From owner-freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 8 08:10:04 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 93D6F16A418 for ; Thu, 8 Nov 2007 08:10:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 229BB13C4C4 for ; Thu, 8 Nov 2007 08:10:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from phobos.samsco.home (phobos.samsco.home [192.168.254.11]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id lA889i0t073405; Thu, 8 Nov 2007 01:09:45 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <4732C443.1070100@samsco.org> Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:09:39 -0700 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070802 SeaMonkey/1.1.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Borja Marcos References: <200711052127.lA5LRblV035714@ambrisko.com> <4730821B.3060403@samsco.org> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]); Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:09:45 -0700 (MST) X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.5 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.1.8 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on pooker.samsco.org Cc: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: MFI and passthrough X-BeenThere: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: SCSI subsystem List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:10:04 -0000 Borja Marcos wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > On Nov 6, 2007, at 4:02 PM, Scott Long wrote: > >> Doug Ambrisko wrote: >>> BTW, it works great in this mode if you know what you are doing :-) >> >> Can you explain what that means? I recommend against it because it's >> not a well-tested configuration either in FreeBSD or in Dell. It's not >> clear, at least to me, how basic things like i/o errors get handled; >> does SCSI sense data get consumed by the controller firmware, or is it >> passed through to the OS without problem? > > Aha, I see. I assumed that the controller would pass the sense data, > etc, without problems. > >>> | I do believe that Dell does sell a direct attached disk option for >>> | the 2950/1950 called the PERC5/e. It's essentially an LSI MPT-SAS >>> | controller that directly replaces the PERC5/i card that you have now. >>> | It should be able to control all 6 disk slots, and can do both SAS >>> | and SATA. >>> I've been told the PERC5/e and PERC5/i are the same except for PCI >>> sub-device ID and are both the mfi(4) RAID controllers. They do >>> have a mpt(4) based card but it only supports 4 bays. I'm not sure >>> what it's real name is but we have some lying around for random >>> testing. I don't leave them in machines. >> >> We should get a definitive answer on this. > > We asked our Dell salesman and he confirmed that there's a non disk > array card for this machine, > but it only supports 4 disks, not 6. > Ok, I thought that the 4 disk option just routed the motherboard SATA connectors to the backplane, and that there was a 6 disk SAS+SATA option that put an MPT card into the slot behind the backplane. Oh well. Scott