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Date:      Wed, 5 Feb 2014 04:24:33 -0500
From:      Rich <rincebrain@gmail.com>
To:        Daniel Kalchev <daniel@digsys.bg>
Cc:        freebsd-fs <freebsd-fs@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: practical maximum number of drives
Message-ID:  <CAOeNLuohed9PB7SXNvB40N9-8Cna6DOg0mF5vXn48%2B0rTF3Dog@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <52F1FBBA.1000909@digsys.bg>
References:  <52F1BDA4.6090504@physics.umn.edu> <7D20F45E-24BC-4595-833E-4276B4CDC2E3@gmail.com> <52F1DEBC.9020304@digsys.bg> <CAOeNLuqhT1y7rzA2=80jzXByrYy0cbCTaFv-5=X1KOnkFtRN8Q@mail.gmail.com> <52F1FBBA.1000909@digsys.bg>

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http://www.lsi.com/products/host-bus-adapters/pages/lsi-sas-9200-8e.aspx

Claims 512.

http://www.lsi.com/products/host-bus-adapters/pages/lsi-sas-9211-4i.aspx

claims 256.

I'm really extraordinarily curious to see what would happen, but do
not have >512 unused drives I could attach to a single HBA to find
out...easily.

I have >256, but since all the stuff I can find other than SM's
documentation claims 512 for the SAS2008, that would only refute their
statement, not LSI's.

- Rich

On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 3:52 AM, Daniel Kalchev <daniel@digsys.bg> wrote:
> Ok, two things.
>
> First, it was a typo -- the number is 122 devices and I actually got it from
> the likes of this FAQ entry:
> http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=10004
> I never use these for anything other than HBA.
>
> It is interesting to see that LSI claims 3000 devices. Might be, firmware
> has changed? Or there are different variations of the chip/implementation?
>
> Daniel
>
>
> On 05.02.14 10:08, Rich wrote:
>>
>> The SAS2008 has a limit of 112 drives?
>>
>>
>> http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/SAS%20ICs/LSISAS2008/SCG_LSISAS2008_PB_043009.pdf
>> claims "up to 3000 devices."
>>
>> SAS2008 is a PCIe gen 2 x8 chip.
>>
>> I suspect the bottleneck order would go SAS expander then SAS2008 then
>> PCIe.
>>
>> - Rich
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 1:48 AM, Daniel Kalchev <daniel@digsys.bg> wrote:
>>>
>>> I also wonder how you managed to go over the LSI2008's limit of 112
>>> drives...
>>>
>>>
>>> On 05.02.14 07:36, aurfalien wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Graham,
>>>>
>>>> When you say behaved better with 1 HBA, what were the issues that made
>>>> you
>>>> go that route?
>>>>
>>>> Also, curious that you have that many drives on 1 PCI card, is it PCI 3
>>>> etc... and is saturation an issue?
>>>>
>>>> - aurf
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 4, 2014, at 8:27 PM, Graham Allan <allan@physics.umn.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This may well be a question with no real answer but since we're
>>>>> speccing
>>>>> out a new ZFS-based storage system, I've been asked what the maximum
>>>>> number
>>>>> of drives it can support would be (for a hypothetical expansion
>>>>> option).
>>>>> While there are some obvious limits such as SAS addressing, I assume
>>>>> there
>>>>> must be more fundamental ones in the kernel or drivers, and the
>>>>> practical
>>>>> limits will be very different from the hypothetical ones.
>>>>>
>>>>> So far the largest system we've built is using three 45-drive chassis
>>>>> on
>>>>> one SAS2008 (mps) controller, so 135 drives total. Over many months of
>>>>> running we had several drives fail and be replaced, and eventually the
>>>>> OS
>>>>> (9.1) failed to assign new da devices. It was time to patch the system
>>>>> and
>>>>> reboot anyway, which solved it, but we did wonder if we were running
>>>>> into
>>>>> some kind of limit around 150 drives - though I don't see why.
>>>>>
>>>>> Interestingly we initially built this system with each drive chassis on
>>>>> its own SAS2008 HBA, but it ultimately behaved better daisy-chained
>>>>> with
>>>>> only one. I think I saw a hint somewhere this could be to do with
>>>>> interrupt
>>>>> sharing...
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for any insights,
>>>>>
>>>>> Graham
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> freebsd-fs@freebsd.org mailing list
>>>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-fs
>>>>> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-fs-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>



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