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Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 12:54:42 -0700
From: mike <mike503@gmail.com>
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Subject: eSATA, port multipliers and 4/5 disk external enclosures
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I'm trying to determine if FreeBSD supports these (and of course which
chipsets, specifically, any caveats, etc...) because I would like to
use ZFS, and Solaris still has weak/non-existent support for them. It
seems to me that FreeBSD probably would have a lot more support (and
have it longer) for this stuff.

Example equipment would be enclosures like this:
- http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusiond500p.html
- http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusiond500p-eseries.html
- http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusiond800raid.html

Controller cards like this (or related, basically any eSATA card with
at least 4 ports that supports port multipliers)
- http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_x4p.html
- http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html

I wouldn't plan on using the onboard RAID functions if I was using
ZFS. I would export all the drives as JBOD to the OS.

There are a lot of enclosures and a handful of controllers out there.
It would be nice to know if FreeBSD has any possible options or not.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.