From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 8 19:02:11 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0BEA016A400 for ; Thu, 8 Feb 2007 19:02:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from smarthost2.sentex.ca (smarthost2.sentex.ca [205.211.164.50]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC5E813C491 for ; Thu, 8 Feb 2007 19:02:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from lava.sentex.ca (pyroxene.sentex.ca [199.212.134.18]) by smarthost2.sentex.ca (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l18J29L7082779; Thu, 8 Feb 2007 14:02:10 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from mdt-xp.sentex.net (simeon.sentex.ca [192.168.43.27]) by lava.sentex.ca (8.13.6/8.13.3) with ESMTP id l18J24Dm055927 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 8 Feb 2007 14:02:04 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Message-Id: <200702081902.l18J24Dm055927@lava.sentex.ca> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:04:09 -0500 To: Jeremy Chadwick , Clayton Milos From: Mike Tancsa In-Reply-To: <20070208165224.GA35610@icarus.home.lan> References: <00ad01c74b65$79db1710$0c00a8c0@Artem> <20070208094620.GA9599@rink.nu> <00a701c74b6e$7c3e4550$fe03a8c0@claylaptop> <20070208165224.GA35610@icarus.home.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Cc: Artem Kuchin , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What is a good choice of sata-ii raid controller for freebsd? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:02:11 -0000 At 11:52 AM 2/8/2007, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: >On Thu, Feb 08, 2007 at 12:47:10PM +0200, Clayton Milos wrote: > > I can highly recommend the Areca family of SATA-II controllers. I have a > > ARC-1110 (4 poort RAID controller) with 4x 320GB Western Digital > > SATA-II drives attached to it in a RAID5 configuration. > >I have questions: > >1) Do these controllers, from a BIOS level, permit SMART commands > to be sent directly to the drives (via pass(4)) so you can > monitor drives for potential upcoming failures and perform > drive tests, via smartctl? There is the pass0 interface, but not sure what you can set. Smartmon doesnt seem to work, or at least I havent used it. Here is what you get via the cli tool for disk info # ./cli32 "disk smart drv=1" # Attribute Items Flag Value Thres State =============================================================================== 1 Raw Read Error Rate 0x0f 49 6 OK 3 Spin Up Time 0x03 98 0 OK 4 Start/Stop Count 0x32 100 20 OK 5 Reallocated Sector Count 0x33 100 36 OK 7 Seek Error Rate 0x0f 86 30 OK 9 Power-on Hours Count 0x32 81 0 OK 10 Spin Retry Count 0x13 100 97 OK 12 Device Power Cycle Count 0x32 100 20 OK 194 Temperature 0x22 35 0 OK 197 Current Pending Sector Count 0x12 100 0 OK 198 Off-line Scan Uncorrectable Sector Count 0x10 100 0 OK 199 Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 0x3e 200 0 OK =============================================================================== GuiErrMsg<0x00>: Success. # ./cli32 "disk info" Ch ModelName Serial# FirmRev Capacity State =============================================================================== 1 ST3250823AS 3ND02GC5 3.01 250.1GB RaidSet Member(1) 2 ST3250823AS 3ND02WRF 3.01 250.1GB RaidSet Member(1) 3 ST3250823AS 3ND02X9G 3.01 250.1GB RaidSet Member(1) 4 ST3250823AS 3ND02YRL 3.01 250.1GB RaidSet Member(1) =============================================================================== GuiErrMsg<0x00>: Success. >2) Regardless of performance, have you actually tried a hard failure > with these controllers and seen what both the controller and the > OS do? Yes. Its not as nice as the 3ware (I have done LOTS of those and my heart remains at normal levels when I change out dead drives...) I am still a little nervous with the Areca, but it has worked so far on the couple that I have done. >3) Does Areca provide any form of carriage/enclosure medium, such as > an enclosure which supports 4 drives, allows hot-swapping, and > allows you to query the enclosure for statistics (fan RPM, thermals, > and so on)? Not Areca branded, but the generic ones I have picked up seem to work just fine. >4) string'ing the cli32 binary returns some references to SMART, but > the monitoring is generally retarded (literally, not slang) -- it > looks as if it just wants to use SMART to say "drive bad" or "drive > good". Seems to give a bit more than that. >This is not an effective use of SMART, and does nothing > for those wanting to monitor drives properly (read: temperature, > excessive ECC, perform SMART tests for bad blocks, etc.). > >5) Is there native FreeBSD 6.x binaries for administrative utilities? > It doesn't look like it, but maybe I'm looking at the wrong utility: > ~/V1.5_50930 $ file cli32 > cli32: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1, for > FreeBSD 4.2, statically linked, not stripped I use it under RELENG_6. The cli is a 42 binary, but it works just fine on RELENG_6. You dont need any klds loaded to use it, nor the monitoring daemon. >The best out of the bunch in this regards seems to be Promise, who >despite having "ehhh" controllers, has given Soren lots of documen- >tation and has been helpful in providing him answers to his >questions. I can't say the same for other controller vendors. But Areca and 3ware provided developer time to make the drivers for FreeBSD. Should this not be encouraged / applauded as well ? Especially 3ware, support has been awesome over the years and Areca I think has a lot of the specs open and published... Enough so that the People's Popular Front of BSD (aka OpenBSD) wrote their own native driver for the Areca. ---Mike