Hi,
I am trying to set up my first webserver. I bought a Dell Poweredge
860, provided with a SAS5/IR RAID-Controller.
The problem is now, that I cannot find software, that monitors the
state of my disks. I already tried megarc from the ports but all I
get is a short answer that no adapters where found:
########################################################################
#
megarc -AllAdpInfo -nolog
**********************************************************************
MEGARC MegaRAID Configuration Utility(FreeBSD)-1.04
(03-02-2005)
By LSI Logic Corp.,USA
**********************************************************************
[Note: For SATA-2, 4 and 6 channel controllers, please
specify
Ch=0 Id=0..15 for specifying physical drive(Ch=channel,
Id=Target)]
Type ? as command line arg for help
No Adapters Found
Error: No MegaRaid Found
########################################################################
#
I had emails with Dell and LSI. Dell does not support FreeBSD and LSI
says I should go and ask Dell ...
The second thing is, the perfomance. I attached the output of blogbench:
########################################################################
#
Frequency = 10 secs
Scratch dir = [/root/bench]
Spawning 3 writers...
Spawning 1 rewriters...
Spawning 5 commenters...
Spawning 100 readers...
Benchmarking for 30 iterations.
The test will run during 5 minutes.
Nb blogs R articles W articles R pictures W pictures
R comments W comments
0 0 77 0
3 1154 120
0 1 92 0
4 4086 142
0 263 58 3
30 5858 125
0 1546 20 86
32 925 81
1 2875 28 1855
51 102 115
3 2646 53 2320
36 1283 128
3 1925 42 1339
25 970 92
3 2418 17 1076
61 349 110
3 2730 13 1278
86 585 125
3 2066 12 1154
69 895 108
4 1826 20 1356
48 676 89
6 2813 83 2227
11 863 129
6 2884 59 2204
29 1273 121
6 1570 29 1087
24 558 73
7 2329 26 1607
64 587 109
7 2718 42 1676
62 901 130
8 1146 11 691
36 538 59
9 2617 41 1580
54 1248 127
9 2362 72 1654
33 1763 131
9 1154 34 857
15 741 62
10 2362 63 1823
36 1562 127
10 2458 48 1904
56 1756 131
11 1182 28 918
18 753 63
13 2485 53 1965
46 1620 127
13 2725 64 2106
44 1561 134
13 1228 9 821
39 536 61
15 2758 52 1765
49 1064 132
16 2853 77 1793
33 1633 141
16 1174 31 745
18 742 61
16 2420 42 1619
55 1389 123
Final score for writes: 16
Final score for reads : 2025
########################################################################
#
(Just to remember: Pentium D; 2,8GHZ; 4 GB RAM; 2 x 500GB SATA RAID1)
That is pretty poor, isn't it ?
I am wondering now, if somebody has experience with the PERC5/I
Controller. Would it be possible to monitor the disks, if I would buy
that controller ?
Any hints are highly appreciated.
Thanks
Michael
Michael Worobcuk wrote:> Hi, > I am trying to set up my first webserver. I bought a Dell Poweredge 860, > provided with a SAS5/IR RAID-Controller. > The problem is now, that I cannot find software, that monitors the state > of my disks. I already tried megarc from the ports but all I get is a > short answer that no adapters where found: > > ######################################################################### > megarc -AllAdpInfo -nolog > > > > ********************************************************************** > MEGARC MegaRAID Configuration > Utility(FreeBSD)-1.04(03-02-2005) > By LSI Logic Corp.,USA > > ********************************************************************** > [Note: For SATA-2, 4 and 6 channel controllers, please specify > Ch=0 Id=0..15 for specifying physical drive(Ch=channel, > Id=Target)] > > Type ? as command line arg for help > > No Adapters Found > > Error: No MegaRaid Found > ######################################################################### > > I had emails with Dell and LSI. Dell does not support FreeBSD and LSI > says I should go and ask Dell ... > > > The second thing is, the perfomance.<<<<SNIP>>>>> Final score for writes: 16 > Final score for reads : 2025 > ######################################################################### > > (Just to remember: Pentium D; 2,8GHZ; 4 GB RAM; 2 x 500GB SATA RAID1) > That is pretty poor, isn't it ? > > > I am wondering now, if somebody has experience with the PERC5/I > Controller. Would it be possible to monitor the disks, if I would buy > that controller ? > Any hints are highly appreciated. > > Thanks > > MichaelI don't know about monitoring the SAS5/I however I read some posts on one of the lists that was talking about the linux compatibility system providing all of the correct interface for the linux version of ?megacli? to work on FreeBSD. As the SAS5/I is mpt driver based could it not be checked with camcontrol? (Just an idea never tested). As for performance issues with the SAS5/i, there is a problem in the controller. A work arround was created by Scott Long which created a sysctl that could be set to cause the controller to turn on the on drive write cache's. These changes where commited to RELENG_6 on 2007-06-05 21:32:57 UTC. The PERC5/[ei] controllers do not suffer the performance problems of the SAS5/i controller, we have ~30 systems with these controllers and have never seen any performance problems with them even when they have 20 drives attached to them. If you had search the archives you would have found an almost identical response by me to an almost identical question regarding the SAS5/i performance problem. Tom Here is the original commit log: scottl 2007-06-03 23:13:05 UTC FreeBSD src repository Modified files: sys/dev/mpt mpt.c mpt.h mpt_cam.c Log: mpt.c: mpt.h: Add support for reading extended configuration pages. mpt_cam.c: Do a top level topology scan on the SAS controller. If any SATA device are discovered in this scan, send a passthrough FIS to set the write cache. This is controllable through the following tunable at boot: hw.mpt.enable_sata_wc: -1 = Do not configure, use the controller default 0 = Disable the write cache 1 = Enable the write cache The default is -1. This tunable is just a hack and may be deprecated in the future. Turning on the write cache alleviates the write performance problems with SATA that many people have observed. It is not recommend for those who value data reliability! I cannot stress this strongly enough. However, it is useful in certain circumstances, and it brings the performence in line with what a generic SATA controller running under the FreeBSD ATA driver provides (and the ATA driver has had the WC enabled by default for years).
On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Michael Worobcuk wrote: Hi,> Am 18.07.2007 um 16:34 schrieb Brian A. Seklecki: > >>> >>> Hi Tom, >>> thank you for your response. What about monitoring the PERC5/ie ? Does it >>> work with megarc or any program under FreeBSD ? >> >> I have some scripts on nagiosexchange.org; wrappers around megacli(8) and >> megarc(8). >> ~BAS > > > Cool :) Thank you very much.Also the ports for those utilities have periodic scripts that just need to be enabled in periodic.conf and give daily state and log changes for controllers. amr(4) and mfi(4) come to my mind as well as twa(4) which is not found in Dell servers. -- Bjoern A. Zeeb bzeeb at Zabbadoz dot NeT Software is harder than hardware so better get it right the first time.