Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:37:03 -0600 Barry Pederson b...@barryp.org wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? BP Those Supermicro UIO cards look like backwards PCIe cards. Do they BP come with other brackets for fitting into a PCIe slot, or did you have BP to go bracketless? They only come with a bracket that does not exactly fit into a standard slot. Maybe the other bracket is available, but I did not care much about it and simply went for bracketless (not much of a problem with a low profile card). BP didn't mention anything about brackets or how it'd work in PCIe slots. For me it simply works. Only the bracket does not fit. cu Gerrit ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:35:56 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC Hm, I don't know the recent exchange rate, but are you sure this is FC the same card? I paid something like 80,-€ (excl. VAT). FC Oops, you're right, was reading the model numbers wrong. The FC LSI1068-based one is only $129 CDN, the Intel IOP-based ones are FC $200-300 CDN. That makes sense then. FC Last time I checked the Euro was in the $1.50-2.00 CDN range. Seems to be something like 1.55 these days. FC I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to FC be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, FC it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I FC can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that FC would give you one more slot? FC Urgh, I have yet to find a riser card that will plug into a Tyan FC motherboard and not cause issues. Due to all the issues we've had FC with riser cards in the past, we have sworn off all riser cards. For FC our 2U servers, we use low-profile cards to avoid risers. I had some trouble with risers in the past, too. However, I have a Tyan Transport here that seems to work nicely at least with the riser that came with the system. FC I'll keep looking for a PCI-X card. These look like they'll cover our FC PCIe needs. Please let us know if you find one that is suitable. I spent quite some time to dig out the Supermicro card; cheap (without raid) and FreeBSD-supported cards with more than 4 channels are not that common. cu Gerrit ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:15:59 -0600 Barry Pederson b...@barryp.org wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: BP What I was questioning was where the OP said: it fits into a standard BP PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell - which to me BP sounds like you could use this HBA in a *NON-Supermicro* motherboard. BP I was just wondering if that was truly the case, given how in the BP photos it looks to be arranged physically backwards from a regular BP PCIe card, and given how you mention The UIO slot itself is BP proprietary. I'm sorry if my comment fits into a standard PCIe slot was misleading here. I wanted to state that -although Supermirco lists this one as a card for UIO- I plugged it into a standard PCIe slot and it simply works there for me. Just the mounting bracket it came with did not fit, but for a low profile card it is not that difficult to live without it. BP But some more digging on Google has turned up a few mentions along the BP lines of: BP BP BPThis card plugs into a normal PCIe 8x slot but the BPmetal mounting bracket bolted to the card is made BPfor a UIO slot (which is why it's so cheap). BP BPAll you have to do is remove the metal bracket and BPzip-tie the card to your case for mechanical support. BPElectrically it'll work fine in a PCIe x8 or x16 slot. BP That's exactly my experience. BP If someone wanted to make PCIe compatible brackets for this affordable BP card, they'd probably sell a fair number to small shops or home users. Yeah, I would also buy some. :-) cu Gerrit ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Gerrit Kühn wrote: On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:15:59 -0600 Barry Pederson b...@barryp.org wrote BP If someone wanted to make PCIe compatible brackets for this affordable BP card, they'd probably sell a fair number to small shops or home users. Yeah, I would also buy some. :-) I was browsing this bracket mfg's page, I wonder if they might have something off-the-shelf that would be suitable http://www.purcellbrackets.com/dbblanks.asp Barry ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:29:06 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC Any recommendations on other SAS/SATA controllers to look at (just not FC anything with MegaRAID in the name)? I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a LSI chip supported by mpt driver: m...@pci0:6:0:0:class=0x01 card=0xa68015d9 chip=0x00581000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'LSI Logic (Was: Symbios Logic, NCR)' device = 'SAS 3000 series, 8-port with 1068E -StorPort' class = mass storage subclass = SCSI I only installed it last week and cannot comment much on performance and stability up to now. cu Gerrit ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
