From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 1 06:40:59 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 529DF16A4CE for ; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 06:40:59 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.bitfreak.org (mail.bitfreak.org [65.75.198.146]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 158BD43D55 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 06:40:59 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dmp@bitfreak.org) Received: from speck.loki.lan (c-24-21-241-225.client.comcast.net [24.21.241.225]) by mail.bitfreak.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0923D19F3A; Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:40:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spud (d2.loki.lan [172.21.42.22]) by speck.loki.lan (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C56C17022; Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:40:49 -0700 (PDT) From: "Darren Pilgrim" To: "'Brian Reichert'" , Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:40:39 -0700 Message-ID: <000001c48fee$9b90c100$162a15ac@spud> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6626 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 In-Reply-To: <20040901052054.GV4846@numachi.com> Importance: Normal 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 06:40:59 -0000 > From: Brian Reichert >=20 > I'm speccing a budget RAID fileserver, and stumbled across some > interesting prospects. >=20 > This page describes a eight-channel ATA RAID card, the 7506-8: >=20 > >=20 > 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: >=20 > The page says that other 3ware cards use the same PCI IDs, so they will also get picked up by the twe driver. The twe man page in 4.8 only lists the 5xxx and 6xxx series cards, but it attached my 7506 just fine. The page seems rather out of date, with the cited firmware issues tied to cards made two years ago. FWIW, I just installed a 7506-4LP in a 32-bit 33 MHz slot on a 500MHz P3 Celeron machine (i810), with a pair of WD1200JB drives in a RAID1, running up-to-date RELENG_4_8. The performance is excellent for a pair of "typical" ATA drives in a RAID 1. I had a the "PCI parity error" problem when it was installed in a test machine with an older mainboard. > Of course, I'm open to any anti-recommendations WRT this card, as > well, so feel free to chuck me any feedback... Quite the contrary. I'm very pleased with my experience thus far. 3ware's phone support has some longish hold times (20 minutes) and their queueing routine is broken (longest "5 minutes" I've ever seen), but it's wonderful to have a support team that doesn't squirm when you're honest about the OS you're running. :)