From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 24 03:32:28 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 113B51065674 for ; Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:32:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwboyer@mac.com) Received: from asmtpout025.mac.com (asmtpout025.mac.com [17.148.16.100]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFCEF8FC25 for ; Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:32:27 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Received: from ruby.rwboyer.com ([38.102.24.57]) by asmtp025.mac.com (Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server 7u4-20.01 64bit (built Nov 21 2010)) with ESMTPSA id <0LDW001WHXU05A70@asmtp025.mac.com> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:32:27 -0800 (PST) X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.2.15,1.0.148,0.0.0000 definitions=2010-12-24_02:2010-12-24, 2010-12-24, 1970-01-01 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 suspectscore=1 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=6.0.2-1010190000 definitions=main-1012230141 From: Robert Boyer Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 22:32:24 -0500 Message-id: <7C86788D-9A22-479C-AF2B-5A7025F371E2@mac.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) Subject: SAS HBA card for freebsd? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:32:28 -0000 I have been running FreeBSD for about a year and tracking the ZFS implementation for almost as long. I am reasonably happy with the current stable 8.1 ZFS configs that I have been running with a few TB of storage all managed with an integrated SATA controller on my test machine. I am about to invest a little bit of money in a production machine targeted for a bunch of cheapo storage attachment and plan to implement on FreeBSD / ZFS. I have searched around on this topic and most info seems to be a bit out of date or contradictory, so here is the question at the risk of being redundant. I need a SAS controller that has preferably 8 ports (two four channel) connections per card. I don't mind decent buying a RAID card but really really desire it to be configurable in HBA mode vs. RAID or JBOD with RAID signatures. There are plenty of HBA only cards that would be suitable but I can find none that seem to fit the bill in terms of FreeBSD. I have seen a couple of cheap RAID cards recommended but cannot seem to get a definitive answer of whether they are actually configurable as plain old disks (HBA mode) vs JBOD w/ RAID signature. Anybody using a reasonably priced card that fits the bill? Thanks RB