Hi,
I am wondering what the readers of this list are using to control their
ZFS & RAID-Z arrays with.
A quote from an under answered comment the OpenSolaris device driver
forum<http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=32610&tstart=0>:
*I''m having a hard time finding any decent motherboard that will work
with
OpenSolaris. I don''t have high requirements, only:
- 6 (or more) SATA ports (with the future in mind I guess some AHCI
controller should be best)
- a gigabit port (or two)
- 4 DDR2 @ 800MHz
- some PCI-Express slots
As you can see, these are very modest specs, except that most mobos still
come with only 4 sata ports, although 6 isn''t very uncommon either (a
mobo
with 4 sata ports and a cheap pci-e card with at least 2 sata ports would be
ok, too). One would think that it''d be quite easy to find at least one
suitable cheap mainstream (i.e., not any super-expensive server hardware)
mobo that OpenSolaris would work on, but this task seems to be impossible.
I''ve been looking through these forums (and Google) for several tens of
hours, but without luck. I''ve only found people recommending obsolete
hardware (yesterday''s tech is quite expensive and hard to find), or
people
saying stuff like "after tweaking a gazillion undocumented parameters in a
patch to the driver and recompiling it I finally got it working, but
it''s
slow and it might be causing some short freezes or lockups" (not quite what
one would want), or "go out and buy stuff and then when you get it you can
let us know what works" (as if everyone has time to test and money to blow
on loads of mobos to find one that works), or "this particular revision of
this particular chip works well" (and then it turns out to be impossible to
find any decent products that actually has that chip in it).
I personally know several people who want to buy a mobo for running
OpenSolaris on, but don''t know which one to buy. If I were to buy one I
would only accept relatively cheap mobos that are widely available, so that
my friends then could easily buy the same hardware when I let them know that
mine works well.
So, does anyone have, or know of, some suitable motherboard?
*As it happens I too am looking for such a board and getting the same
answers. The OpenSolaris HCL
<http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/index.html>is outdated and not really
helpful. The AHCI
driver
project<http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/device_drivers/projects/AHCI/>(which
appears to be the crux of the question) has not been update recently
(perhaps it has never been updated) and promises compatibility with an old
short lived Intel part and VIA part I am unfamiliar with.
Does anyone on this list have experience with a recent board with 6 or more
SATA ports that they know is supported?
Thanks!
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>Does anyone on this list have experience with a recent board with 6 or more >SATA ports that they know is supported?Well so far I have only populated 5 of the ports I have available, but my writeup with my 9-port SATS ASUS mobo is at: http://www.crypticide.com/dropsafe/article/2091 ...and I hope to run a few more tests this weekend, time permitting. But you know this, since you''ve already commented there. :-) - alec -- Alec Muffett http://www.google.com/search?q=alec+muffett
Alec Muffett wrote:>> Does anyone on this list have experience with a recent board with 6 or more >> SATA ports that they know is supported? >> > > > Well so far I have only populated 5 of the ports I have available, > but my writeup with my 9-port SATS ASUS mobo is at: > > http://www.crypticide.com/dropsafe/article/2091 > > ...and I hope to run a few more tests this weekend, time permitting. > > But you know this, since you''ve already commented there. :-) > > - alec > >In fact, any of the recent Intel chipset motherboards; Server class: Chipset ESB-2 southbridge Desktop class: Chipset ICH-8 and ICH-9 Motherboards known as i965 chipset and Intel P35 chipsets The above all support AHCI and have typically up to 6 SATA connectors, which the southbridge supports. On ICH-9, all six are in the southbridge and supported/tested running Solaris. On some i965 classs motherboards, there may only be 4 SATA ports that Solaris supports, since the other 2 may or may not be present and may be a third party SATA controller chip with no device driver software for Solaris. So if you want all six SATA ports for Solaris in AHCI mode, go with a desktop board using the P35 chipset (ICH-9 southbridge) or a server board based on ESB-2 southbridge (Intel Series S-5000 server boards). Hope this helps. Neal
On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 10:23:49AM -0700, Neal Pollack wrote:> > Server class: Chipset ESB-2 southbridge > Desktop class: Chipset ICH-8 and ICH-9 > Motherboards known as i965 chipset > and Intel P35 chipsetsAre the i975 chipset boards any less likely to run Solaris? 4 SATA is fine, but I need to know before I buy the board, otherwise I''ll end up putting Linux on it, and I *really* don''t want to do that. :) -brian -- "Perl can be fast and elegant as much as J2EE can be fast and elegant. In the hands of a skilled artisan, it can and does happen; it''s just that most of the shit out there is built by people who''d be better suited to making sure that my burger is cooked thoroughly." -- Jonathan Patschke
Have the ICH-8 and ICH-9 been physically tested with Solaris? The page for the ACHI driver still only lists through ICH-6 as having support? What is the Solaris support for the rest of the ICH-9 chipset such as USB, etc.? This message posted from opensolaris.org
James C. McPherson
2007-Aug-14 06:52 UTC
[zfs-discuss] Is there _any_ suitable motherboard?
