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Date:      Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:01:31 -0500
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Support for Areca ARC-1300-4X on 8-STABLE?
Message-ID:  <F144E032-E803-48DE-8855-190B74DF3D84@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20101124053255.GA15123@icarus.home.lan>
References:  <D7494E82-4424-4535-87F9-59FAC5A170B3@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> <20101124053255.GA15123@icarus.home.lan>

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On Nov 24, 2010, at 12:32 AM, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 09:41:43PM -0500, Paul Mather wrote:
>> Does anyone know whether the Areca ARC-1300-4X external SAS HBA is
>> currently supported under FreeBSD/amd64 8-STABLE?  I just fired up a
>> system that has one of these cards that is running 8.0-RELEASE and =
the
>> HBA is not being detected properly by FreeBSD.  (It is being
>> misidentified by the arcmsr driver.)  I'm hoping that once I upgrade
>> from 8.0-RELEASE to a contemporary 8-STABLE that it'll be supported.
>> I found a posting on the Web that indicated a driver would be
>> available in the first quarter of 2010
>> =
(http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2009-December/006115.=
html).
>>=20
>> I'm really hoping I can use this card, though I'm somewhat =
discouraged
>> by the fact that the Areca Web site lists only drivers for Windows,
>> Linux, and Mac OS X for this particular model. :-(
>=20
> Have you contacted Areca about this?  Their Technical Support folks
> would be able to tell you why this is, and if there is work being done
> to provide a driver for FreeBSD.  A hardware vendor that is known to
> support FreeBSD is more authoritative about their drivers than the
> FreeBSD Project.  :-)

I'll concede the latter point, but I'd also hope that such a vendor =
would be contributing its drivers directly into the source tree rather =
than having a separate set of patches or downloads for end-users to =
fiddle about with.  I prefer my updates to come via csup. :-)

The only Areca port I can see is the one for the CLI for their RAID =
cards (sysutils/areca-cli).

I have contacted their support e-mail address asking what the situation =
is, from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  I hope the news is good.

> Also, please see this thread (which is very recent):
>=20
> =
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-November/059985.htm=
l

Thanks for the link!  I'm not sure whether "Fixed arcmsr driver prevent =
arcsas support for Areca SAS HBA ARC13x0" in the "Bug fixes" list is =
good news or bad news for me.  It suggests that the arcmsr driver has =
been fixed to prevent it attaching to the ARC-13X0 cards, implying that =
it is not supported.  This entry about OS support on the Areca official =
page for the ARC-1300 product =
(http://www.areca.us/products/sasnoneraid.htm) is also not inspiring: =
"BSD/FreeBSD (will be available with 6Gb/s Host Adapter)."  Does this =
mean only their 6 Gb/s cards will be supported under FreeBSD, or that =
support for the 3 Gb/s cards will appear alongside the 6 Gb/s cards, =
whenever they are released?

I have to say all this has left a sour taste in my mouth.  I chose Areca =
because of their solid FreeBSD support. :-(

Cheers,

Paul.





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