From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 14 10:59:28 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id F1A675F4 for ; Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:59:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from cu01176a.smtpx.saremail.com (cu01176a.smtpx.saremail.com [195.16.150.151]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5C982FCD for ; Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:59:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [172.16.2.2] (izaro.sarenet.es [192.148.167.11]) by proxypop03.sare.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DFF169DC637; Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:49:27 +0100 (CET) Subject: Re: Controller for ZFS Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1283) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Borja Marcos In-Reply-To: Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:49:24 +0100 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <49F719A9-AC50-4917-8809-F51EBD4F5D0F@sarenet.es> References: To: Shawn Wallbridge X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1283) Cc: "freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org" X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.16 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:59:29 -0000 On Nov 13, 2013, at 7:41 PM, Shawn Wallbridge wrote: > I was wondering what the preferred/best supported 24port SAS/SATA > controller is for FreeBSD? I have a box with a LSI/3Ware 9750-24i4e in = it, > which I can use in JBOD mode, but it seems like a waste to me. Not only a waste, but a serious problem. You absolutely do not want a "JBOD mode" in which you create so-called = RAID0 1-drive logical volumes. You absolutely do want a silly and stupid HBA which just passes SAS/SATA = commands from the OS to the drives and back.=20 The "JBOD mode" offers a fake device in which the "intelligent" = controller makes its own decisions and, of course, hides the very important SAS/SATA status codes from the OS. ZFS knows better.=20 The one I use is sold by Dell as the "H200". They usually try to disuade = you by saying that it's not intelligent, doesn't offer RAID, some of their "configuration aids" even forbid it... I just = tell the salesman to shut up because I know much better than him. The only problem: beware if you are using a built-in backplane in the = server, some manufacturers insist on using different cabling schemes for different controllers and you could run into stupid = problems because of that. FreeBSD 10 identifies one of my cards as this one: mps0: port 0x7c00-0x7cff mem = 0xd4ff0000-0xd4ffffff,0xd4f80000-0xd4fbffff irq 80 at device 0.0 on = pci67 mps0: Firmware: 07.15.08.00, Driver: 16.00.00.00-fbsd mps0: IOCCapabilities: = 185c Borja.