Re: Broadcom 3808 support

On Mon, 10 Jan 2022 21:41:51 +0100
Ben RUBSON <ben.rubson@gmx.com> wrote:

Hello Ben,

> I bought Broadcom 9500-8e/8i cards (SAS3808 based), and plugged them
> into Supermicro X12SPL-F motherboards. There are other Supermicro
> motherboards with a built-in 3808 chipset, but not so found of this
> solution, I would be tempted to advice for Broadcom SAS cards
> directly, to be sure to properly manage firmware updates etc...

The box I mentioned is only sold as a complete system by Sumpermicro,
so you cannot choose the mainboard. As the onboard chip is already
there, I'll simply go with it, I guess. Should there be any issues
later, one can always use a plug-in card then as a last resort.

> Anyway, tested with FreeBSD 13, what I can say is that it works out
> of the box. In terms of performance, I was able to sustain a 30x260
> MB/s read throughput, from my 30 test SAS drives (in a 36 bays
> chassis), connected to a single SAS3808 adapter. Would not have been
> possible with PCI Express 3.0.

That's exactly what I wanted to know, that you very much for your
answer.

> Not in production yet, so can't say much about long-term reliability
> for now...

I guess we'll find out... I was wondering a bit why there are no reports
from other users available so far. The chipset appears to be available
for some years by now, and it looks like the natural follow-up of the
older 3* chipsets that were quite popular (at least I had this
impression).


cu
  Gerrit