From owner-freebsd-stable Sat Apr 29 21:23:43 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mass.cdrom.com (adsl-63-193-112-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.193.112.57]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA49A37B7A0 for ; Sat, 29 Apr 2000 21:23:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.cdrom.com) Received: from mass.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mass.cdrom.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA00672; Sat, 29 Apr 2000 21:31:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.cdrom.com) Message-Id: <200004300431.VAA00672@mass.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: Parag Patel Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How good is AMI MegaRAID support? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 29 Apr 2000 14:49:18 PDT." <93707.957044958@pinhead.parag.codegen.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 21:31:50 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 13:13:37 PDT, Mike Smith wrote: > > > >You leave out "how well you want it to perform" as well. All other > >things being equal, the PCI:SCSI adapters will give you better bang for > >your buck. > > Out of curiosity, how would a PCI-RAID (SCSI) adapter compare with > vanilla PCI-SCSI cards and vinum? It seems to me that the host CPU(s) > are much faster than the processors on the PCI-SCSI adapters. Or are > both of these "fast-enough" and thus performance differences are largely > an irrelevent consideration? (They both have similar software issues > but I suspect vinum is easier to debug. :) All other things being equal, software RAID is going to be faster. (ie. same disks, same # of SCSI channels, etc.) The hardware solution's sell there is: - better support/functionality (enclosure management, etc.) - better survivability (battery-backed cache) Plus you get a stack of SCSI channels onboard the card. -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message