ciss(4) driver in FreeBSD 6.x ...

[Holger Kipp]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 03:37:23AM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> 
> Hi ..
> 
>   Having read the man page, there is alot in there that makes me wonder 
> whether going with a HP Smart Array P600 is a wise idea ...
> 
>   "The Compaq ciss adapters require faked responses to get reasonable 
> behavior out of them.  In addition, the ciss command set is by no means 
> adequate to support the functionality of a RAID controller, and thus the 
> supported Compaq adapters utilize portions of the control protocol from 
> earlier"
> 
>   I'm specifically looking at the Proliant DL360, which has this card ... 
> can you provide any comments, or insight, concerning what the man page 
> states? Should I shy away from this controller? :(

I have so far not experienced any problems with ciss-controllers on
Proliant G2, G3, G4, especially not with DL360 and DL360 (or MPxxx either)

ciss0: <Compaq Smart Array 5i> port 0x2800-0x28ff mem 0xf5df0000-0xf5df3fff,0xf5f80000-0xf5fbffff irq 31 at device 4.0 on pci0
ciss0: [GIANT-LOCKED]

ciss0 at pci0:4:0: class=0x010400 card=0x40800e11 chip=0xb1780e11 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor   = 'Compaq Computer Corp (Now owned by Hewlett-Packard)'
    device   = 'CISSB SMART2 Array Controller'
    class    = mass storage
    subclass = RAID

---

ciss0: <HP Smart Array 641> port 0x3000-0x30ff mem 0xf7f80000-0xf7fbffff,0xf7ff0000-0xf7ff1fff irq 24 at device 2.0 on pci2
ciss0: [GIANT-LOCKED]

ciss0 at pci2:2:0: class=0x010400 card=0x409a0e11 chip=0x00460e11 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor   = 'Compaq Computer Corp (Now owned by Hewlett-Packard)'
    device   = 'Smart Array 64xx Controller'
    class    = mass storage
    subclass = RAID


I especially like that rebuilding of raid 1 and 5 is done automatically.
You'll get entries via syslog about failing drives, and just removing
that drive, inserting a spare one, will start rebuilding which is also
syslogged. Very nice. No Problems so far, and no system failure. Regular
backkups still recommended, though ;-)

Regards,
Holger Kipp