From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 23 12:02:32 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: amd64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEBDA16A4DF; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:02:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bob@immure.com) Received: from flpvm23.prodigy.net (flpvm23.prodigy.net [207.115.20.53]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF73743D92; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:02:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bob@immure.com) X-ORBL: [66.136.206.1] Received: from maul.immure.com (adsl-66-136-206-1.dsl.austtx.swbell.net [66.136.206.1]) by flpvm23.prodigy.net (8.13.7 out spool5000 dk/8.13.7) with ESMTP id k7NC1tZb005598; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 05:01:58 -0700 Received: from rancor.immure.com (rancor.immure.com [10.1.132.9]) by maul.immure.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k7NC1lSw093762; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:01:47 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from bob@immure.com) Received: from rancor.immure.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rancor.immure.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k7NC1lnG021724; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:01:47 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from bob@rancor.immure.com) Received: (from bob@localhost) by rancor.immure.com (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k7NC1kLn021723; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:01:46 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from bob) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:01:46 -0500 From: Bob Willcox To: Willem Jan Withagen Message-ID: <20060823120146.GA21578@rancor.immure.com> References: <44EC0B9B.5020705@withagen.nl> <003f01c6c68d$64688e60$b3db87d4@multiplay.co.uk> <44EC27C7.8060906@withagen.nl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <44EC27C7.8060906@withagen.nl> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.12-2006-07-14 X-immure-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-immure-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-immure-MailScanner-From: bob@immure.com X-Spam-Status: No Cc: amd64@freebsd.org, stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: suggestions for SATA RAID cards X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Bob Willcox List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:02:32 -0000 On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 12:02:47PM +0200, Willem Jan Withagen wrote: > Steven Hartland wrote: > >The Areca cards I can recommend. Highpoint 1820a is surprisingly good > >for its price and the later cards have better performance still apparently. > >N.B. Use the min stripe size when creating the array for max performance > >with this card under FreeBSD. > > I was more thinking along the lines of a HighPoint 2720, but perhaps a 1820 > would also do fine. What device driver would one use with that. > > [Ahhh, 'man -k highpoint' is your friend] > Now what I liked about the 3ware stuff was that there are tools to work the > raid from within FreeBSD. So that would require the newers ones... > > But the hardware list is only showing the 2320 and 2322 with a rr232x(4) > driver. Which sort of makes me wonder for all the other stuff and their > drivers. > > The motherboard has both PCI-X and PCI-E so that should not be a connector > problem. Now which bus is faster: 64Bit PCI-X at 133 Mhz, or a PCI-E 16x? The x16 PCI-E has considerably faster theoretical speed than 133 PCI-X (appx. 4GBs vs. 1GBs). However, the RAID controllers that I've seen are at most x8 so they are only capable of transfer rates half that fast (2GBs). Personally, I would go with PCI-E since in some performance tests I did with Areca cards last year (both PCI-E and PCI-X) there appeared to be a slight performance advantage to the PCI-E cards (sorry, I don't recall any of the specifics anymore, so please take that for what it's worth). BTW, I've had good experience with the Areca cards in FreeBSD (recent stable). Bob > > --WjW > > >Willem Jan Withagen wrote: > >>Hi, > >> > >>I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server. > >>Given all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at > >>the CeBIT I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8. > >>With that I bought a ASUS serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core > >>opteron. > >>In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my > >>home. ;) > >>However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the > >>PCI-X boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. I've > >>RMA-ed the card, but my guess is that it'll take a too long a time to > >>fix/replace it for my patience. > >> > >>So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've > >>seen that the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about > >>Promisse or Highpoint RAID controllers? > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- Bob Willcox Possessions increase to fill the space bob@immure.com available for their storage. Austin, TX -- Ryan