sanity check: is 9211-8i, on 8.3, with IT firmware still "the one"

[John Kozubik]

Hi Freddie,

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Freddie Cash wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 4:08 PM, John Kozubik <john at kozubik.com> wrote:
>> We're about to invest heavily in a new ZFS infrastructure, and our plans are
>> to:
>>
>> - wait for 8.3, with the updated 6gbps mps driver
>> - Install and use LSI 9211-8i cards with newest "IT" firmware
>>
>> This appears to be the de facto standard for ZFS HBAs ...
>>
>> Is there any reason to consider other cards/vendors ?
>
> We're using the SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8i controllers with great
> success, via the mps driver in 8.2-STABLE (originally, when we
> installed the box), now running 9.0-RELEASE.  WIth the 9.0 IT
> firmware.  Haven't tried the 10.0 firmware yet.
>
> We're currently only using ZFS for storing backups (compression,
> dedupe, and snapshots are perfect for this).  But we have plans to use
> similar hardware as these boxes as SAN/NAS boxes for VM servers.


Is the AOC-USAS2-L8i *actually* identical to the 9211-8i, or is it a 
different implementation of the same chipset ?