Anon wrote:> Have the ICH-8 and ICH-9 been physically tested with Solaris? The page > for the ACHI driver still only lists through ICH-6 as having support? > What is the Solaris support for the rest of the ICH-9 chipset such as > USB, etc.?I''ve just been in contact with my colleagues who developed this support for NV - they told me that the current driver in NV is supposed to work with ICH6/7/8/9, but only for hard disks. Support for SATA dvd drives is in the works at the moment, and yes, this was tested with Solaris. James C. McPherson -- Solaris kernel software engineer Sun Microsystems
Anon wrote:> Have the ICH-8 and ICH-9 been physically tested with Solaris? The page for the ACHI driver still only lists through ICH-6 as having support? What is the Solaris support for the rest of the ICH-9 chipset such as USB, etc.? > > > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >ICH-8 and ICH-9 are indeed supported and running Solaris Nevada. Here is the current status of ICH-9 support as of build 70, Solaris Express edition: - USB works - AHCI SATA disks work fine. - ATAPI over SATA for DVD drives is still being tested prior to integration. - NIC (network) core changed register sets, recode is complete and tested, integration pending.
Neal Pollack wrote:> ICH-8 and ICH-9 are indeed supported and running Solaris Nevada. > Here is the current status of ICH-9 support as of build 70, Solaris > Express edition: > > - USB works > - AHCI SATA disks work fine. > - ATAPI over SATA for DVD drives is still being tested prior to integration.Excellent! Any word on NCQ / hotplug / port multiplier support though? The latter two would be particularly useful as I believe some ICH-9 boards offer eSATA ports. Pete.
On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 02:20:42PM +0100, Alec Muffett wrote:> > >Does anyone on this list have experience with a recent board with 6 or more > >SATA ports that they know is supported? > > > Well so far I have only populated 5 of the ports I have available, > but my writeup with my 9-port SATS ASUS mobo is at:Has anyone looked at using the Tyan Tempest i5000x motherboard yet? 6 SATA (unknown if they work with Solaris) 8 SAS (LSI 1068E which is known to work with Solaris) At $350, I would say it''s a steal since the LSA SAS1068X PCI-X card is almost $250 itself! That looks like something I wouldn''t mind having. ;) -brian -- "Perl can be fast and elegant as much as J2EE can be fast and elegant. In the hands of a skilled artisan, it can and does happen; it''s just that most of the shit out there is built by people who''d be better suited to making sure that my burger is cooked thoroughly." -- Jonathan Patschke
Hi, For what your looking for the gigabyte M61p-S3 is the perfect mobo. Six sata ports DDRII and a am2 dual core AMD is really cheap. Only downside is that the realtek NIC oesnt work as far as i know. However an intel gigabit card is relativly cheap and works. And even with all that i was able to buy it all for around AUS$350. cpu, mobo, ram and everything. ive tried it with a few solaris distro''s and its worked fine and been rather fast. Cheers Mark This message posted from opensolaris.org
Casper.Dik at Sun.COM
2007-Aug-22 12:05 UTC
[zfs-discuss] Is there _any_ suitable motherboard?
