CentOS - Nov 2005 - More info on 3Ware 9550SX from the field (in case anyone else is interested)

From a buddy of mine that has spent a little time with the new cards.  
This was in response to my email asking about his impressions of them:

 It just came out in mid-September. There are a couple reasons I'm
not thrilled with it:

 1) no 8-port multilane version (only 12)

 2) the 8-port non-multilane version is a kludge, connector-wise (a row
    of 3 double-stacked connectors along the edge, for 6 ports, and 2
    double-stacked connectors in the middle of the board, of which the
    first connector in the stack is a dummy)

 3) They are only on the first release of the software (9.3.0, the first-
    ship release, didn't work, and they released 9.3.0.1). At some point
    they will ship a unified release for the 9550 and 9500, but that's a
    ways off

 4) no BBU support (yet).

On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 00:21 -0500, Chris Mauritz wrote:
> It just came out in mid-September.
Yep, and always, I like my "6-12 month 3Ware product shakedown" rule.
The 3Ware Escalade 9550SX seems to be based on the same ASIC as the
9500S, so for RAID-0, 1 and 10, it's probably very capable.

But for RAID-5, I'd wait for a good 6 months to see what the reports
say.
> There are a couple reasons I'm not thrilled with it:
>  1) no 8-port multilane version (only 12)
SATA typically removes the requirement for a multilane when you're
talking so few ports.
>  2) the 8-port non-multilane version is a kludge, connector-wise (a row
>     of 3 double-stacked connectors along the edge, for 6 ports, and 2
>     double-stacked connectors in the middle of the board, of which the
>     first connector in the stack is a dummy)
That is because the card is a low-profile.  You can route the SATA
cables to the rear ports between the front.   In fact, that's not such a
bad cable management approach either -- most reviews I've seem to do
that.

As far as the dummy connection, yeah, I'm dumbfounded on that one too.
>  3) They are only on the first release of the software (9.3.0, the first-
>     ship release, didn't work, and they released 9.3.0.1).
It worked, it just had a possible issue when a RAID-5 array was
degraded.  But as I always, I'd wait 6-12 months on a new 3Ware product.
> At some point they will ship a unified release for the 9550 and 9500,
> but that's a ways off
???  The 9.3.0.1 version of the 3w-9xxx driver supports the 9500S as
well as the 9500S.  You just don't have a unified firmware yet.  I.e.,
the driver is unified, the firmware is not.
>  4) no BBU support (yet).
I've heard the PowerPC on the 9550SX has additional BBU requirements
over the 9500S, hence why you can't use the 9500S' BBU.

So, as always, I'm still sticking with recommending 8506 cards.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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