From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 17 03:03:02 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 180F6106566C for ; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:03:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@optiksecurite.com) Received: from relais.videotron.ca (relais.videotron.ca [24.201.245.36]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2C768FC17 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:03:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@optiksecurite.com) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2; format=flowed Received: from [192.168.10.102] ([74.56.107.65]) by VL-MH-MR002.ip.videotron.ca (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-4.01 (built Aug 3 2007; 32bit)) with ESMTP id <0K4400H2VR4Q1SA0@VL-MH-MR002.ip.videotron.ca> for freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org; Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:02:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-id: <487EB696.5070901@optiksecurite.com> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:03:50 -0400 From: FreeBSD User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421) To: Maciej Suszko References: <20080716174233.1232a5f3@suszko.eu> <487E2585.7080409@optiksecurite.com> <20080716215742.17a82b52@suszko.eu> In-reply-to: <20080716215742.17a82b52@suszko.eu> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Dell PE2950 - SAS 6/iR 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: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:03:02 -0000 Maciej Suszko a écrit : > FreeBSD wrote: > >> Maciej Suszko a écrit : >> >>> I think about buying Dell PE2950 with SAS 6/iR integrated RAID >>> controller. It would be double Intel Quad Core Xeon E5420 with 3.5" >>> SAS 15k RPM disks connected to SAS 6/iR RAID controller. >>> >>> I'm curious if anyone is running FreeBSD-7.0-RELEASE on such machine >>> and if there any problems with this controller - is SAS 6/iR >>> supported by mpt or mfi? Anyone happily using it? >>> >>> >> I never tried SAS 6 but I have SAS 5 in a few Dell servers and it's >> performance is horrible. I tried some tips I read to optimize the >> performance but none worked (I must admit that I didn't tried that >> hard but still...). Just to compare, I have the exact same disk (the >> same 3,5" SAS 15K that you plan to buy) in a PowerEdge 860 with SAS 5 >> and in a PowerEdge 1950 with PERC5 (both in RAID 1) and the >> performance are like day and night (tested with dbench): >> SAS 5: Throughput 98.9811 MB/sec 4 procs >> PERC5: Throughput 321.704 MB/sec 4 procs >> >> The last server I bought is a PowerEdge 840 with PERC5 but this time >> with 7200RPM SATA drives (3 in RAID 5) and the performance is still >> impressive : Throughput 266.81 MB/sec 4 procs >> >> I highly recommand upgrading to the PERC controller. >> >> SAS5 is recognized by the mpt driver and PERC5 by mfi. >> >> YMMV, >> >> Martin >> > > Thanks for reply Martin, > > I think I'm not gonna take the risk and I stay with PERC5 controller. > Have you used integrated PERC5 or external one? And one more question - > how about controller monitoring - there is a sysutils/linux-megacli, > have you tested it? Is it working with your PERC? > I have the PERC5/i but I can't say that it is "integrated". It's a PCI-Express x4, IIRC. I think that the difference between the I and E is that the E would have an external connector, but I can't say for sure. I think you should stay with the PERC5/i and I think that the E is more expensive too. For the monitoring, I never tried linux-megacli because (for no good reason) I'm not a fan of linux emulation. Instead, I did a small shell script that grep /var/log/messages for entries related to mfi and email it to me. The messages in case of failure are pretty clear. I put the script in crontab so that it runs every half-hour. It does the job very well for me. Martin