I am trying to set up OpenSolaris on a Dell 2950 III that has 8 SAS drives connected to a PERC 6/i card. I am wondering what the best way to configure the RAID in the BIOS for ZFS. Part of the problem is there seems to be some confusion inside Dell as to what can be done with the card. Their tech support suggested making the 8 drives show up by making them 8 raid0 devices. I researched online to see if I could find anyone doing that and the only person I found indicated there were issues with needing to reboot the machine because the controller would take drives totally offline when there were problems. The sales rep I have been working with said the card can be configured with a "no-raid" option. I am not sure why tech support did not know about this (I spent a long time taking with them about if we could turn RAID off on the machine). I could not find anyone talking about running zfs on a system configured this way. I would like to hear if anyone is using ZFS with this card and how you set it up, and what, if any, issues you''ve had with that set up. Thanks -Kristin -- http://tomorrowisobsolete.blogspot.com & http://kamundse.blogspot.com http://flickr.com/photos/kamundse/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20090303/20235999/attachment.html>
On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:50:51 -0800 Kristin Amundsen <avatarofslack at gmail.com> wrote:> I am trying to set up OpenSolaris on a Dell 2950 III that has 8 SAS drives > connected to a PERC 6/i card. I am wondering what the best way to configure > the RAID in the BIOS for ZFS. > > Part of the problem is there seems to be some confusion inside Dell as to > what can be done with the card. Their tech support suggested making the 8 > drives show up by making them 8 raid0 devices. I researched online to see > if I could find anyone doing that and the only person I found indicated > there were issues with needing to reboot the machine because the controller > would take drives totally offline when there were problems. The sales rep I > have been working with said the card can be configured with a "no-raid" > option. I am not sure why tech support did not know about this (I spent a > long time taking with them about if we could turn RAID off on the machine). > I could not find anyone talking about running zfs on a system configured > this way. > > I would like to hear if anyone is using ZFS with this card and how you set > it up, and what, if any, issues you''ve had with that set up.Gday Kristin, I didn''t specifically test ZFS with this card when I was making the changes for 6712499 mpt should identify and report Dell SAS6/iR family of controllers However I would expect that if you could present 8 raid0 luns to the host then that should be at least a decent config to start using for ZFS. James C. McPherson -- Senior Kernel Software Engineer, Solaris Sun Microsystems http://blogs.sun.com/jmcp http://www.jmcp.homeunix.com/blog
>> I would like to hear if anyone is using ZFS with this card and how you set >> it up, and what, if any, issues you''ve had with that set up. > > However I would expect that if you could present 8 raid0 luns to > the host then that should be at least a decent config to start > using for ZFS.I can confirm that we are doing that here (with 3 drives) and it''s been fine for almost a year now. Jules
Julius Roberts wrote:>>> I would like to hear if anyone is using ZFS with this card and how you set >>> it up, and what, if any, issues you''ve had with that set up. >> However I would expect that if you could present 8 raid0 luns to >> the host then that should be at least a decent config to start >> using for ZFS. > > I can confirm that we are doing that here (with 3 drives) and it''s > been fine for almost a year now. >I''ve accomplished that with a similar RAID card, set each drive to a ''JBOD'' mode in the RAID BIOS, this properly presents individual devices to the OS so ZFS can do it''s thing. One thing to note however is that if you remove a drive and reboot without replacing it the names of devices may be shifted forward a number causing havoc with a ZFS pool. Additionally, depending on the OS be, careful with attaching removable storage on bootup as this may also shift the names of the devices -- I''ve personally experienced it on FreeBSD 7.1 with a USB stick attached during reboot. The stick happened to take the name of my first drive on this RAID device. -Bryant
On Wed, Mar 04, 2009 at 10:59:04AM +1100, Julius Roberts wrote:> > > > However I would expect that if you could present 8 raid0 luns to > > the host then that should be at least a decent config to start > > using for ZFS. > > I can confirm that we are doing that here (with 3 drives) and it''s > been fine for almost a year now.Jules, (or anyone who knows the answer) Even though it probably really doesn''t matter since you only have a single disk in each raid0, what did you set the PERC''s "stripe" size to? (I can''t think of what terminology is actually used for it and don''t have a PERC in front of me to check on currently) I''ve got two raid0 volumes with two disks in each, and I was wondering what stripe width at the hardware level would work best with ZFS. Thanks! -brian -- "Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a cupboard full of pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User (http://www.bash.org/?841435)
On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 5:29 AM, Julius Roberts <hooliowobbits at gmail.com> wrote:>>> I would like to hear if anyone is using ZFS with this card and how you set >>> it up, and what, if any, issues you''ve had with that set up. >> >> However I would expect that if you could present 8 raid0 luns to >> the host then that should be at least a decent config to start >> using for ZFS. > > I can confirm that we are doing that here (with 3 drives) and it''s > been fine for almost a year now. >I''ve done exactly this myself. I have two 200 GB SATA disks for the OS, and four 146 GB SAS disks for the data pool. I''ve just downloaded and installed Nexenta. -- Sriram
2009/3/5 Brian Hechinger <wonko at 4amlunch.net>:> Even though it probably really doesn''t matter since you only have a single > disk in each raid0, what did you set the PERC''s "stripe" size to? ?(I can''t > think of what terminology is actually used for it and don''t have a PERC in > front of me to check on currently) I''ve got two raid0 volumes with two disks > in each, and I was wondering what stripe width at the hardware level would > work best with ZFS.Hi mate, to be honest, i don''t know. i just left it as the default :) -- Kind regards, Jules