From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 2 12:04:37 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 42E56106564A; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:04:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from morganw@chemikals.org) Received: from warped.bluecherry.net (unknown [IPv6:2001:440:eeee:fffb::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A3F708FC1A; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:04:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from morganw@chemikals.org) Received: from volatile.chemikals.org (unknown [74.193.182.107]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by warped.bluecherry.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 1EF3DA16A620; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:04:35 -0600 (CST) Received: from localhost (morganw@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by volatile.chemikals.org (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id mB2C4RhK000817; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:04:29 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from morganw@chemikals.org) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:04:27 -0600 (CST) From: Wes Morgan To: Jan Mikkelsen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, 'Matt Simerson' , 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 12:04:37 -0000 On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Jan Mikkelsen wrote: > Hi, > > Wes Morgan wrote: >> On Sun, 16 Nov 2008, Matt Simerson wrote: >> >>> The Areca cards do NOT have the cache enabled by default. I >> ordered the >>> optional battery and RAM upgrade for my collection of >> 1231ML cards. Even with >>> the BBWC, the cache is not enabled by default. I had to go >> out of my way to >>> enable it, on every single controller. >> >> Are you using these areca cards successfully with large >> arrays? I found a >> 1680i card for a decent price and installed it this weekend, >> but since >> then I'm seeing the raidz2 pool that it's running hang so >> frequently that >> I can't even trust using it. The hangs occur in both 7-stable and >> 8-current with the new ZFS patch. Same exact settings that >> have been rock >> solid for me before now don't want to work at all. The drives >> are just set >> as JBOD -- the controller actually defaulted to this, so I >> didn't have to >> make any real changes in the BIOS. >> >> 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? Not quite. The zfs deadlock/hang effected both reads and writes, blocking either of them indefinitely. They were "fixed" by the most recent set of patches in -current.