From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 2 04:27:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEEFE16A4CE for ; Fri, 2 Jul 2004 04:27:05 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mercury.alloy.net (mercury.alloy.net [65.75.10.62]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71AD543D41 for ; Fri, 2 Jul 2004 04:27:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from pds@alloy.net) Received: from mercury.alloy.net (mercury.alloy.net [65.75.10.62]) i624Q2jY010287 for ; Thu, 1 Jul 2004 23:26:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 23:26:02 -0500 (EST) From: Phillip Steinbachs To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: 3ware 9500 twa driver support X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 04:27:06 -0000 Greetings, I've been following the threads relating to 3ware 8506 and 9500 series cards under the amd64 port. I ran into stability problems with the 8506-8 as reported by others here and 3ware themselves (PCI bus timing issues in conjunction with Tyan riser cards). I replaced the 8506-8 with a 9500S-8, and I think the hardware stability issues are fixed. But there is the software driver issue to contend with now. First off, here are the system specs: Motherboard: Tyan Thunder K8S Pro (S2882) BIOS Rev: V2.02 (06/01/04) CPUs: 2 x AMD Opteron 246 (2GHz) RAM: 4 x Crucial CT6472Y40B (PC3200 DDR400, 512MB ECC Reg.) - 2 x 512MB DIMMs per CPU System Disk: 2 x Maxtor 6Y120MO (120GB SATA) Data Disk: 1 x 3ware 9500S-8 - 4 x Maxtor 6Y250M0 (250GB SATA) as HW RAID5 OS: FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p8 (amd64) TWA driver: twa.tgz 5.2 code (release 9.0.1) from 3ware.com Relevant BIOS configuration: - ACPI is enabled (machine consistently reboots right before FreeBSD boot loader if it's not turned on) - PnP is enabled (tried on and off with no noticable differences) - Northbridge is set for node interleave, ECC scrubbing is disabled Relevant OS configuration: 120GB SATA system disks as RAID 1 mirror via atacontrol 3ware twa driver problem: I have successfully compiled the twa driver from 3ware's source, and the system recognizes the card properly. The da0 device is accessible for fdisk and label. Everything looks ok until it's time for newfs to create a filesystem. Basically, newfs starts and doesn't get anywhere. The system doesn't hang (unlike other reports I've read), but the fs creation never finishes (even after several hours). I tried breaking the space up into smaller filesystems, but none of those would complete either. I have TWA_DEBUG set to 5, but there are no errors being reported anywhere. Now, I recognize this configuration isn't supported because 3ware hasn't certified their driver on amd64 yet. The big question is, what is wrong with it, and what if any configuration exists that does work (even if it's not yet officially supported)? It would appear the options are: - Try twa from 5-2.CURRENT under 5.2.1-RELEASE-p8 (reportedly this has been tried, with compilation failures) (amd64) - Use FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT (amd64) - Use FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p8 (i386) with 3ware's twa driver (supported) I have tried the last two options: FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT compiles fine, but I've run into the getrootbyname problem with ata/SATA. Thus, I've been unable to test if the twa driver works and is stable in that case. Unless I'm mistaken, this is still a problem with 5.2-CURRENT. I'm wary of using 5.2-CURRENT in production, as I should be, but am willing to test fixes if it means it will lead to stability in the relative near future. There was supposedly a patch around March to revert the code that broke this, but it didn't apply cleany to a snapshot from a few days ago. Trying to boot the FreeBSD-5.2.1-RELEASE (i386) installer CD results in a consistent panic/reboot before drives are detected (this same problem has been reported by others). I will post the dmesg output if it would be helpful... the box isn't available for me to do so at the moment. I've tried disabling ACPI in the BIOS and from the boot loader, and various other BIOS configuration changes to no avail. I would be ok running in 32bit mode for the time being, but it seems more quirky than amd64 at this point, on this specific hardware. As a final note, I'm evaluating FreeBSD because Solaris x86 doesn't have [any|sufficient] hardware IDE-RAID support at the current time. If it did, Solaris would be my preference because I've run it for many years with great success. I've used FreeBSD 4.x for smaller machines (i.e firewalls) and found it to be quite stable and functional. However, my load testing with 5.2.1 on this new hardware has been very promising, aside from the problems I'm reporting. If anyone has suggestions regarding the most stable software configuration for this hardware, it would be most appreciated. Thanks. -phillip P.S. For what it's worth, this hardware will replace a machine that is now hosting: windowmaker.org dockapps.org irc.sage-members.org (openirc.net) With the new hardware, I will finally be able to setup; usebsd.org (high-speed *BSD mirror site, with multi-homed connectivity through UUnet, Level3, Cable & Wireless, and SprintLink) I think it would be fitting if this site was powered by FreeBSD, eh?