Choosing Serial ATA RAID 5 controller for FBSD 4.9

[Samuel Clements]

Also don't forget the Intel SRCS14.
http://developer.intel.com/design/servers/buildingblocks/srcs14l/

  -Sam

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Artem Koutchine
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:40 AM
To: freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org
Subject: Choosing Serial ATA RAID 5 controller for FBSD 4.9

We are trying to build a havy load web 2U server using
Serial ATA RAID 5 controller. The server will run FreeBSD 4.9
and we need a raid card which is supported by 4.9.
Another 'must' for the card is that it must be a real hardware
RAID 5. Other 'musts' - the card must be LP (low prifile
pci card), support PCI 64bit, be real SATA, not just a bridge.

Also, it should have nice cache size.

For far there are only two candidates:
1) 3Ware 8506-4
2) Adaptec 2410SA

IFAIK there are people running FBSD 4.9 on
3Ware 8506-4, however, W3ware 8xxx  card are not listed
in the supported hardware for 4.9-RELEASE. Is it just
a mistake or it is really not supported or not fully supported?
Also, 3Ware 85xx oficially does not have any cache, however,
i have found somewhere that it does have it and the cache is 2MB,
which is puny. Is it a big deal? Does it really affect perfomance (the
card will be running at least 3 drives each with 4-8MB of cache on its own).

Adaptec 2410SA seems to be just perfect. Real hardware, 64MB Cache,
raid level migration, auto rebuilding and other features. However, i have
only
some one person running it on 5.2. Can it be run  on 4.9? How stable are the
drivers? What is better - stay with 4.9 and 3ware or try using 5.2 in
production environment with Adaptec?

The server will go in production by the end of april 2004, maybe 5.2 will be
stable enough by then to run it in production?

Any thoughts and comments will be apriciated.

Regards,
Artem

_______________________________________________
freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hardware-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"