From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 1 13:14:36 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6632616A4CE for ; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 13:14:36 +0000 (GMT) Received: from avscan2.sentex.ca (avscan2.sentex.ca [199.212.134.19]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1BD243D1F for ; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 13:14:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from localhost (localhost.sentex.ca [127.0.0.1]) by avscan2.sentex.ca (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i81DEZf1065269; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:14:35 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from avscan2.sentex.ca ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (avscan2.sentex.ca [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 65053-03; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:14:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from lava.sentex.ca (pyroxene.sentex.ca [199.212.134.18]) by avscan2.sentex.ca (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i81DEZfq065247; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:14:35 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from simian.sentex.net (simeon.sentex.ca [192.168.43.27]) by lava.sentex.ca (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i81DESZI061056; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:14:28 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Message-Id: <6.1.2.0.0.20040901090639.08d11060@64.7.153.2> X-Sender: mdtpop@64.7.153.2 (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.2.0 Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:20:01 -0400 To: Brian Reichert , freebsd-current@freebsd.org From: Mike Tancsa In-Reply-To: <20040901052054.GV4846@numachi.com> References: <20040901052054.GV4846@numachi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at avscan2b Subject: Re: how 'supported' are 3ware Escalade controllers? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 13:14:36 -0000 At 01:20 AM 01/09/2004, Brian Reichert wrote: >This page says there is support for other cards in this family, but >doesn't explicitly cite the 7506-8, and cites some firmwar issues: > > The above URL is out of date. The 3ware people have been very helpful as of late providing official driver support. I have also had to open a ticket with them in the past and they did indeed provide official FreeBSD support on the phone and web (it was for their management daemon) That being said, the critical part for me is performance and reliability. I have been using various 3ware cards for some time and I have had VERY good results with them and I highly recommend them on Intel platforms. (i.e I have zero experience with them on the AMD64). We use them on FreeBSD, LINUX and Windows. Most of our deployments are 2 drive RAID1s but I have a number of busy application servers running RAID10 (mail/pop3 and another SQL), RAID5 (offsite backup) and RAID0 (news spools). I have only had one card (out of ~ 50 in 4yrs) go bad and that was out of the box. If you are putting together a new system, I would look at the SATA series of their cards, the 8000. I dont have any experience yet with their newer generation 9000 cards and they use newer drivers so I dont know how well tested they are. However, the older 7506-8 we are currently using in our pop3 server has been working very well for us for the past year. It has 4 drives in RAID 10 and 2 drives in RAID1. The firmware we are using Monitor version: ME7X 1.01.00.038 Firmware version: FE7X 1.05.00.063 BIOS version: BE7X 1.08.00.048 PCB version: Rev4 Achip version: 3.20 Pchip version: 1.30-66 Model: 7506-8 Unit count: 2 Lately we have been using Seagate Drives. I would stay away from Maxtor as I have seen reports of problems with those drives. ---Mike