From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 9 22:21:09 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DF9D1065670 for ; Tue, 9 Feb 2010 22:21:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from spork@bway.net) Received: from xena.bway.net (xena.bway.net [216.220.96.26]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D218A8FC16 for ; Tue, 9 Feb 2010 22:21:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 14366 invoked by uid 0); 9 Feb 2010 22:21:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?10.3.2.40?) (spork@bway.net@96.57.144.66) by smtp.bway.net with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 9 Feb 2010 22:21:07 -0000 Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 17:21:07 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Sprickman X-X-Sender: spork@freemac To: Dan Langille In-Reply-To: <4B71490B.6030602@langille.org> Message-ID: References: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org> <4B71490B.6030602@langille.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (OSX 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: FreeBSD Stable Subject: Re: hardware for home use large storage 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: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:21:09 -0000 On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Dan Langille wrote: > Charles Sprickman wrote: >> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010, Dan Langille wrote: >> >> Also, it seems like >> people who use zfs (or gmirror + gstripe) generally end up buying pricey >> hardware raid cards for compatibility reasons. There seem to be no decent >> add-on SATA cards that play nice with FreeBSD other than that weird >> supermicro card that has to be physically hacked about to fit. > > They use software RAID and hardware RAID at the same time? I'm not sure what > you mean by this. Compatibility with FreeBSD? >From what I've seen on this list, people buy a nice Areca or 3Ware card and put it in JBOD mode and run ZFS on top of the drives. The card is just being used to get lots of sata ports with a stable driver and known good hardware. I've asked here a few times in the last few years for recommendations on a cheap SATA card and it seems like such a thing does not exist. This might be a bit dated at this point, but you're playing it safe if you go with a 3ware/Areca/LSI card. I don't recall all the details, but there were issues with siil, highpoint, etc. IIRC it was not really FBSD's issue, but bugginess in those cards. The intel ICH9 chipset works well, but there are no add-on PCIe cards that have an intel chip on them... I'm sure someone will correct me if my info is now outdated or flat-out wrong. :) Charles