Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:53:25 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au> To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: "Chris J. Mutter" <cjm@s2.enemy.org> Subject: Re: Q: GDT6513RS/GDT4513RZ and FreeBSD/4.7R? Message-ID: <20030212095325.GB53497@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20030209184000.GA61494@dragon.nuxi.com> References: <200302091639.h19Gdcb0006186@satanii.enemy.org> <20030209184000.GA61494@dragon.nuxi.com>
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On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 10:40:00AM -0800, David O'Brien wrote: >On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 05:39:38PM +0100, Chris J. Mutter wrote: >> is it possible to setup the RAID hostdrive from within the same alpha- >> box or do i have to put the thing into a PC/i386 and then put it back >> into the alpha? > >Unless I've totally misuderstood things, with an mlx(4) card you can do >it from SRM. With other cards you'll have to set them up on a PC/i386 >first. Note that not all of FreeBSD RAID drivers will work on >non-PC/i386 machines -- asr(4) is an example of this. At work, I have a large number of AS4100's with KZPAC's (re-badged Mylex DAC960's) in them and I can heartily recommend avoiding them at all costs. The SRM does understand booting from them but you can't directly configure them from the SRM. To configure them, you start AlphaBIOS and run a "RAID Configuration Utility" (ra200rcu) from a floppy (part of the RAIDarray230 package). The only marginally good news is that there is a variant for use with a VTxxx-compatible terminal on a serial port (ra200srl) [of course, you've got to remember the control keys that replace F1-F12]. BTW, AlphaBIOS and ra200srl uses 8-bit control sequences which aren't supported by syscons(4), though it works ok in an X11R6 xterm (eg XFree86) [it doesn't work with the X11R5 xterm in Tru64 4.0x]. Other problem with the KZPACs is that if a disk fails (or even glitches), the controller locks it out in NVRAM (ie a reboot or power cycle after replacing the disk won't do) and you need to run a management utility to recover it. In Tru64, this is 'swxcrmgr' (which only exists in a X-client version - there is no way to manage the drives from the command line). mlxcontrol(8) goes partway there (and at least it is a command line utility) but doesn't include commands to re-enable a failed disk. Note that you can't create a logical volume larger than 32GB (the RCU will let you but the controller wraps block addresses at 26 bits) and disks larger than 9GB aren't officially supported (though 18GB and 36GB disks work, subject to the logical volume limit). BTW, if I haven't managed to discourage you yet, since you've got an AS1000, there's also an EISA variant - I think it's a KZPSA. My recommendation is that you get a normal SCSI controller and use vinum(4) if you need RAID. Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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