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Date:      Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:49:24 +0100
From:      Borja Marcos <borjam@sarenet.es>
To:        Shawn Wallbridge <shawn.wallbridge@imaginaryforces.com>
Cc:        "freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: Controller for ZFS
Message-ID:  <49F719A9-AC50-4917-8809-F51EBD4F5D0F@sarenet.es>
In-Reply-To: <CEA907F4.12261%shawn.wallbridge@imaginaryforces.com>
References:  <CEA907F4.12261%shawn.wallbridge@imaginaryforces.com>

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On Nov 13, 2013, at 7:41 PM, Shawn Wallbridge wrote:

> I was wondering what the preferred/best supported 24port SAS/SATA
> controller is for FreeBSD? I have a box with a LSI/3Ware 9750-24i4e in =
it,
> which I can use in JBOD mode, but it seems like a waste to me.

Not only a waste, but a serious problem.

You absolutely do not want a "JBOD mode" in which you create so-called =
RAID0 1-drive logical volumes.

You absolutely do want a silly and stupid HBA which just passes SAS/SATA =
 commands from the OS to the drives
and back.=20

The "JBOD mode" offers a fake device in which the "intelligent" =
controller makes its own decisions and, of course, hides
the very important SAS/SATA status codes from the OS.

ZFS knows better.=20

The one I use is sold by Dell as the "H200". They usually try to disuade =
you by saying that it's not intelligent, doesn't
offer RAID, some of their "configuration aids" even forbid it... I just =
tell the salesman to shut up because I know much better than him.

The only problem: beware if you are using a built-in backplane in the =
server, some manufacturers insist on using different
cabling schemes for different controllers and you could run into stupid =
problems because of that.

FreeBSD 10 identifies one of my cards as this one:
mps0: <LSI SAS2008> port 0x7c00-0x7cff mem =
0xd4ff0000-0xd4ffffff,0xd4f80000-0xd4fbffff irq 80 at device 0.0 on =
pci67
mps0: Firmware: 07.15.08.00, Driver: 16.00.00.00-fbsd
mps0: IOCCapabilities: =
185c<ScsiTaskFull,DiagTrace,SnapBuf,EEDP,TransRetry,IR>








Borja.




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