Hi, I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server. Given all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at the CeBIT I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8. With that I bought a ASUS serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core opteron. In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my home. ;) However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the PCI-X boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. I've RMA-ed the card, but my guess is that it'll take a too long a time to fix/replace it for my patience. So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've seen that the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about Promisse or Highpoint RAID controllers? Thanx, --WjW
The Areca cards I can recommend. Highpoint 1820a is surprisingly good
for its price and the later cards have better performance still apparently.
N.B. Use the min stripe size when creating the array for max performance
with this card under FreeBSD.
Steve
Willem Jan Withagen wrote:> Hi,
>
> I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server.
> Given all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at
> the CeBIT I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8.
> With that I bought a ASUS serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core
> opteron.
>
> In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my
> home. ;)
>
> However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the
> PCI-X boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. I've
> RMA-ed the card, but my guess is that it'll take a too long a time to
> fix/replace it for my patience.
>
> So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've
> seen that the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about
> Promisse or Highpoint RAID controllers?
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Greg Martin wrote:> I find it hard to believe nobody has mentioned 3ware, they are a bit > more expensive but you pay for top notch quality, stability... > > Their newer cards support PCI-X and SATA II /w hotswap.Well the message started by saying that I got caught by a 3ware card that did not want to play nice with me..... So I guess nobody deared suggesting another 3ware card. ;) --WjW
On 8/23/06, Willem Jan Withagen <wjw@withagen.nl> wrote:> Hi, > > I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server. > Given all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at the CeBIT > I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8. > With that I bought a ASUS serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core opteron. > > In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my home. ;) > > However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the PCI-X > boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. >Disable int 13. The card is probably trying to load it's boot BIOS and another card is interfering with it... I had a Promise card that loved to f**k with my HighPoint controller. The solution to the problem was disabling int 13 on the HighPoint card by re-flashing the cards BIOS with a special switch set, I didn't need to boot from this card anyways.> So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've seen that > the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about Promisse or Highpoint > RAID controllers? >Stay away from Adaptec and Promise because they don't support FreeBSD. I would recommend Areca and/or HighPoint because they do officially support FreeBSD. 3Ware does support FreeBSD but I don't have experience with their cards so I can't say anything good or bad about them. If you want to go 64-bit Areca drivers are open source and the FreeBSD man page states that they work on amd64. -- BSD Podcasts @: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/ http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/
However keep in mind that Highpoint support is nearly clueless. When the 1820a first shipped we were unable to find anyone on staff that knew what FreeBSD was, or how to read a problem report. No experience with Areca. 3ware is very clueful and capable. On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 09:23:00AM +0100, Steven Hartland wrote:> The Areca cards I can recommend. Highpoint 1820a is surprisingly good > for its price and the later cards have better performance still apparently. > N.B. Use the min stripe size when creating the array for max performance > with this card under FreeBSD. > > Steve > > Willem Jan Withagen wrote: > >Hi, > > > >I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server. > >Given all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at > >the CeBIT I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8. > >With that I bought a ASUS serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core > >opteron. > > > >In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my > >home. ;) > > > >However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the > >PCI-X boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. I've > >RMA-ed the card, but my guess is that it'll take a too long a time to > >fix/replace it for my patience. > > > >So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've > >seen that the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about > >Promisse or Highpoint RAID controllers? > > > ===============================================> This e.mail is private and confidential between Multiplay (UK) Ltd. and the > person or entity to whom it is addressed. In the event of misdirection, the > recipient is prohibited from using, copying, printing or otherwise > disseminating it or any information contained in it. > In the event of misdirection, illegible or incomplete transmission please > telephone +44 845 868 1337 > or return the E.mail to postmaster@multiplay.co.uk. > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"-- Jo Rhett senior geek SVcolo : Silicon Valley Colocation
Mark Kirkwood wrote:> Mark Kirkwood wrote: >> >> Obviously if your array >> is RAID10, the 180MB/s is very good! > > Also unlikely - RAID10 with 5 disks?? - brain fade - sorry.RAID5 with 5 disks ( 6 with hot swap ). Steve ===============================================This e.mail is private and confidential between Multiplay (UK) Ltd. and the person or entity to whom it is addressed. In the event of misdirection, the recipient is prohibited from using, copying, printing or otherwise disseminating it or any information contained in it. In the event of misdirection, illegible or incomplete transmission please telephone +44 845 868 1337 or return the E.mail to postmaster@multiplay.co.uk.
Mark Kirkwood wrote:> Just out of interest what RAID level was the 5 disk array? - as > 180Mb/s from an Areca 5 disk RAID0 or RAID5 array is not that good - > my old 3Ware 7506 with 4 Maxtor IDE RAID0 gets 175Mb/s. Obviously if > your array is RAID10, the 180MB/s is very good! > > If you are using RAID0|5, then something is slowing you down (possible > clash between disk firmware and the Areca, or unfortunate choice of > strip chunk size).Dont know which test I was remembering but just did a quicky: OS: FreeBSD 6.1 RAID: 5 on 5 * 400GB Seagate Controller: HighPoint 1820a CPU: Dual Opteron 244 RAM: 2Gb /usr/bin/time -h dd if=/dev/da0 of=/dev/null bs=1048576 count=10000 10000+0 records in 10000+0 records out 10485760000 bytes transferred in 44.887239 secs (233602250 bytes/sec) 44.88s real 0.03s user 2.40s sys In comparison: OS: FreeBSD 5.4 RAID: 5 on 6 * 300GB Seagate Controller: Areca 1120 CPU: Dual Opteron 248 RAM: 4Gb /usr/bin/time -h dd if=/dev/da0 of=/dev/null bs=1048576 count=10000 10000+0 records in 10000+0 records out 10485760000 bytes transferred in 81.598938 secs (128503633 bytes/sec) 1m21.60s real 0.00s user 2.69s sys So for the money they HighPoint is nothing to be sneezed at. Of course this is a very crude test not comparing totally like for like. Under load the Areca is quicker and has the flexibility of online capacity expansion and raid level migration but... Steve ===============================================This e.mail is private and confidential between Multiplay (UK) Ltd. and the person or entity to whom it is addressed. In the event of misdirection, the recipient is prohibited from using, copying, printing or otherwise disseminating it or any information contained in it. In the event of misdirection, illegible or incomplete transmission please telephone +44 845 868 1337 or return the E.mail to postmaster@multiplay.co.uk.