Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 15:20:30 +0800 From: "Derek Barrett" <derekbarrett@graffiti.net> To: "David Miller" <dmiller@sparks.net> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RAID: Adaptec vs Mylex Message-ID: <20020327072030.21997.qmail@graffiti.net>
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We chose the Adaptec 2400A for its friendly compatibility with FreeBSD. FreeBSD 4.4 and 4.5 have both detected it instantly, and there were no conflicts with another RAID card in our chassis, it liked both. Adaptec seems to be the only company out there that goes out of its way to support ATA RAID for FreeBSD. Of all the companies we looked at, support was marginal at best. Though the SCSI cards had alot more FreeBSD support. The RAID utilities that come with it also have native FreeBSD versions, one is written as a package, and another will install through a setup script. Very handy. 2400A supports RAID0,1,5, and 10. I read today some documentation regarding RAID 0/5, but we only have one Adaptec card right now so I don't know if that is working on this particular this card. Another comment is that their customer service seems to be well done from what I have seen so far. I asked a couple of questions by email last night, and they were responded back today, and the answers they gave me were very helpful and professional. The only thing I was disappointed about was that we could not change the stripe size on RAID10 (which is set to 64K). You can change the stripe size on the RAID0 and RAID5, they go from 8K to 256K. So we are using RAID5 with a 16K stripe size. For you database users using smaller block sizes, it looks like you'd have to stick with RAID5 on this card. Does anyone out there use a small stripe size on their RAID10? Like 8K or 16K? Does going to the small stripe size defeat the purpose of the RAID10, and possibly that's why it is stuck at 64K on this card? (In this case, since there are two RAID 1 arrays within the RAID0, the actual stripe to those becomes 32K, since 64/2 = 32K, but that's still too big for our purposes). > On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 15:30:56 -0500 (EST), "David Miller" > <.ndmiller@sparkset> said: > > Any input from real world users on the subject? I'm most interested in > > the 3210S and 352. My use would be with RAID 10 support of a busy > > database server doing zillions of writes/updates. Speed writing small > > blocks is of the essence. > > > > Reliability, robustness, speed are critical factors. It will be hooked > > up > > to 10 or 12 15K drives. > > > > Input? > > > > Thanks, > > > > --- David > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > > > > -- > > derekbarrett@fastmail.fm > > -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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