Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:46:42 -0500 From: Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> To: Boris Kochergin <spawk@acm.poly.edu> Cc: FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: hardware for home use large storage Message-ID: <4B72FF12.5020309@langille.org> In-Reply-To: <4B72FC5A.5030100@acm.poly.edu> References: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org> <alpine.OSX.2.00.1002090103520.982@hotlap.local> <4B71490B.6030602@langille.org> <20100209161817.GI4648@cesium.hyperfine.info> <4B718EBB.6080709@acm.poly.edu> <4B723609.8010802@langille.org> <4B72FC5A.5030100@acm.poly.edu>
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Boris Kochergin wrote: > Dan Langille wrote: >> Boris Kochergin wrote: >>> Peter C. Lai wrote: >>>> On 2010-02-09 06:37:47AM -0500, Dan Langille wrote: >>>> >>>>> Charles Sprickman wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010, Dan Langille wrote: >>>>>> Also, it seems like >>>>>> people who use zfs (or gmirror + gstripe) generally end up buying >>>>>> pricey hardware raid cards for compatibility reasons. There seem >>>>>> to be no decent add-on SATA cards that play nice with FreeBSD >>>>>> other than that weird supermicro card that has to be physically >>>>>> hacked about to fit. >>>>>> >>>> >>>> Mostly only because certain cards have issues w/shoddy JBOD >>>> implementation. Some cards (most notably ones like Adaptec 2610A >>>> which was rebranded by Dell as the "CERC SATA 1.5/6ch" back in the >>>> day) won't let you run the drives in passthrough mode and seem to >>>> all want to stick their grubby little RAID paws into your JBOD setup >>>> (i.e. the only way to have minimal >>>> participation from the "hardware" RAID is to set each disk as its >>>> own RAID-0/volume in the controller BIOS) which then cascades into >>>> issues with SMART, AHCI, "triple caching"/write reordering, etc on >>>> the FreeBSD side (the controller's own craptastic cache, ZFS vdev >>>> cache, vmm/app cache, oh my!). So *some* people go with something >>>> tried-and-true (basically bordering on server-level cards that let >>>> you ditch any BIOS type of RAID config and present the raw disk >>>> devices to the kernel) >>> As someone else has mentioned, recent SiL stuff works well. I have >>> multiple >>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008 cards >>> servicing RAID-Z2 and GEOM_RAID3 arrays on 8.0-RELEASE and 8.0-STABLE >>> machines using both the old ata(4) driver and ATA_CAM. Don't let the >>> RAID label scare you--that stuff is off by default and the controller >>> just presents the disks to the operating system. Hot swap works. I >>> haven't had the time to try the siis(4) driver for them, which would >>> result in better performance. >> >> That's a really good price. :) >> >> If needed, I could host all eight SATA drives for $160, much cheaper >> than any of the other RAID cards I've seen. >> >> The issue then is finding a motherboard which has 4x PCI Express >> slots. ;) > If you want to go this route, I bought one a while ago so that I could > stuff as many dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controllers into it as possible > (it was a SPAN port replicator): > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130136. Newegg > doesn't carry it anymore, but if you can find it elsewhere, I can vouch > for its stability: > > # uptime > 1:20PM up 494 days, 5:23, 1 user, load averages: 0.05, 0.07, 0.05 > > In my setups with those Silicon Image cards, though, they serve as > additional controllers, with the following onboard SATA controllers > being used to provide most of the ports: I don't know what the above means. I think it means you are primarily using the onboard SATA contollers and have those Silicon Image cards providing additional ports where required. > > SB600 (AMD/ATI) > SB700 (AMD/ATI) > ICH9 (Intel) > 63XXESB2 (Intel) These are the chipsets on that motherboard? > > I haven't had any problems with any of them. > > -Boris
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