From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 14 13:17:58 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63EF816A4CE for ; Sat, 14 Feb 2004 13:17:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from cobra.acceleratedweb.net (cobra-gw.acceleratedweb.net [207.99.79.37]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0A03F43D1F for ; Sat, 14 Feb 2004 13:17:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from simon@optinet.com) Received: (qmail 40183 invoked by uid 110); 14 Feb 2004 21:17:56 -0000 Received: from ool-18baaf5c.dyn.optonline.net (HELO win2kpc1) (24.186.175.92) by cobra.acceleratedweb.net with SMTP; 14 Feb 2004 21:17:56 -0000 From: "Simon" To: "Alvin Gunkel" , "freebsd-isp@freebsd.org" Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:17:43 -0500 Priority: Normal X-Mailer: PMMail 2000 Professional (2.20.2661) For Windows 2000 (5.0.2195;4) In-Reply-To: <65007.68.100.34.209.1076782366.squirrel@mail.oneofum.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <20040214211758.0A03F43D1F@mx1.FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Questions about 3Ware 7506 controller X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 21:17:58 -0000 On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 13:12:46 -0500 (EST), Alvin Gunkel wrote: >I'm running 4.7 Release on a colocated system without access to >bios/console. This system currently has a Highpoint RocketRaid 100 >controller driving four WD 60gb (WD600JB, 8mb cache) drives in a raid 0+1 >config. I had a drive fail and the controller kept the system up and >functioning, but something has prevented rebuild from occurring, even in >the bios util after replacing the failed drive. As this is a most >inconvienent situation I'm considering replacing the raid controller with >a 3Ware 7506-4LP controller so I have more control from the OS level. Did you issue rebuild? did you do it right? it won't know what to do on its own. This is where SAF-TE SCA backplane comes in handy, but is only available for SCSI, afaik. >My two questions are: > >-What driver/firmware should I use? I have a 3Ware 6410 running in >another 4.7 system and am able to use the 3DM utils out of ports to >monitor it. I don't know if those utils support the 7506. 3Ware has a >beta driver and command line utils for the 7506 and FreeBSD 4.8. Which >way to go? I have 7506 under 5.1-R and it seems to work fine. I'm using default drivers/firmware. However, I had to apply a patch to the 3dm utility as it wouldn't bind to the right port. >-Raid 10 or 5? Compared to the 0+1 I have now, 10 would be a nice >improvement as loss of the one drive effectively took out two of my >drives. Raid 5 would give me an extra 60gb to use, but I don't have any >idea what the performance differential would be. RAID 10 is better than RAID 5 when it comes to writes, a lot better. If you want to know more, read: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/concepts/perf_ReadWrite.htm By the way, if you don't do a lot of writes, go with RAID 5, if you have a need to perform constant writes, go with RAID 10. -Simon