From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 18 14:44:40 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 93952106566C for ; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:44:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Received: from lava.sentex.ca (pyroxene.sentex.ca [199.212.134.18]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 619448FC13 for ; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:44:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mdt-xp.sentex.net (simeon.sentex.ca [192.168.43.27]) by lava.sentex.ca (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id o2IEicCp049595; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:44:38 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mike@sentex.net) Message-Id: <201003181444.o2IEicCp049595@lava.sentex.ca> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:44:14 -0400 To: Andy Wodfer , freebsd-questions From: Mike Tancsa In-Reply-To: <23ed14b81003180137n61261b5axa22677a0a7bbe544@mail.gmail.co m> References: <23ed14b81003180137n61261b5axa22677a0a7bbe544@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Cc: Subject: Re: Hardware RAID controller questions - 3Ware vs RocketRaid 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: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:44:40 -0000 At 04:37 AM 3/18/2010, Andy Wodfer wrote: >Hi, >We're setting up two backup servers where each server will have about 4TB of >harddrives (for now) connected (4x1TB and 8x500GB drives). Last night we ran >into trouble with the 3ware controllers we have (9650SE-8LPML) because we >couldn't create a larger RAID5 than 1.99TB. Are you sure its the controller that was giving that error ? I ran into something similar with my Areca controller on a backup server. I ended up creating 2 raid sets, one for the boot OS and the other for the backup spool and used gpart for the larger than 2TB RS. Perhaps the same needs to be done on the 3ware eg # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/da0s1a 1.9G 496M 1.3G 28% / devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev /dev/da1s1d 29G 10G 16G 39% /usr /dev/da1s1e 33G 5.0G 26G 16% /var /dev/da0s1d 61G 50G 6.4G 89% /var/db /dev/da2p1 2.6T 797G 1.6T 33% /backup zbackup1 2.7T 1.2T 1.4T 46% /zbackup1 I would go for the 3ware over the RocketRaid. We have used the 3ware cards for some time and they have been very reliable for us. The disk replacement process is well designed and has been reliable for us over the years. We also use some of the Areca cards and they have been good too. Not much experience with the RocketRaid. ---Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Tancsa, tel +1 519 651 3400 Sentex Communications, mike@sentex.net Providing Internet since 1994 www.sentex.net Cambridge, Ontario Canada www.sentex.net/mike