Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 11:43:19 +0800 From: KC Somaratne <kc.somaratne@gmail.com> To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Cc: scottl@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommended RAID controller Message-ID: <9967ef0705010519435b6bbd66@mail.gmail.com>
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>>Walter Vaughan wrote: >> >> I am looking to build two new servers, and >> plan on using freeBSD. I've read the last >> 5 months of this list and while I haven't seen >> anything to scare me, I'm looking for advice on >> something that'll work pretty much out of the block >> with 5.2.1 that has pretty good tools support. >> I was all fired up about a Zero-channel Adaptec, >> but after reading it's only 4.* tools supported >> I not so sure. >> I liked what I've read about Intel's SATA >> raid that uses the iir driver, but again >> I am worried about administrative tools. >> >> Thanks >> -- > >Let me go through the list: > >Adaptec: > - There are two families of controller here. The 2010/2015 > ZCR cards are all that is left of the old family. It is > supported under 4.x and 5.x, though there are issues with > the management tools that require a few tricks to overcome > in 5.x. I'm also not terribly happy with the driver, but > I recently started cleaning it up. Adaptec provides no > support nor updates for the driver. If you have a strong > desire to use Adaptec ZCR, this is the only choice right now, > but a lot of people use it and are happy with it. > - The newer family of cards is a bit better in my opinion. > Adaptec hasn't released a newer version of the management > app for FreeBSD in several years, but the one that shipped > with the 5400S will work for all cards in the family. > Alternatively, the Linux CLI tool that Adaptec does ship > will work under FreeBSD in linux emulation mode. The driver > is well maintained. > >Intel: > - The ICP/Vortex/Intel controllers are actually owned and > produced by Adaptec now. The driver is fairly good and is > actively maintained by the vendor. A management app is > available for FreeBSD, but it will not work with FreeBSD 5.2.x > due to an inadvertent IOCTL incompatibility. I have changes > from the vendor pending right now that should hopefully fix > this for 5.3. In the mean time, the patch that I committed to > 5.2-CURRENT last month should work ok. > >AMI/LSI MegaRAID: > - This hardware used to be well supported, but the vendor no > longer provides regular updates. I don't know whether a > management app exists or not, though I doubt that it does. > >3Ware: > - Both the 6xxx/7xxx/8xxx and the 9xxx generation cards are > actively supported on FreeBSD by the vendor and are used by a > large, well-known web portal company. Not sure what the > status of management apps are. > >Compaq CISS: > - Driver is well supported by the FreeBSD community and is popular > amoung users. > >IBM ServeRAID: > - IBM provided an initial driver, and work has gone on over the > past year to clean it up and make it more robust. It only exists > for 5.x, but backporting it to 4.x would only take a few days. > No management app exists, nor can the Linux apps run on FreeBSD. > This hardware is owned and produced by Adaptec also. > >If I were to go the ZCR route right now, it would likely be with the >Intel card. I've just started playing with them, and it has been a >generally positive experience. The fact that they actively support >FreeBSD is a big plus. For SATA, it would be a toss-up between 3ware >and Adaptec. For U320 SCSI that you can buy in the channel (as opposed >to only buying from the vendor), Adaptec probably wins. > >Scott Hi, With respect to the support for the IBM ServeRAID cards, has there been a change of status since then. I am looking at getting two IBM servers with ServeRAID-6M cards to run 5.3-R. Also, are there any management apps available in 5.3 for the ServeRAID-6M card? thanks n rgds, -kc.
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