Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 05:22:36 -0800 From: Sandy Rutherford <sandy@krvarr.bc.ca> To: "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Hardware RAID Support (was RE: One Last Plea For Vinum Assistance) Message-ID: <16879.45212.984246.42585@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca> In-Reply-To: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNAEBEFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> References: <41ED86F4.1080301@mykitchentable.net> <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNAEBEFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
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>>>>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:57:21 -0800, >>>>> "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> said: > This did teach me a lesson that I kind of knew already but > didn't think too much about. That is, a software array is no substitute > for a hardware array. ... Agreed completely, which leads me to my question. Does anybody know what the plans are for the SCSI hardware raid controllers vis a vis CAM? I have a Mylex Extreme RAID 1100, which uses the mlx(4) driver. The mlx(4) driver does not use CAM, whereas its cousin the mly(4) driver does interact with CAM. I corresponded with Michael Smith, the principal author of both drivers, a while ago and he told me that it was a pain in the neck to integrate mly(4) with CAM and he did not forsee this ever being done for mlx(2). One side-effect of this is that although the RAID setup utility for the card does allow a channel(s) to be designated a plain non-RAID SCSI channel for use by a tape drive or CDROM, the FreeBSD driver does not support this. Also, the mlxcontrol(8) facility is a little on the basic side, with most of the capabilities of the card not supported. My main point is that support for SCSI hardware RAID seems to be a bit of a dog's breakfast at the moment and are there plans to brings things together? BTW: 1. Please do not ask me to donate a card to the developers. I don't have a spare. However, I know how the game is played and I am not asking anybody to donate their time to my problems. My only serious problem was a bug in mlxcontrol, for which I submitted a PR, with a patch. 2. If anybody is looking for a hardware RAID card, I can recommend the Extreme RAID 1100. It's a triple channel U2W card. I got mine for a song on Ebay. Note that it is definitely worth the trouble to update to the latest version of the firmware. ...Sandy
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