Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 10:21:32 +0200 From: Borja Marcos <borjam@sarenet.es> To: Dmitry Morozovsky <marck@rinet.ru> Cc: Mike <the.lists@mgm51.com>, freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommended HBA for ZFS, contemporary Message-ID: <CFEDCDAB-26BC-4B38-B866-44A69AAAA8DE@sarenet.es> In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1608222136270.83952@woozle.rinet.ru> References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1608221904270.82304@woozle.rinet.ru> <306ccab3-4c78-751a-2258-54701a64ab4b@internetx.com> <41DE4DAA-B5E1-4BB9-AF54-780236A901EF@gmail.com> <e9abbe16-837d-027a-6f0b-819944434143@mgm51.com> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1608222136270.83952@woozle.rinet.ru>
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> On 22 Aug 2016, at 20:36, Dmitry Morozovsky <marck@rinet.ru> wrote: >=20 > On Mon, 22 Aug 2016, Mike wrote: >=20 >>>> LSI SAS 2008 Based HBA, there are dozens of OEM available for = Budget Prices >>>=20 >>> With the IT firmware. >>=20 >> What's the significance of "IT firmware"? >=20 > ability to export raw disk device withou unnatural intelligence of a = controller=20 > to mangle with data :) That=E2=80=99s a serious problem with other HBAs, which are designed as = =E2=80=9CRAID=E2=80=9D cards. That means you need some effort to have them give you direct, CAM access to the disks. The LSI2008 with IR firmware, however, is a different beast. It=E2=80=99s = an HBA with an add-on RAID thingy. Provided you don=E2=80=99t create logical volumes on it, the mps(4) driver will = just make it behave like a simple HBA, which is excellent. Although some claim that there is a performance difference between IR = and IT firmware on the same card, according to the helpful LSI guys in freebsd-scsi the difference should be = negligible.=20 Anyway in case you want to cross flash from IR to IT it=E2=80=99s = possible, although unsupported by LSI. However, sas2flash checks wether the card is running IT or IR firmware and it will abort = cross flashing attempts, except that at least one old version does not abort and lets you proceed. The procedure is described in a rather religious manner (religious = because they don=E2=80=99t say that a particular version is needed, nor why) here: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=3D1045376 If I remember well I tried a LSI utility from the same date more or = less, and it worked as well. More recent versions of sas2flash will fail, however. Cheers, Borja.=
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