From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 2 11:05:31 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEF1D106567B for ; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:05:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from janm@transactionware.com) Received: from mail.transactionware.com (mail.transactionware.com [203.14.245.7]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 102AB8FC18 for ; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:05:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from janm@transactionware.com) Received: (qmail 89808 invoked from network); 2 Dec 2008 10:39:11 -0000 Received: from midgard.transactionware.com (192.168.1.55) by dm.transactionware.com with SMTP; 2 Dec 2008 10:39:11 -0000 Received: (qmail 38406 invoked by uid 907); 2 Dec 2008 10:38:48 -0000 Received: from midgard.transactionware.com (HELO STUDYPC) (192.168.1.55) by midgard.transactionware.com (qpsmtpd/0.32) with ESMTP; Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:38:48 +1100 From: "Jan Mikkelsen" To: "'Wes Morgan'" , "'Matt Simerson'" Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 21:38:49 +1100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6838 Importance: Normal Thread-Index: AclIqgYOka1HNfubTKa7sEYbDvvTRwLvtSIg X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5579 In-Reply-To: Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Areca vs. ZFS performance testing. X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:05:31 -0000 Hi, Wes Morgan wrote: > On Sun, 16 Nov 2008, Matt Simerson wrote: >=20 > > The Areca cards do NOT have the cache enabled by default. I=20 > ordered the=20 > > optional battery and RAM upgrade for my collection of=20 > 1231ML cards. Even with=20 > > the BBWC, the cache is not enabled by default. I had to go=20 > out of my way to=20 > > enable it, on every single controller. >=20 > Are you using these areca cards successfully with large=20 > arrays? I found a=20 > 1680i card for a decent price and installed it this weekend,=20 > but since=20 > then I'm seeing the raidz2 pool that it's running hang so=20 > frequently that=20 > I can't even trust using it. The hangs occur in both 7-stable and=20 > 8-current with the new ZFS patch. Same exact settings that=20 > have been rock=20 > solid for me before now don't want to work at all. The drives=20 > are just set=20 > as JBOD -- the controller actually defaulted to this, so I=20 > didn't have to=20 > make any real changes in the BIOS. >=20 > Any tips on your setup? Did you have any similar problems? I am seeing I/O related lockups on 7.1-PRE with an Areca ARC-1220 = controller and eight drives in a RAID-6 array. The same hardware works fine with = 6.3. When I run gstat while it is happening I see I/O performance drop and = the time to service each write (ms/w) goes up, and then suddenly goes back = down to a sensible value. I have seen it get to about 22000ms. The system is essentially unusable for writes, which limits the utility = a bit. Reads seem fine. Is this similar to the behaviour you saw? Thanks, Jan Mikkelsen