From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 10 20:57:46 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E8F5116A400 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 20:57:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tom.hurst@clara.net) Received: from spork.qfe3.net (spork.qfe3.net [212.13.207.101]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7AAF13C447 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 20:57:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tom.hurst@clara.net) Received: from [81.104.144.87] (helo=voi.aagh.net) by spork.qfe3.net with esmtp (Exim 4.66 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1HmFJJ-0006Gc-Kr; Thu, 10 May 2007 21:32:25 +0100 Received: from freaky by voi.aagh.net with local (Exim 4.66 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1HmFJB-000NHT-ED; Thu, 10 May 2007 21:32:17 +0100 Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 21:32:17 +0100 From: Thomas Hurst To: Peter Schuller Message-ID: <20070510203217.GA88574@voi.aagh.net> Mail-Followup-To: Peter Schuller , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <46435C68.9070505@infidyne.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="J/dobhs11T7y2rNN" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <46435C68.9070505@infidyne.com> Organization: Not much. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15 (2007-04-06) Sender: Thomas Hurst Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stable many-port SATA controller recommendations X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 20:57:47 -0000 --J/dobhs11T7y2rNN Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Peter Schuller (peter.schuller@infidyne.com) wrote: > after spending time and money on several Promise and Sillicon Image > based cards that don't work properly, I am still in desperate need of a > stable SATA controller. Promise are supposed to be one of the better makes when it comes to documentation and open source support, what problems are you seeing? > My main candidate is the AOC-SAT2-MV8. Can anyone offer input on the > stability of this card in FreeBSD? It would be perfect because it is > priced very well. It's supported, and even better, the Marvell is supposedly now 64bit clean with ata(4) in HEAD. When I tried it a year or so ago it would, like any other ATA controller, explode with more than a couple of disks and >=3D4GB RAM because of problems with the way bounce buffers are allocated; I didn't see any problems aside from that, but I didn't test it very much. > If the Marvell is out, other main contenders are the 8 port LSI > MegaRAID, Highpoint RocketRaid and 3ware cards. But these are all on > the expensive side, with the half-exception of the MegaRaid 300-8XLP > which is only semi-expensive. When ata(4) proved itself utterly useless in environments with decent amounts of memory, I got an 8 port LSI MegaRAID, since amr(4) had just been given an overhaul to make it MPSAFE and 64bit clean; I've not had any real problems with it (aside the occasional fight with the BIOS, which is par for the course with RAID controllers), but I'd still prefer a real SATA controller so things are a little more predictable and flexible (SMART support, software RAID, disks exposed to the actual OS and not some dodgy half-assed ASIC..). --=20 Thomas 'Freaky' Hurst http://hur.st/ --J/dobhs11T7y2rNN Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFGQ4FRNBBHZ542MwQRAvIGAJ9ue44XO/szXCNwUBA16Ws6hbPtHQCeO+of tYx73OI61Nt/Yp1WDEiqC7g= =oFDr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --J/dobhs11T7y2rNN--