>Hi, > >For what your looking for the gigabyte M61p-S3 is the perfect mobo. >Six sata ports DDRII and a am2 dual core AMD is really cheap. Only >downside is that the realtek NIC oesnt work as far as i know. >However an intel gigabit card is relativly cheap and works. And even >with all that i was able to buy it all for around AUS$350. cpu, mobo, >ram and everything. ive tried it with a few solaris distro''s >and its worked fine and been rather fast.Did you submit it to the HCL :-)? If power consumption and heat is a consideration, the newer Intel CPUs have an advantage in that Solaris supports native power management on those CPUs. We will not do native power management on AMD''s until we get some with P-state invariant TSC (my powernow driver will supports single core, single socket systems still). This also, I think, will require a "socket AM3" motherboard (the 0x10 Opterons will run in AM2 motherboards but those do not provide the different power and CPU planes needed for the 2/4 cores. But to measure is to know and I would really like to know the idle power consumptions (no disks/disks spun down) of the various motherboards when IDLE under Solaris (with CPU/Memory accounted for, of course) Casper
Hey, I will submit it. However does Opensolaris have a seperate HCL? or do i just use the solaris one? Cheers Mark This message posted from opensolaris.org
Mark wrote:> Hey, > > I will submit it. However does Opensolaris have a seperate HCL? or do i just use the solaris one?Last time I tried to submit anything, they didn''t even accepted sxcr release numbers, only proper Solaris releases numbers. -- Kaiser Jasse -- Authorized Stealth Oracle The axioms of wisdom: 1. Go the SPARC way of life 2. You can''t conquer the universe without the knowledge of FORTRAN 3. In the Unix realm, 10% of work fixes 90% of the problems
Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:> > If power consumption and heat is a consideration, the newer Intel CPUs > have an advantage in that Solaris supports native power management on > those CPUs. > >Are P35 chipset boards supported? Ian
Ian Collins wrote:> Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote: > >> If power consumption and heat is a consideration, the newer Intel CPUs >> have an advantage in that Solaris supports native power management on >> those CPUs. >> >> >> > Are P35 chipset boards supported? >The P35 "chipset" works fine with Solaris. Whether or not the "motherboard" works with Solaris is decided by the vendors choice of additional chips/drivers for things like SATA, Network, and other ports. The Intel network core in the P35 chipset (ICH-9 southbridge) works with Nevada. The Intel SATA ports in the ICH-9 southbridge work. Some of the third party boards add two additional SATA ports on an unsupported third party chip. Beware. Some boards add a second ethernet port using a Marvell or other unsupported controller. Neal> Ian > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >
I''ve just purchased an Asus P5K WS, which seems to work OK. I had to download the Marvell Yukon ethernet driver - but it''s all working fine. It''s also got a PCI-X slot - so I have one of those Super Micro 8 port SATA cards - providing a total of 16 SATA ports across the system. Other specs are one of those Intel E6750 1333MHz FSB CPUs and 2Gb of matched memory. Ben. This message posted from opensolaris.org
For what it''s worth, I bought a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 a couple of
months
ago and it rocks on a reasonably current Nevada.
Certainly not the cheapest or most expensive, but I felt a good choice
for multiple PCI-E slots and a couple of PCI slots.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2287&ProductName=GA-M57SLI-S4
Everything on it worked a treat for me, and paired with an Nvidia
7900GS, has handled pretty much whatever I have thrown at it, including
Second Life on Solaris. :)
On Nevada (at the time I build it, it was NV_65), everything just worked
straight out of the box. Gig Ethernet, IDE ports, SATA ports (in
compatability mode), USB, 1394, audio, dual core stuff, the lot.
SATA ports work fine and dandy (up to about 70MB/S per port on the outer
edge of the disk using Seagate 320GB 16MB cache 7200RPM disks) using the
IDE emulation. I''m waiting for the build of nevada that provides the
Nvidia MCP55 SATA controller support for native SATA stuff. Not long
now... ZFS seems to be able to write down the channel''s at about
80MB/s... (At least on a brand spanking new Zpool. Seems closer to
60MB/s now...)
Once the Nvidia SATA stuff goes back, you''ll have 6 ports of NVidia
SATA
goodness straight off the board. (and even now, you have 6 ports of
reasonable speedyness in good old ATA mode.)
From what I can tell, the Nvidia SATA devices hang straight off the
PCI-E bus, so you might even be able to get ''em all running flat out.
(Though, I''m basing this on the output of the prtconf, I could be
completely wrong.) See bottom of post for the prtconf -D output.
I''m also running it as a Solaris Xen Dom0 with other OS/s lurking on
top
of that, so the HVM support also works great.
I have just submitted this board to the HCL for SXDE, and if I get a
chance, I''ll pull the latest S10 and give that a whirl too.
