Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters

[Gerrit Kühn]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com> wrote
about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters:

FC> > I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago.
FC> > Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a
FC> > LSI chip supported by mpt driver:

FC> > mpt0 at pci0:6:0:0:        class=0x010000 card=0xa68015d9
FC> > chip=0x00581000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor     = 'LSI Logic (Was:
FC> > Symbios Logic, NCR)' device     = 'SAS 3000 series, 8-port with
FC> > 1068E -StorPort' class      = mass storage
FC> >    subclass   = SCSI

FC> > I only installed it last week and cannot comment much on performance
FC> > and stability up to now.

FC> These look nice, and are in the $200-300 CDN range.  Have the same
FC> mini-SAS connectors as the 3Ware cards we use, so wouldn't have to
FC> re-cable the chassis.

Hm, I don't know the recent exchange rate, but are you sure this is the
same card? I paid something like 80,-€ (excl. VAT).

FC> Are you using these as standard disk controllers, or are you using the
FC> RAID features (seems it supports RAID0 and RAID1 in hardware, RAID5 in
FC> software)?  Reading through the manual right now, and it doesn't cover
FC> using the card in non-RAID modes.  Wondering if the drives would show
FC> up as normal da0 da1 da2 etc.

I think my card does not have the raid features included, maybe that's why
it was so cheap. The devices appear as normal scsi disks:

dmesg:
da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da0: 300.000MB/s transfers
da0: Command Queueing enabled
da0: 476940MB (976773168 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 60801C)
[...]

cliff# camcontrol devlist
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 0 lun 0 (da0,pass0)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 1 lun 0 (da1,pass1)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 2 lun 0 (da2,pass2)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 3 lun 0 (da3,pass3)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 4 lun 0 (da4,pass4)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 5 lun 0 (da5,pass5)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 6 lun 0 (da6,pass6)
<ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01>        at scbus0 target 7 lun 0 (da7,pass7)

FC> All of these (there's a couple variations on the card) appear to be
FC> PCIe, though, no PCI-X.  We have 24 drive bays, and only 2 PCIe slots.
FC> Have 3 PCI-X slots, though, so would need at least 1 PCI-X
FC> controller.

I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be
used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits
into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell.
Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one
more slot?


cu
  Gerrit