Hardware RAID controller questions - 3Ware vs RocketRaid

[Josh Paetzel]

On Thursday 18 March 2010 03:37:32 Andy Wodfer wrote:
> Hi,
> We're setting up two backup servers where each server will have about 4TB
> of harddrives (for now) connected (4x1TB and 8x500GB drives). Last night
> we ran into trouble with the 3ware controllers we have (9650SE-8LPML)
> because we couldn't create a larger RAID5 than 1.99TB.
> 
> We are going to use FreeBSD 8.0 and Bacula, but first we obviously need to
> create a working RAID.
> 
> My questions are:
> 
> - Are HighPoint RocketRaid controllers a good alternative to 3ware
> controllers? Are RocketRaid controllers true hardware RAID?
> 
> - What should we look for in a RAID controller spec to see that it has
> support for larger than 2TB RAIDs?
> 
> I've been looking at these:
> http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr2300.htm
> http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr3500.htm
> 
> Any FreeBSD recommendations? Or perhaps for another 3ware controller?
> 
> We're using SATAII drives.
> 
> Thanks for your help!
> 
> Best regards,
> Andreas

You are hitting an issue with DOS MBR limitations, not the RAID controller 
itself.  Either use GPT or put a filesystem on the raw device with no fdisk at 
all.  The latter strategy is the better one if you intend to ever grow the 
filesystem.

3ware controllers are the best game in town for FreeBSD.  We use them 
extensively both internally and for our customers at iXsystems.  You can flash 
the controller firmware from in the OS on FreeBSD using tw_cli.

You might also consider running ZFS on the hardware RAID instead of UFS.  You 
get the advantages of running a hardware RAID controller, plus the advantages 
of ZFS (namely no fsck)

root at servant /usr/src ->tw_cli /c0 show

Unit  UnitType  Status         %RCmpl  %V/I/M  Stripe  Size(GB)  Cache  AVrfy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
u0    RAID-6    OK             -       -       256K    5587.88   RiW    ON     

root at servant /usr/src ->grep 'da0' /var/run/dmesg.boot
da0 at twa0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <AMCC 9690SA-4I4 DISK 4.08> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device 
da0: 100.000MB/s transfers
da0: 122879MB (251658239 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 15665C)

** small boot LUN

root at servant /usr/src ->grep 'da1' /var/run/dmesg.boot
da1 at twa0 bus 0 target 0 lun 1
da1: <AMCC 9690SA-4I4 DISK 4.08> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device 
da1: 100.000MB/s transfers
da1: 5599104MB (11466964993 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 713785C)

** The rest of it

root at servant /usr/src ->zpool  status -v
  pool: a
 state: ONLINE
 scrub: none requested
config:

        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        a           ONLINE       0     0     0
          da1       ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

root at servant /usr/src ->df -h a
Filesystem    Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
a             5.2T    2.2T    3.0T    42%    /a


-- 
Thanks,

Josh Paetzel
FreeBSD -- The power to serve
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