better driver for this marvell chip. If someone gets to port it to FreeBSD, the card may be pretty decent choice for those who have PCI-X slot on-board. I have PCI-X and just purchased an unbranded card based on the SiL3124 chipset, as I was only using SATA 1 before. I didn't expect much, but it's actually suprisingly fast. Certainly a lot better than I expected - I've only had it a week, but so far I would recommend it. Mind you, this is my first real forray onto the world of non-SCSI controllers so if I just bought a nightmare chipset with loads of known issues then please tell me :-) -pete. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On 18 Nov 2009, at 10:17, Gerrit Kühn wrote: Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card All my childhood traumas magically went away when I bought this card. Recommended! Thomas___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:05:45AM +, Pete French wrote: better driver for this marvell chip. If someone gets to port it to FreeBSD, the card may be pretty decent choice for those who have PCI-X slot on-board. I have PCI-X and just purchased an unbranded card based on the SiL3124 chipset, as I was only using SATA 1 before. I didn't expect much, but it's actually suprisingly fast. Certainly a lot better than I expected - I've only had it a week, but so far I would recommend it. Mind you, this is my first real forray onto the world of non-SCSI controllers so if I just bought a nightmare chipset with loads of known issues then please tell me :-) I tend to avoid Silicon Image as a result of their 3112 snafu. I'm generally not that impressed by their 3114 and 3512 chips either, but the 3112 problem is severe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Image_Inc.#Product_alerts The 3124 and later revisions are supposedly decent, but I've avoided them due to their history (I stick to Intel ICHx controllers + AHCI and don't bother with hardware RAID). Avoiding SIMG is difficult though, since they're used on most consumer and/or residential products, and are even more common when it comes to external hard drive enclosures (USB, Firewire, or otherwise) or similar devices. But it's the 3112 you have to watch out for. -- | Jeremy Chadwick j...@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB | ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Rink Springer r...@freebsd.org wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:38:21PM -0800, Freddie Cash wrote: I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? I have got an Areca ARC-1110 4x SATA2 PCI-X card in my server, and I'm quite impressed with the performance; these cards do very well in terms I/O operations per second and the driver has been rock solid for me. The only downside is that they are quite expensive (but well worth it, IMO) Compared to a 3Ware 9550SXU controller, these are cheap. The Areca is only $500 (open-box) or $700 (new) on newegg.ca. The 3Ware cards are over $1000, with the PCIe versions being over $1200 (which is what started me on this journey -- hardware budgets are getting smaller and smaller each year). -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
2009/11/18 Gerrit Kühn ger...@pmp.uni-hannover.de: On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:29:06 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC Any recommendations on other SAS/SATA controllers to look at (just not FC anything with MegaRAID in the name)? I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a LSI chip supported by mpt driver: m...@pci0:6:0:0: class=0x01 card=0xa68015d9 chip=0x00581000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'LSI Logic (Was: Symbios Logic, NCR)' device = 'SAS 3000 series, 8-port with 1068E -StorPort' class = mass storage subclass = SCSI I only installed it last week and cannot comment much on performance and stability up to now. These look nice, and are in the $200-300 CDN range. Have the same mini-SAS connectors as the 3Ware cards we use, so wouldn't have to re-cable the chassis. Are you using these as standard disk controllers, or are you using the RAID features (seems it supports RAID0 and RAID1 in hardware, RAID5 in software)? Reading through the manual right now, and it doesn't cover using the card in non-RAID modes. Wondering if the drives would show up as normal da0 da1 da2 etc. All of these (there's a couple variations on the card) appear to be PCIe, though, no PCI-X. We have 24 drive bays, and only 2 PCIe slots. Have 3 PCI-X slots, though, so would need at least 1 PCI-X controller. -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. FC Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a FC LSI chip supported by mpt driver: FC m...@pci0:6:0:0: class=0x01 card=0xa68015d9 FC chip=0x00581000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'LSI Logic (Was: FC Symbios Logic, NCR)' device = 'SAS 3000 series, 8-port with FC 1068E -StorPort' class = mass storage FC subclass = SCSI FC I only installed it last week and cannot comment much on performance FC and stability up to now. FC These look nice, and are in the $200-300 CDN range. Have the same FC mini-SAS connectors as the 3Ware cards we use, so wouldn't have to FC re-cable the chassis. Hm, I don't know the recent exchange rate, but are you sure this is the same card? I paid something like 80,-€ (excl. VAT). FC Are you using these as standard disk controllers, or are you using the FC RAID features (seems it supports RAID0 and RAID1 in hardware, RAID5 in FC software)? Reading through the manual right now, and it doesn't cover FC using the card in non-RAID modes. Wondering if the drives would show FC up as normal