From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 6 02:41:05 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D93DF1065672 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 2008 02:41:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hartzell@alerce.com) Received: from merlin.alerce.com (merlin.alerce.com [64.62.142.94]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C4A5E8FC17 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 2008 02:41:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hartzell@alerce.com) Received: from merlin.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by merlin.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A15233C62; Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:41:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from merlin.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by merlin.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0CE733C5B; Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:41:24 -0700 (PDT) From: George Hartzell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <18585.3903.895425.122613@almost.alerce.com> Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:41:03 -0700 To: Wes Morgan In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under Emacs 22.1.50.1 X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ZFS Advice X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: hartzell@alerce.com List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:41:05 -0000 Wes Morgan writes: > I'm looking for information and advice from those experienced in building > storage arrays with good performance. > [...] I don't have any experimental data to contribute, but there are some interesting hardware discussions on the opensolaris ZFS web site and blog entries. It does seem to be true that ZFS does best when used with simple controllers, and a lot of the opensolaris community seems to like this relatively inexpensive 8-port card (<$100 at newegg), it's apparently what SUN ships in their "Thumper": http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AoC-SAT2-MV8.cfm One of the opensolaris threads links off to this this blog entry which discusses experiences with PCI-X and PCI-E cards, it might be useful. http://jmlittle.blogspot.com/2008/06/recommended-disk-controllers-for-zfs.html The AoC-SAT2-MV8 is based on the "Marvell Hercules-2 Rev. C0 SATA host controller", which seems to be AKA 88SX6081, which is listed as supported by the ata driver in 7.0-RELEASE. Has anyone had any ZFS experience with it? g.