Hope this helps. (and excuse the prtconf being from the Xen boot, rather
than bare metal... got a bit of stuff happening on the box at the moment
and did not feel like rebooting. ;)
/root # prtconf -D
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems i86pc
Memory size: 3895 Megabytes
System Peripherals (Software Nodes):
i86xpv (driver name: rootnex)
scsi_vhci, instance #0 (driver name: scsi_vhci)
isa, instance #0 (driver name: isa)
fdc, instance #0 (driver name: fdc)
fd, instance #0 (driver name: fd)
asy, instance #0 (driver name: asy)
lp, instance #0 (driver name: ecpp)
i8042, instance #0 (driver name: i8042)
keyboard, instance #0 (driver name: kb8042)
motherboard
xpvd, instance #0 (driver name: xpvd)
xencons, instance #0 (driver name: xencons)
xenbus, instance #0 (driver name: xenbus)
domcaps, instance #0 (driver name: domcaps)
balloon, instance #0 (driver name: balloon)
evtchn, instance #0 (driver name: evtchn)
privcmd, instance #0 (driver name: privcmd)
pci, instance #0 (driver name: npe)
pci1458,5001
pci1458,c11
pci1458,c11
pci1458,c11
pci1458,5004, instance #0 (driver name: ohci)
mouse, instance #1 (driver name: hid)
pci1458,5004, instance #0 (driver name: ehci)
pci-ide, instance #0 (driver name: pci-ide)
ide, instance #0 (driver name: ata)
sd, instance #1 (driver name: sd)
sd, instance #0 (driver name: sd)
ide (driver name: ata)
pci-ide, instance #1 (driver name: pci-ide)
ide, instance #2 (driver name: ata)
cmdk, instance #0 (driver name: cmdk)
ide, instance #3 (driver name: ata)
cmdk, instance #1 (driver name: cmdk)
pci-ide, instance #2 (driver name: pci-ide)
ide (driver name: ata)
ide (driver name: ata)
pci-ide, instance #3 (driver name: pci-ide)
ide (driver name: ata)
ide (driver name: ata)
pci10de,370, instance #0 (driver name: pci_pci)
pci8086,1e, instance #0 (driver name: e1000g)
pci1458,1000, instance #0 (driver name: hci1394)
pci1458,a002, instance #0 (driver name: audiohd)
pci1458,e000, instance #0 (driver name: nge)
pci10de,377, instance #0 (driver name: pcie_pci)
display, instance #0 (driver name: nvidia)
pci1022,1100 (driver name: mc-amd)
pci1022,1101 (driver name: mc-amd)
pci1022,1102 (driver name: mc-amd)
pci1022,1103, instance #0 (driver name: amd64_gart)
iscsi, instance #0 (driver name: iscsi)
pseudo, instance #0 (driver name: pseudo)
options, instance #0 (driver name: options)
agpgart, instance #0 (driver name: agpgart)
xsvc, instance #0 (driver name: xsvc)
used-resources
cpus
cpu, instance #0
cpu, instance #1
Nathan.
Ben Middleton wrote:> I''ve just purchased an Asus P5K WS, which seems to work OK. I had
to download the Marvell Yukon ethernet driver - but it''s all working
fine. It''s also got a PCI-X slot - so I have one of those Super Micro 8
port SATA cards - providing a total of 16 SATA ports across the system. Other
specs are one of those Intel E6750 1333MHz FSB CPUs and 2Gb of matched memory.
>
> Ben.
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Ben Middleton wrote:> I''ve just purchased an Asus P5K WS, which seems to work OK. I had to download the Marvell Yukon ethernet driver - but it''s all working fine. It''s also got a PCI-X slot - so I have one of those Super Micro 8 port SATA cards - providing a total of 16 SATA ports across the system. Other specs are one of those Intel E6750 1333MHz FSB CPUs and 2Gb of matched memory. > >Looks like a classy board, single processor boards with PCI-X are a bit like hen''s teeth. Ian
FYI, nvsata integrated into b72 for MCP55. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/all/ [and there was much rejoicing :-)] -- richard Nathan Kroenert wrote:> For what it''s worth, I bought a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 a couple of months > ago and it rocks on a reasonably current Nevada. > > Certainly not the cheapest or most expensive, but I felt a good choice > for multiple PCI-E slots and a couple of PCI slots. > > http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2287&ProductName=GA-M57SLI-S4 > > Everything on it worked a treat for me, and paired with an Nvidia > 7900GS, has handled pretty much whatever I have thrown at it, including > Second Life on Solaris. :) > > On Nevada (at the time I build it, it was NV_65), everything just worked > straight out of the box. Gig Ethernet, IDE ports, SATA ports (in > compatability mode), USB, 1394, audio, dual core stuff, the lot. > > SATA ports work fine and dandy (up to about 70MB/S per port on the outer > edge of the disk using Seagate 320GB 16MB cache 7200RPM disks) using the > IDE emulation. I''m waiting for the build of nevada that provides the > Nvidia MCP55 SATA controller support for native SATA stuff. Not long > now... ZFS seems to be able to write down the channel''s at about > 80MB/s... (At least on a brand spanking new