From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 6 15:35:47 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C28516A41F for ; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 15:35:47 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from vivek@khera.org) Received: from yertle.kcilink.com (yertle.kcilink.com [65.205.34.180]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39DDA43D46 for ; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 15:35:47 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from vivek@khera.org) Received: from [192.168.7.103] (host-103.int.kcilink.com [192.168.7.103]) by yertle.kcilink.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0011B865 for ; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 10:35:46 -0500 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v746.2) In-Reply-To: <20060105224150.GA991@tuatara.fishballoon.org> References: <20060105224150.GA991@tuatara.fishballoon.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Vivek Khera Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 10:35:46 -0500 To: freebsd-stable X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.746.2) Subject: Re: 6.0 on Dell 1850 with PERC4e/DC RAID? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:35:47 -0000 On Jan 5, 2006, at 5:41 PM, Scott Mitchell wrote: > I may be getting a new Dell PE1850 soon, to replace our ancient CVS > server > (still running 4-STABLE). The new machine will ideally run 6.0 and > have a > PERC4e/DC RAID card - the one with battery-backed cache. This is > listed as I have an 1850 with the buil-in PERC 4e/Si since all I needed was the RAID1 mirror of the internal drives. It works extremely well, and the speed is quite good. As for notices of when the drives go bad, under 4.x I've had disk failures with the amr driver (different PERC cards) and not gotten any such notices in the syslog that I recall. I did find a program posted to one of the freebsd lists called 'amrstat' that I run nightly. It produces this kind of output: Drive 0: 68.24 GB, RAID1 optimal If it says "degraded" it is time to fix a drive. You just fire up the lsi megaraid tools and find out which drive it is. If you go to the LSI download area, they have one file for FreeBSD, which is labeled the driver. In that zip file is also the management software for freebsd. You'll want that. Personally, I like the "MEGAMGR" software which was released for freebsd 4.x and mimics the BIOS' interface in a terminal window. The rebuild on LSI controllers is set to automatic on the dells as default. It just works as expected. Overall, I'm a big fan of the LSI cards and the amr driver... Unfortunately for me, the latest equipment I just got only takes low- profile cards, and LSI doesn't offer a dual channel RAID card in low- profile configuration... so I need to look at adaptec.