da0 da1 da2 etc. I think my card does not have the raid features included, maybe that's why it was so cheap. The devices appear as normal scsi disks: dmesg: da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 da0: ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01 Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device da0: 300.000MB/s transfers da0: Command Queueing enabled da0: 476940MB (976773168 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 60801C) [...] cliff# camcontrol devlist ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 0 lun 0 (da0,pass0) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 1 lun 0 (da1,pass1) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 2 lun 0 (da2,pass2) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 3 lun 0 (da3,pass3) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 4 lun 0 (da4,pass4) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 5 lun 0 (da5,pass5) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 6 lun 0 (da6,pass6) ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01at scbus0 target 7 lun 0 (da7,pass7) FC All of these (there's a couple variations on the card) appear to be FC PCIe, though, no PCI-X. We have 24 drive bays, and only 2 PCIe slots. FC Have 3 PCI-X slots, though, so would need at least 1 PCI-X FC controller. I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? cu Gerrit ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Freddie Cash wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Rink Springer r...@freebsd.org wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:38:21PM -0800, Freddie Cash wrote: I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? I have got an Areca ARC-1110 4x SATA2 PCI-X card in my server, and I'm quite impressed with the performance; these cards do very well in terms I/O operations per second and the driver has been rock solid for me. The only downside is that they are quite expensive (but well worth it, IMO) Compared to a 3Ware 9550SXU controller, these are cheap. The Areca is only $500 (open-box) or $700 (new) on newegg.ca. The 3Ware cards are over $1000, with the PCIe versions being over $1200 (which is what started me on this journey -- hardware budgets are getting smaller and smaller each year). We've also tried the Areca cards with FreeBSD - the Areca ARC-1680IX-12-2G PCIe x8 card to be precise. It's a SAS/SATA RAID card. The performance was very impressive. MUCH better than the Dell PERC4/5/6s we were used to. The drivers also seemed to be rock solid (FreeBSD is even listed as a supported OS on the company's website). The feature-set of the card itself is also very rich... The one we tried had its own OOB management via serial port or dedicated 100mbps ethernet jack. It supports endless combinations of RAID arrays, volumes, and SMTP/SNMP alerts. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
2009/11/18 Gerrit Kühn ger...@pmp.uni-hannover.de: On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. FC Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a FC LSI chip supported by mpt driver: FC m...@pci0:6:0:0: class=0x01 card=0xa68015d9 FC chip=0x00581000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'LSI Logic (Was: FC Symbios Logic, NCR)' device = 'SAS 3000 series, 8-port with FC 1068E -StorPort' class = mass storage FC subclass = SCSI FC I only installed it last week and cannot comment much on performance FC and stability up to now. FC These look nice, and are in the $200-300 CDN range. Have the same FC mini-SAS connectors as the 3Ware cards we use, so wouldn't have to FC re-cable the chassis. Hm, I don't know the recent exchange rate, but are you sure this is the same card? I paid something like 80,-€ (excl. VAT). Oops, you're right, was reading the model numbers wrong. The LSI1068-based one is only $129 CDN, the Intel IOP-based ones are $200-300 CDN. Last time I checked the Euro was in the $1.50-2.00 CDN range. FC Are you using these as standard disk controllers, or are you using the FC RAID features (seems it supports RAID0 and RAID1 in hardware, RAID5 in FC software)? Reading through the manual right now, and it doesn't cover FC using the card in non-RAID modes. Wondering if the drives would show FC up as normal da0 da1 da2 etc. I think my card does not have the raid features included, maybe that's why it was so cheap. The devices appear as normal scsi disks: dmesg: da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 da0: ATA WDC WD5001ABYS-0 1D01 Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device da0: 300.000MB/s transfers da0: Command Queueing enabled da0: 476940MB (976773168 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 60801C) [...] Nice. Thanks for the output. FC All of these (there's a couple variations on the card) appear to be FC PCIe, though, no PCI-X. We have 24 drive bays, and only 2 PCIe slots. FC Have 3 PCI-X slots, though, so would need at least 1 PCI-X FC controller. I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? Urgh, I have yet to find a riser card that will plug into a Tyan motherboard and not cause issues. Due to all the issues we've had with riser cards in the past, we have sworn off all riser cards. For our 2U servers, we use low-profile cards to avoid risers. I'll keep looking for a PCI-X card. These look like they'll cover our PCIe needs. -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Gerrit Kühn wrote: On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. FC Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a FC LSI chip supported by mpt driver: I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? Those Supermicro UIO cards look like backwards PCIe cards. Do they come with other brackets for fitting into a PCIe slot, or did you have to go bracketless? The online manual at http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USASLP-L8i.pdf didn't mention anything about brackets or how it'd work in PCIe slots. Barry ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Freddie Cash wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Rink Springer r...