anyone successfully using an icp-vortex / iir controller?

[V. T. Mueller]

Scott Long schrieb:
> V. T. Mueller wrote:
>> Are there any *good* SCSI RAID controllers out there that are known to 
>> be working in server setups (amd64, SMP, >4GB RAM)?
>>
>> When thinking it over, I guess I have to be grateful that over many 
>> years I never experienced s/th that made me question the "The Power To 
>> Serve" slogan. What I really feel unhappy about right now is that 
>> there was no information available so I could take appropriate 
>> measures in order to avoid the current situation (at least none that I 
>> could find).
>>
>> Well, what's the plan regarding the iir driver now? I would suspect 
>> that letting folks rendering their servers unfunctional by upgrading 
>> memory is not really a good strategy.
>>
>> The manpage lists two authors/maintainers, I emailed both early this 
>> week. Achim Leubner will be back from vacation the 27th. So maybe he 
>> can contribute s/th constructive.
> 
> Well, there are several ways that I can answer these questions.  I could 
> say that the iir driver was developed and supported by the vendor, and 
> that you should contact the vendor for support questions like this.  I
> could say that the author of this driver didn't understand how to use 
> FreeBSD's driver API's, and that to a casual reviewer, the driver looks
> like it should work, and that only with a deeper look do the problems
> become apparent.  I could say that while I personally support the vast
> majority of the RAID drivers in FreeBSD, I only have the time and 
> resources to actively maintain and fix the most popular ones, as taking 
> care of a single driver for a single architecture usually involves an 
> engineering and testing staff of at least a dozen people at most 
> companies, and I try to do the equivalent job for 8 different drivers, 
> all in my 'free time'.

Scott, all this is clear and also the reason why I myself (along 
with a very large number of other people I suppose) am very grateful 
that there are people like you. Not many with special abilities (I 
can't speak C) do use those for the benefit of others. If there 
weren't people like you, we all would be sitting around using one IT 
platform. No competition, no freedom of choice, little progress and 
innovation...

> So, I understand your frustration over this.  There are a number of
> other RAID solutions that work quite well in FreeBSD.  Adaptec AAC,
> LSI MegaRAID, IBM/Adaptec ServeRAID, Compaq/HP CISS all are very
> reliable choices for SCSI RAID.  I know that that doesn't help you
> with your ICP/Vortex choice, and I do sympathize with your problem.

We have been using SCSI RAID for 14 years now and have a ton of good 
reasons to stick with icp-vortex. You know, RAID controllers are the 
kind of gear where you don't easily forget bad experiences. In all 
the (approx. 10) years we've been using icp now, we never had a 
reason to doubt the superior reliabilty of their controllers.

> I've done my best to modernize as many drivers as I can to work with
>  >4GB, but I've had to prioritize my efforts based on the popularity and
> the future returns of a given architecture.

Agreed, this is why I emailed the original authors and am also 
evaluating possibilities for contracting someone to do the 'port'.

>  ICP/Vortex basically died
> when Adaptec bought them, so there isn't a lot of motivation to put
> energy into the driver since there won't ever be any new cards from
> them.  However, if someone is interested in fixing this driver, I can
> help guide them.

Hm, this isn't really true. There are current/new products.
I will try to contact Adaptec in order to find out what their 
official attitude is, if they have any, though.

One goal remains unmet - as far as I know there is no web-ressource 
that lists hardware that is likely to be unfunctional with >=4GB of 
main memory. Even if iir is the only driver which has these problems 
(I don't think so) I think people should be able to find this 
information before they find out their hardware is not supported. 
Especially the fact that drivers do first work with setups below 4G 
might trick people into taking a road that leeds them to doom sooner 
or later.

So for the benefit of the 'still-unaware' I'd like to ask you to 
forward the information you have to someone who maintains the 
website and/or the release notes.

And thanks a lot for your offer to help guiding someone to fix the 
driver. I will let you know if I manage to find somebody.

With best regards,
vt