Re: SAS3808 PCI-E 4.0, FreeBSD / ZFS support ?

From: Ben RUBSON <ben.rubson_at_gmx.com>
Date: Mon, 31 May 2021 09:26:03 UTC
> On 28 May 2021, at 14:47, Gary Palmer <gpalmer@freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, May 28, 2021 at 07:34:53AM +0200, Ben RUBSON wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Looking to buy SuperMicro SSG-540P-E1CTR36L, bringing a SAS3808 based PCI-E 4.0 adapter.
>> 
>> Everyone knows SAS2008 (PCI-E 2.0) and SAS3008 (PCI-E 3.0) as widely advised when working with ZFS.
>> 
>> But what about SAS 3808 ? I did not find much experience sharing, especially about its FreeBSD support, and ZFS compatibility level.
>> As SAS3808 has twice the PCI bus bandwidth as the SAS3008, could be useful with large JBODs.
>> 
>> Thank you very much !
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> 
>> Ben
>> 
>> //already posted at fs@, but scsi@ is certainly more relevant here, sorry for double post
> 
> I don't see any driver for FreeBSD on the "HBA 9500-8i Tri-Mode Storage
> Adapter" page on broadcom.com, which is a 3808 based card.  "mpr" man
> page in FreeBSD 12 doesn't mention support, neither does FreeBSD 13
> but there is some code in the driver for the 3816.  Not sure why 3816
> is mentioned but not 3808.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Gary

Hi Gary,

Many thanks for your inputs and feedback.
There's at least a FreeBSD download available for this HBA, the STORCLI utility, but no driver.
However the specifications, as well as the product brief PDF file, mention FreeBSD support...

CC'ing Sreekanth & Kashyap from Broadcom, feel free if you have any info !

Trying to decide whether or not I build my whole new 3-nodes storage infrastructure upon these PCI-E 4.0 adapters, or if I go with the already widely approved SAS3008...

Thank you again !

Kind regards,

Ben