@freebsd.org wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:38:21PM -0800, Freddie Cash wrote: I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? I have got an Areca ARC-1110 4x SATA2 PCI-X card in my server, and I'm quite impressed with the performance; these cards do very well in terms I/O operations per second and the driver has been rock solid for me. The only downside is that they are quite expensive (but well worth it, IMO) Compared to a 3Ware 9550SXU controller, these are cheap. The Areca is only $500 (open-box) or $700 (new) on newegg.ca. The 3Ware cards are over $1000, with the PCIe versions being over $1200 (which is what started me on this journey -- hardware budgets are getting smaller and smaller each year). The 3ware cards are not that expensive unless you need a truckload of ports. For the 9650SE on newegg.com; 2 port is 185 4 port is 324 8 port is 525 12 port is 669 Where are you getting the 1200 dollar price from? ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:37:03AM -0600, Barry Pederson wrote: Gerrit Kühn wrote: On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. FC Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a FC LSI chip supported by mpt driver: I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? Those Supermicro UIO cards look like backwards PCIe cards. Do they come with other brackets for fitting into a PCIe slot, or did you have to go bracketless? The online manual at http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USASLP-L8i.pdf didn't mention anything about brackets or how it'd work in PCIe slots. Supermicro UIO slots will adapt to whatever adapter you stick in them which are labelled compatible with said motherboard. The UIO slot itself is proprietary, but provides pinout interfaces to support both PCIe 1x, 4x, and 8x, as well as PCI (32-bit and 64-bit), and PCI-X (presumably 100 and 133MHz). But ultimately it depends on what board offers what pinouts through the UIO slot. Rather than document it, here's how it works in the Real World(tm): - We need a PCIe x8 on our X7SBi for a low-profile RAID card - X7SBi motherboard has a UIO slot: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBA.cfm - UIO slot on this board supports one of the following, depending on which riser you buy: - (1) PCIe x8 - (1) PCI-X 133MHz (64-bit). - Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find: - CSE-RR1U-ELi -- 1U PCI-E x8 Riser Card for X7SBi - Visit Supermicro's Accessories page, and select Riser Cards: http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/Riser/riser.aspx - Search for CSE-RR1U-ELi, and you find: http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/CSE-RR1U-ELi.jpg - Contact Supermicro distributor (whoever you got the server from, or you can contact Supermicro directly to help find a distributor for you) and get the CSE-RR1U-ELi. Some online retailers do sell these risers too. - Costs about US$11. - Buy it, install it, mount the card in it, enjoy. -- | Jeremy Chadwick j...@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB | ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:00:27AM -0800, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:37:03AM -0600, Barry Pederson wrote: Gerrit Kühn wrote: On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com wrote about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters: FC I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago. FC Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a FC LSI chip supported by mpt driver: I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell. Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one more slot? Those Supermicro UIO cards look like backwards PCIe cards. Do they come with other brackets for fitting into a PCIe slot, or did you have to go bracketless? The online manual at http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USASLP-L8i.pdf didn't mention anything about brackets or how it'd work in PCIe slots. Supermicro UIO slots will adapt to whatever adapter you stick in them which are labelled compatible with said motherboard. The UIO slot itself is proprietary, but provides pinout interfaces to support both PCIe 1x, 4x, and 8x, as well as PCI (32-bit and 64-bit), and PCI-X (presumably 100 and 133MHz). But ultimately it depends on what board offers what pinouts through the UIO slot. Rather than document it, here's how it works in the Real World(tm): - We need a PCIe x8 on our X7SBi for a low-profile RAID card - X7SBi motherboard has a UIO slot: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBA.cfm - UIO slot on this board supports one of the following, depending on which riser you buy: - (1) PCIe x8 - (1) PCI-X 133MHz (64-bit). - Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find: - CSE-RR1U-ELi -- 1U PCI-E x8 Riser Card for X7SBi - Visit Supermicro's Accessories page, and select Riser Cards: http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/Riser/riser.aspx - Search for CSE-RR1U-ELi, and you find: http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/CSE-RR1U-ELi.jpg - Contact Supermicro distributor (whoever you got the server from, or you can contact Supermicro directly to help find a distributor for you) and get the CSE-RR1U-ELi. Some online retailers do sell these risers too. - Costs about US$11. - Buy it, install it, mount the card in it, enjoy. By the way, I'll add that the AOC-USASLP-L8i is **not** compatible with the UIO riser/adapter for the X7SBi. This should be apparent just from examining the location of the PCIe x8 slot on the RAID card vs. where the CSE-RR1U-ELi PCIe x8 slot is located. You'll find what boards the AOC-USASLP-L8i is compatible with, UIO riser-wise, here: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USASLP-L8i.cfm So in general, make sure whatever Supermicro card (RAID, Ethernet, SAS, SCSI, whatever) you're going with is indeed compatible with whatever Supermicro board you stick it in. Best thing to do is contact Supermicro Technical Support and ask. Their TS folks are better than average; I can get full specifications for ICs out of them, while I've never been able to achieve this with Tyan. Rackable (who uses Tyan mainboards) might have better luck. :-) -- | Jeremy Chadwick j...@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB | ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Jeremy Chadwick free...@jdc.parodius.com wrote: By the way, I'll add that the AOC-USASLP-L8i is **not** compatible with the UIO riser/adapter for the X7SBi. This should be apparent just from examining the location of the PCIe x8 slot on the RAID card vs. where the CSE-RR1U-ELi PCIe x8 slot is located. You'll find what boards the AOC-USASLP-L8i is compatible with, UIO riser-wise, here: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USASLP-L8i.cfm So in general, make sure whatever Supermicro card (RAID, Ethernet, SAS, SCSI, whatever) you're going with is indeed compatible with whatever Supermicro board you stick it in. Best thing to do is contact Supermicro Technical Support and ask. Their TS folks are better than average; I can get full specifications for ICs out of them, while I've never been able to achieve this with Tyan. Rackable (who uses Tyan mainboards) might have better luck. :-) Ah, in that case, it's not a solution for us. We use Tyan motherboards for pretty much everything, and have never had any luck with any kind of riser card, whether it be in a standard PCI slot or a PCI-X slot. -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Brian Whalen br...@brianwhalen.net wrote: Freddie Cash wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Rink Springer r...@freebsd.org wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:38:21PM -0800, Freddie Cash wrote: I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? I have got an Areca ARC-1110 4x SATA2 PCI-X card in my server, and I'm quite impressed with the performance; these cards do very well in terms I/O operations per second and the driver has been rock solid for me. The only downside is that they are quite expensive (but well worth it, IMO) Compared to a 3Ware 9550SXU controller, these are cheap. The Areca is only $500 (open-box) or $700 (new) on newegg.ca. The 3Ware cards are over $1000, with the PCIe versions being over $1200 (which is what started me on this journey -- hardware budgets are getting smaller and smaller each year). The 3ware cards are not that expensive unless you need a truckload of ports. For the 9650SE on newegg.com; 2 port is 185 4 port is 324 8 port is 525 12 port is 669 Where are you getting the 1200 dollar price from? We deal in Canadian dollars. :) Our hardware purchaser spent several hours on the phone and web looking for a replacement 9650SE-12ML (12-port, multi-lane, PCIe). Every place she checked showed them as $1000-1200. We need the -12ML (or -16ML) for one server, as it's actually using the RAID features, and the controller in that server died (scorch marks on the heat sink). As that server was using RAID6, we couldn't replace it with any of the 9550s we have as spares. :( We have three servers using these cards. Only 1 is actually using the RAID features. The other two are ZFS storage servers. Going forward, we will be putting in more ZFS systems than non-ZFS systems, so we don't need as fancy of controller. Just lots of ports (or lots of cards, we have 3 PCI-X and 2 PCIe slots to work with). -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Jeremy Chadwick wrote: The UIO slot itself is proprietary, but provides pinout interfaces to support both PCIe 1x, 4x, and 8x, as well as PCI (32-bit and 64-bit), and PCI-X (presumably 100 and 133MHz). But ultimately it depends on what board offers what pinouts through the UIO slot. Rather than document it, here's how it works in the Real World(tm): - We need a PCIe x8 on our X7SBi for a low-profile RAID card - X7SBi motherboard has a UIO