From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 17 08:10:03 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32EA616A404 for ; Wed, 17 May 2006 08:10:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from adrian.jfl@gmail.com) Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com (ug-out-1314.google.com [66.249.92.168]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 848D043D45 for ; Wed, 17 May 2006 08:10:01 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from adrian.jfl@gmail.com) Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id m3so158039uge for ; Wed, 17 May 2006 01:09:58 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=Zqz+s+rrOqmkBPrGIiROfhcurF8S75MQIY/yQqNEZqHdx5LRHmdgnBplxe7ma1OD85d8gMnqQjSPYeASpwQCPi9/zKmcZ852HHPn1YyUzrboT/dEZ0VDA2Jxw2mcynJt8ZnCaR3OlPnpb7RfoU4Dn1LW6uOpfV5CaYQgM3Suefc= Received: by 10.78.32.16 with SMTP id f16mr116169huf; Wed, 17 May 2006 01:09:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.78.72.7 with HTTP; Wed, 17 May 2006 01:09:58 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 18:09:58 +1000 From: Adrian To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Recommendations for hardware RAID? no 3ware please ! 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: Wed, 17 May 2006 08:10:03 -0000 Hi, We have ~15 FreeBSD servers using different hardware. Most of the servers we have are using recent IDE 3ware controllers (eg 7450) in a RAID 5 configuration. I've always found these more trouble than they're worth. Sometimes the wrong drive degrades and so when I replace the drive and try and rebuild the array it repeatedly fails. I need to take the whole machine offline and spend a long time sector-scanning each drive (using powermax - they're Maxtor drives) and generally discover there is a hardware fault with one of the other drives.. If the drive with the actual error cannot be repaired using a sector level tool, it's then impossible to rebuild the array because the errors on the non-degraded drive keep causing the rebuild to fail so I have to rebuild the whole machine on a new array. Anyway - I like the IBM X series and we have had good experience with IBM's support... Unfortunately FreeBSD doesn't seem to fully support the Adaptec hostRAID technology yet - It will recognise the array in FreeBSD version 6 but if you pull a drive out the whole thing dies (it is dangerous to half-support a RAID controller like this). Can anyone recommend a vendor (Dell, HP etc) that will make my life easier? (no reboots, good management tools and monitoring) - I'm a bit over putting machines together myself to save a few dollars. Thanks, Adrian.