hardware for home use large storage

[Steve Polyack]

On 2/15/2010 6:04 PM, Dan Langille wrote:
> Steve Polyack wrote:
>> On 02/15/10 12:14, Dan Langille wrote:
>
>>>    7. Supermicro LSI MegaRAID 8 Port SAS RAID Controller $118
>
>> Dan,
>> I'm not sure about that particular card, but we've never seen that 
>> great of performance out of the LSI MegaRAID cards that ship with 
>> Dell servers as the PERC.  The newest incarnations are better, but I 
>> would try to get an Areca.  The ones we have tested have displayed 
>> fantastic performance.  They are fairly expensive in comparison, 
>> though.  If you're using ZFS in place of the RAID on the LSI 
>> MegaRAID, I'd instead recommend other simpler SAS cards which are 
>> known to have good driver support.
>
> Yes, the card will be used as a straight-through and not use for RAID. 
> ZFS will be running raidz for me, possibly raidz2.  Given that, I'm 
> not sure if you're suggesting the3 Areca or something else.
>
> In addition, I'm not sure what makes a SAS card simpler and supported. 
> Recommendation?
>
> Other cards I have considered include:
>
> LSI SAS3041E-R 4 port $120
> http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=lsi+sas+pcie&hl=en&cid=1824913543877548833&sa=title#p 
>
>
> SYBA SY-PEX40008 PCI Express SATA II 4 port $60
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124027
>
> LSISAS1064 chipset -> SAS3042e
> http://www.lsi.com/DistributionSystem/AssetDocument/PCIe_3GSAS_UG.pdf
>
> SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card $99
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009
>

All I meant by simpler was that if you're not going to use the RAID 
portion then you do not have to pay for it.   Same goes for SAS - if 
you're not going to use SAS disks, you only need a SATA controller.  The 
SYBA card you have listed works great with the siis driver (NCQ 
support).  If you don't need SAS support, I think there are Areca cards 
around $100 that just do SATA w/o RAID.

As far as supported, I know that the Areca driver is very good, as is 
the recently revamped ahci generic and siis drivers.  Like I said, those 
newer LSI cards may be fine, but I've had bad experiences with the PERC4 
and PERC5 (/LSI/ MegaRAID SAS 8408E), which are both re-branded LSI 
MegaRAID cards.  They were always very reliable and handled failed disks 
quite well, but performance was often ... just bad. YMMV.

The PERC6 (one of the newer generations) isn't half as bad... If you end 
up with one of the LSI cards, let us know how it performs ;)