: 01 bc 00 00 01 b8 00 00 01 b4 00 00 01 b0 00 00
20: 01 ac 00 00 01 a8 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 11 49 32
30: 00 00 fe f7 e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 01 00 00


Disk details:-

ATA device, with non-removable media
	Model Number:       SAMSUNG HD103SJ                         
	Serial Number:      S246J90Z106350      
	Firmware Revision:  1AJ100E4
	Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6
Standards:
	Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0028) 
	Supported: 8 7 6 5 
	Likely used: 8
Configuration:
	Logical		max	current
	cylinders	16383	16383
	heads		16	16
	sectors/track	63	63
	--
	CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
	LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
	LBA48  user addressable sectors: 1953525168
	Logical  Sector size:                   512 bytes
	Physical Sector size:                   512 bytes
	device size with M = 1024*1024:      953869 MBytes
	device size with M = 1000*1000:     1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
	cache/buffer size  = unknown
	Form Factor: 3.5 inch
	Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 7200

Error message before kernel upgrade:-
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.934682] ata3.00: exception Emask 0x12 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x1000500 action 0x6
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.935748] ata3.00: BMDMA stat 0x5
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.936779] ata3: SError: { UnrecovData Proto TrStaTrns }
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.937835] ata3.00: failed command: READ DMA EXT
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.939072] ata3.00: cmd 25/00:00:3f:01:80/00:01:1d:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 131072 in
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.939074]          res 51/84:3f:00:00:00/84:02:00:00:00/e0 Emask 0x12 (ATA bus error)
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.941281] ata3.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.942423] ata3.00: error: { ICRC ABRT }
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644545.943505] ata3: hard resetting link
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.260046] ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276334] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/33
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276357] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276363] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276371] Descriptor sense data with sense descriptors (in hex):
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276374]         72 0b 47 00 00 00 00 0c 00 0a 80 00 00 00 00 00 
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276394]         00 00 00 00 
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276402] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276410] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 1d 80 01 3f 00 01 00 00
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.276427] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 494928191
Sep 12 09:52:45 it2 kernel: [644546.277515] ata3: EH complete