Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:26:11 +0000 From: Scott Mitchell <scott+lists.freebsd@fishballoon.org> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 6.0 on Dell 1850 with PERC4e/DC RAID? Message-ID: <20060323172611.GA79194@llama.fishballoon.org> In-Reply-To: <20060105224150.GA991@tuatara.fishballoon.org> References: <20060105224150.GA991@tuatara.fishballoon.org>
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On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 10:41:50PM +0000, Scott Mitchell wrote: > Hi all, > > I may be getting a new Dell PE1850 soon, to replace our ancient CVS server > (still running 4-STABLE). The new machine will ideally run 6.0 and have a > PERC4e/DC RAID card - the one with battery-backed cache. This is listed as > supported by amr(4), but I'm wondering how well it actually works in the > case of a disk failure. Will the driver tell me that disk has failed (a > syslog message would be enough) or will I have to make a daily trip into > the server room to check the front panel lights? Presumably it handles > hot-swapping a replacement drive OK? > > I found some posts mentioning some management/monitoring tools for these > controllers that were allegedly available from the www.lsilogic.com > website, but I can't find anything on there for FreeBSD. Do the Linux > tools work? Following up to myself for the benefit of the archives - I can confirm that the PERC4e in the PE1850 works perfectly with amr(4) under 6.0. I've been using the sysutils/megarc port for managing the adapter from FreeBSD. It has a truly awful user interface but allows you to do everything that the BIOS setup program does, so far as I can tell. For monitoring we're relying on the email alerts from the DRAC/4 management card also in the machine, which turn out to work very well. We actually had a disk failure on the machine already (one of the drives had apparently worked itself a bit loose in transit and decided to power itself off a few days after I put the machine in the rack). The DRAC sent out an email when the drive "died", it auto-rebuilt when shoved back into the slot properly, then another email from the DRAC when the rebuild was complete. I'm looking forward to the amr(4) performance improvements in 6.1 and being able to run the Linux megmgr tool (I think this is the one with the same user interface as the BIOS setup program). Cheers, Scott -- =========================================================================== Scott Mitchell | PGP Key ID | "Eagles may soar, but weasels Cambridge, England | 0x54B171B9 | don't get sucked into jet engines" scott at fishballoon.org | 0xAA775B8B | -- Anon
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