Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?

[Nikolas Britton]

On 6/21/06, Marc G. Fournier <scrappy at hub.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Nikolas Britton wrote:
>
> > On 6/21/06, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >-----Original Message-----
> >> >From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> >> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Marc
> >> >G. Fournier
> >> >Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:24 AM
> >> >To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> >> >Subject: Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?
> >> >
> >
> > [deleted]
> >
> >> >
> >> >   What can we, as a community, due to improve this situation?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Simple.  If you want to run RAID-5 then purchase the HiPoint card or
> >> the 3ware card, both of them come with manufacturer-written drivers.
> >> 3ware is really great, they have a developer with committ rights and
> >> they just stick their driver right into the FreeBSD source repository.
> >>
> >
> > s/HiPoint/HighPoint/ a.k.a HighPoint Technologies, Inc. or simply HPT.
> >
> > I have two HighPoint controllers and like them both:
> > FreeBSD 6.1/i386 + HPT2220 + 8x250GB.
> > FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE/amd64 + HPT1820A + 8x300GB.
> >
> > Areca also supports FreeBSD:
> > $ man arcmsr (FreeBSD 5.4+)
> > http://www.areca.com.tw
> >
> > My next controller will probably be from Areca because they support
> > RAID level 6 and have multi-lane connectors... maybe ARC-1130ML +
> > 12x500GB. Does anyone know what SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) RAID
> > controllers are supported by FreeBSD?, they can use SATA drives
> > correct?
>
> SAS is what I'm using in our HP servers ... don't know about SATA drives,
> since the SAS drives are closer to a 'laptop size' then full size drive
> ... the HP controller is supported by the CISS driver, and is, by far,
> IMHO, the best driver we have, since you don't need any 'external
> utilities' to check the status of the RAID controller ... wish they all
> provided that :(
>

HighPoint and Areca both have native FreeBSD array management
utilities and 12port, and up, Areca controllers have a built-in
Ethernet port with an embedded http/smtp/snmp/telnet server running on
them.

Oh and SAS controllers can support SATA drives, from Adaptec's website:

"The SAS connector is a universal interconnection that is form-factor
compatible with SATA, allowing SAS or SATA drives to plug directly
into a SAS environment whether for mission critical applications with
high availability and high performance requirements or lower
cost-per-gigabyte applications such as near-box storage.

SATA connector signals are a subset of SAS signals, enabling the
compatibility of SATA devices and SAS controllers. SAS drives will not
operate on a SATA controller and are keyed to prevent any chance of
plugging them in incorrectly.

In addition, the similar SAS and SATA physical interfaces enable a new
universal SAS backplane that provides connectivity to both SAS drives
and SATA drives, eliminating the need for separate SCSI and ATA drive
backplanes. This consolidation of designs greatly benefits both
backplane manufacturers and end-users by reducing inventory and design
costs."

-- http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/sata/_education/SAS_SATA_unprlcompat.htm



-- 
BSD Podcasts @:
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/
http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/