Zpool. Seems closer to > 60MB/s now...) > > Once the Nvidia SATA stuff goes back, you''ll have 6 ports of NVidia SATA > goodness straight off the board. (and even now, you have 6 ports of > reasonable speedyness in good old ATA mode.) > > From what I can tell, the Nvidia SATA devices hang straight off the > PCI-E bus, so you might even be able to get ''em all running flat out. > (Though, I''m basing this on the output of the prtconf, I could be > completely wrong.) See bottom of post for the prtconf -D output. > > I''m also running it as a Solaris Xen Dom0 with other OS/s lurking on top > of that, so the HVM support also works great. > > I have just submitted this board to the HCL for SXDE, and if I get a > chance, I''ll pull the latest S10 and give that a whirl too. > > Hope this helps. (and excuse the prtconf being from the Xen boot, rather > than bare metal... got a bit of stuff happening on the box at the moment > and did not feel like rebooting. ;) > > /root # prtconf -D > System Configuration: Sun Microsystems i86pc > Memory size: 3895 Megabytes > System Peripherals (Software Nodes): > > i86xpv (driver name: rootnex) > scsi_vhci, instance #0 (driver name: scsi_vhci) > isa, instance #0 (driver name: isa) > fdc, instance #0 (driver name: fdc) > fd, instance #0 (driver name: fd) > asy, instance #0 (driver name: asy) > lp, instance #0 (driver name: ecpp) > i8042, instance #0 (driver name: i8042) > keyboard, instance #0 (driver name: kb8042) > motherboard > xpvd, instance #0 (driver name: xpvd) > xencons, instance #0 (driver name: xencons) > xenbus, instance #0 (driver name: xenbus) > domcaps, instance #0 (driver name: domcaps) > balloon, instance #0 (driver name: balloon) > evtchn, instance #0 (driver name: evtchn) > privcmd, instance #0 (driver name: privcmd) > pci, instance #0 (driver name: npe) > pci1458,5001 > pci1458,c11 > pci1458,c11 > pci1458,c11 > pci1458,5004, instance #0 (driver name: ohci) > mouse, instance #1 (driver name: hid) > pci1458,5004, instance #0 (driver name: ehci) > pci-ide, instance #0 (driver name: pci-ide) > ide, instance #0 (driver name: ata) > sd, instance #1 (driver name: sd) > sd, instance #0 (driver name: sd) > ide (driver name: ata) > pci-ide, instance #1 (driver name: pci-ide) > ide, instance #2 (driver name: ata) > cmdk, instance #0 (driver name: cmdk) > ide, instance #3 (driver name: ata) > cmdk, instance #1 (driver name: cmdk) > pci-ide, instance #2 (driver name: pci-ide) > ide (driver name: ata) > ide (driver name: ata) > pci-ide, instance #3 (driver name: pci-ide) > ide (driver name: ata) > ide (driver name: ata) > pci10de,370, instance #0 (driver name: pci_pci) > pci8086,1e, instance #0 (driver name: e1000g) > pci1458,1000, instance #0 (driver name: hci1394) > pci1458,a002, instance #0 (driver name: audiohd) > pci1458,e000, instance #0 (driver name: nge) > pci10de,377, instance #0 (driver name: pcie_pci) > display, instance #0 (driver name: nvidia) > pci1022,1100 (driver name: mc-amd) > pci1022,1101 (driver name: mc-amd) > pci1022,1102 (driver name: mc-amd) > pci1022,1103, instance #0 (driver name: amd64_gart) > iscsi, instance #0 (driver name: iscsi) > pseudo, instance #0 (driver name: pseudo) > options, instance #0 (driver name: options) > agpgart, instance #0 (driver name: agpgart) > xsvc, instance #0 (driver name: xsvc) > used-resources > cpus > cpu, instance #0 > cpu, instance #1 > > > Nathan. > > Ben Middleton wrote: >> I''ve just purchased an Asus P5K WS, which seems to work OK. I had to download the Marvell Yukon ethernet driver - but it''s all working fine. It''s also got a PCI-X slot - so I have one of those Super Micro 8 port SATA cards - providing a total of 16 SATA ports across the system. Other specs are one of those Intel E6750 1333MHz FSB CPUs and 2Gb of matched memory. >> >> Ben. >> >> >> This message posted from opensolaris.org >> _______________________________________________ >> zfs-discuss mailing list >> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org >> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Has anyone considered the Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R which has a G33 chipset (P35 with builtin video). It has that builtin VGA and the most on board, well supported, SATA ports I could find: 8xSATA; 6xSATA provided by the ICH9 and 2xSATA on JMB363. The latter must be supported by OpenSolaris? It''s been out a while now at least and is well supported by other OSes. One problem is a Realtek NIC which may not be supported by OSolaris? All the hardware is supported by FreeBSD 7.0 if that''s of any use. Having builtin VGA it''s a very low power board. Couple that with one of the very cheap Core2Duo E2140 and you have a good base for a ZFS RAIDZ system. Cheers. This message posted from opensolaris.org