From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Jun 14 19:17:37 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from aurora.sol.net (aurora.sol.net [206.55.65.76]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8B5714C47 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 19:17:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jgreco@aurora.sol.net) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by aurora.sol.net (8.9.2/8.9.2/SNNS-1.02) id VAA65880; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 21:17:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199906150217.VAA65880@aurora.sol.net> Subject: Re: Hardware RAID for FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <37656F58.D7C46358@eclipse.net.uk> from Stuart Henderson at "Jun 14, 1999 10: 8:40 pm" To: stuart@eclipse.net.uk (Stuart Henderson) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 21:17:09 -0500 (CDT) Cc: wheelman@nuc.net, jgreco@ns.sol.net, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, kpielorz@tdx.co.uk, rjebara@palnet.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > I'm not sure about the speed of the SmartRAID V stuff (U2W > > suite), but the configuration is all done through the BIOS now. > > No DOS App is needed to configure. > > Bios is no better than a dos app if it's a critical system and > you have to reboot to reconfigure so you can add more disks :( In all fairness, I believe someone was porting the DPT tool set to FreeBSD. However, for me at least it will be too little too late. The DPT has several limiting factors, including the overall capacity that it is able to deal with (three SCSI busses). The Mylex is available in a five-disk-channel configuration, cabling is much less a problem since you can put the Mylex external, and it works well. The Mylex can also use up to 256MB cache RAM and has battery backup. For the heavier applications, you can also hook up two hosts (leaving you with four drive busses) or two Mylexes in a redundant "partner" configuration that is reportedly even faster... or several other combinations of the above. All of this can be configured via serial, front panel, or (for the finer nuances) via a DOS software utility. You can actually build a RAID5 with nothing but the four buttons on the front of the controller. I think my next choice would be the Vinum RAID5 stuff... if I could ever get it to work. ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/342-4847 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message