Recommended HBA for ZFS, contemporary

[Linda Kateley]

On 8/22/16 1:51 PM, Charles Sprickman via freebsd-fs wrote:
>> On Aug 22, 2016, at 2:45 PM, Karl Denninger <karl at denninger.net> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/22/2016 13:38, Mike wrote:
>>> On 8/22/2016 2:36 PM, Karl Denninger wrote:
>>>> On 8/22/2016 13:34, Mike wrote:
>>>>> On 8/22/2016 12:18 PM, Ben RUBSON wrote:
>>>>>>> On 22 Aug 2016, at 18:14, InterNetX - Juergen Gotteswinter <juergen.gotteswinter at internetx.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> LSI SAS 2008 Based HBA, there are dozens of OEM available for Budget Prices
>>>>>> With the IT firmware.
>>>>> What's the significance of "IT firmware"?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It's (slightly) faster, provided you don't turn on any of the other
>>>> stuff (which is always dumb with these adapters.)
>>> Does it come with the HBA board(s), needs to be purchased or downloaded
>>> separately?
>> I've never gotten a card with it on it; I've always had to flash it.
>> Flashing these cards is a bit of a highwire act and can brick them, but
>> I've never had it happen myself.  With that said my real reason to flash
>> all of mine is to have all of them on the same firmware just so I can
>> eliminate that as a possible contributor to problems if one starts
>> acting up and the others are not.  It's more of a "good practice" thing
>> than a need IMHO; it's not a lot of fun to try to run down a problem
>> only to find out after much hair has been pulled out of one's own head
>> that the problem is bad firmware on a board!
>>> Total noob here who wants to move my ZFS server disks off the
>>> motherboard SATA ports.  :)
>>>
> This is all a bit crazy.  Is the LSI series of HBAs really the only choice
> outside of onboard controllers?  It seems like they are troublesome, support
> is spotty, and this whole flashing process gives me nightmares.
>
> Also personally, with the few boards I’ve seen with built-in LSI adapters
> have always been a little wonky compared to their non-LSI counterparts.
>
> Is this all just the end-result of LSI basically buying up everyone?
I have the same question. LSI used to always be the go-to, but in recent 
years it seems to get more and more wonky.. there has to be a better way.
>
> Charles
>
>> --
>> Karl Denninger
>> karl at denninger.net <mailto:karl at denninger.net>
>> /The Market Ticker/
>> /[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/