Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:30:31 -0500 From: Josh Paetzel <jpaetzel@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: Andy Wodfer <wodfer@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Hardware RAID controller questions - 3Ware vs RocketRaid Message-ID: <201003181930.37822.jpaetzel@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <23ed14b81003180137n61261b5axa22677a0a7bbe544@mail.gmail.com> References: <23ed14b81003180137n61261b5axa22677a0a7bbe544@mail.gmail.com>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] On Thursday 18 March 2010 03:37:32 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. > > We are going to use FreeBSD 8.0 and Bacula, but first we obviously need to > create a working RAID. > > My questions are: > > - Are HighPoint RocketRaid controllers a good alternative to 3ware > controllers? Are RocketRaid controllers true hardware RAID? > > - What should we look for in a RAID controller spec to see that it has > support for larger than 2TB RAIDs? > > I've been looking at these: > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr2300.htm > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr3500.htm > > Any FreeBSD recommendations? Or perhaps for another 3ware controller? > > We're using SATAII drives. > > Thanks for your help! > > Best regards, > Andreas You are hitting an issue with DOS MBR limitations, not the RAID controller itself. Either use GPT or put a filesystem on the raw device with no fdisk at all. The latter strategy is the better one if you intend to ever grow the filesystem. 3ware controllers are the best game in town for FreeBSD. We use them extensively both internally and for our customers at iXsystems. You can flash the controller firmware from in the OS on FreeBSD using tw_cli. You might also consider running ZFS on the hardware RAID instead of UFS. You get the advantages of running a hardware RAID controller, plus the advantages of ZFS (namely no fsck) root@servant /usr/src ->tw_cli /c0 show Unit UnitType Status %RCmpl %V/I/M Stripe Size(GB) Cache AVrfy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ u0 RAID-6 OK - - 256K 5587.88 RiW ON root@servant /usr/src ->grep 'da0' /var/run/dmesg.boot da0 at twa0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 da0: <AMCC 9690SA-4I4 DISK 4.08> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device da0: 100.000MB/s transfers da0: 122879MB (251658239 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 15665C) ** small boot LUN root@servant /usr/src ->grep 'da1' /var/run/dmesg.boot da1 at twa0 bus 0 target 0 lun 1 da1: <AMCC 9690SA-4I4 DISK 4.08> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device da1: 100.000MB/s transfers da1: 5599104MB (11466964993 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 713785C) ** The rest of it root@servant /usr/src ->zpool status -v pool: a state: ONLINE scrub: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM a ONLINE 0 0 0 da1 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors root@servant /usr/src ->df -h a Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on a 5.2T 2.2T 3.0T 42% /a -- Thanks, Josh Paetzel FreeBSD -- The power to serve [-- Attachment #2 --] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iQEcBAABAgAGBQJLosWtAAoJEKFq1/n1feG2bugH/3dVaVniypJYw3lSu/FMAKd6 fkucZq7CM1N5wcQVxT0DtQcLVnu5mgG9lw2uBiVWYnIrrSmdtdaFYfj+mqRx5qJP znVntWqN6I0C9QOLLEmMSL3QiCjNDD7nUnjbCV5SASSV1eIRgkkC4lDnS1lW2TPm FpCW6+4oid0X0KxYa6hoaI7Ze2Se7WVVXsHFFNNPmHOel6F/6Ykt17pWjtODQYCg ieYrV2ng3xjAAceSKolWovhQnvdxb+PFoDUWrUlrA2oGUGGsJnyFEtyrlGdaXUEk 0naJwwr1fIDFRoGDfXfmCKvsSDaw5THgb2h+7bUKTd/f2Lv4EyS29mZAeC5Or0I= =9Ron -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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