slot: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBA.cfm - UIO slot on this board supports one of the following, depending on which riser you buy: - (1) PCIe x8 - (1) PCI-X 133MHz (64-bit). - Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find: - CSE-RR1U-ELi -- 1U PCI-E x8 Riser Card for X7SBi - Visit Supermicro's Accessories page, and select Riser Cards: http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/Riser/riser.aspx - Search for CSE-RR1U-ELi, and you find: http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/CSE-RR1U-ELi.jpg - Contact Supermicro distributor (whoever you got the server from, or you can contact Supermicro directly to help find a distributor for you) and get the CSE-RR1U-ELi. Some online retailers do sell these risers too. - Costs about US$11. - Buy it, install it, mount the card in it, enjoy. By the way, I'll add that the AOC-USASLP-L8i is **not** compatible with the UIO riser/adapter for the X7SBi. This should be apparent just from examining the location of the PCIe x8 slot on the RAID card vs. where the CSE-RR1U-ELi PCIe x8 slot is located. You'll find what boards the AOC-USASLP-L8i is compatible with, UIO riser-wise, here: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USASLP-L8i.cfm So in general, make sure whatever Supermicro card (RAID, Ethernet, SAS, SCSI, whatever) you're going with is indeed compatible with whatever Supermicro board you stick it in. Best thing to do is contact Supermicro Technical Support and ask. Their TS folks are better than average; I can get full specifications for ICs out of them, while I've never been able to achieve this with Tyan. Rackable (who uses Tyan mainboards) might have better luck. :-) Thanks for the info. I have no doubt a Supermicro HBA will work in a Supermicro motherboard and chassis given the correct Supermicro risers or other accessories. What I was questioning was where the OP said: it fits into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell - which to me sounds like you could use this HBA in a *NON-Supermicro* motherboard. I was just wondering if that was truly the case, given how in the photos it looks to be arranged physically backwards from a regular PCIe card, and given how you mention The UIO slot itself is proprietary. But some more digging on Google has turned up a few mentions along the lines of: This card plugs into a normal PCIe 8x slot but the metal mounting bracket bolted to the card is made for a UIO slot (which is why it's so cheap). All you have to do is remove the metal bracket and zip-tie the card to your case for mechanical support. Electrically it'll work fine in a PCIe x8 or x16 slot. If someone wanted to make PCIe compatible brackets for this affordable card, they'd probably sell a fair number to small shops or home users. Barry ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On 11/17/2009 7:29 PM, Freddie Cash wrote: LSI SAS 3081E-R8-port SAS/SATA PCIe I've had excellent luck with LSI cards in a moderate usage home environment. I've had the 3041 and 3081 and never had any issues with either card. I've never really stress tested them for performance with anything other than doing a zpool scrub on them but they've handled everything I've tried to do just fine. Hot swap also works correctly. Jonathan ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
I've spent the better part of today doing various web searches in Google, searches in newegg.ca/ncix.com, digging through mailing list archives (-hardware and -stable), man pages, and vendor websites looking for well-supported SATA/SAS adapters for use in FreeBSD storage servers. These servers will be using ZFS, so will not need fancy RAID controllers (currently, we're using 3Ware 9550SXU and 9650SE RAID controllers, which are increasingly hard to buy and very expensive at $1200+ CDN). The chassis have hot-plug SATA backplanes, so can use multi-lane cabling or standard SATA cabling. So far, I've come across a nice selection of LSI and Promise controllers, that are in the $200 - $400 CDN range, and seem to fit the bill. However, I can't find anything that definitively states whether they are supported by FreeBSD 7.x or 8.x. Thus, my questions to all of you: Are any of the following supported by FreeBSD 7/8? If so, by what driver? And do you have any experience (good/bad/otherwise) with any of them? LSI SAS 9211-8i 8-port SAS/SATA PCIe LSI SAS 3081E-R8-port SAS/SATA PCIe LSI SAS 3080X-R8-port SATA/SATA PCI-X Promise SuperTrak EX12350 12-port SATA PCIe Promise SuperTrak EX16350 16-port SATA PCIe Promise SuperTrak EX16300 16-port SATA PCI-X Promise SuperTrak EX16650 16-port SAS/SATA PCIe Any recommendations on other SAS/SATA controllers to look at (just not anything with MegaRAID in the name)? -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
LSI SAS 3080X-R 8-port SATA/SATA PCI-X This one uses LSI1068 chip which is supported by mpt driver. I'm using motherboard with an on-board equivalent of this and don't have much to complain about. I did see some CRC errors with SATA drives in 3Gbps mode, but those went away after updating firmware to 1.29.0.0. I've seen some comments on zfs-discuss mailing list that -IR variant of the firmware (the one that provides RAID0/1 capabilities) does have some stability issues and recommended going with simpler -IT version (just pass-through disks). --Artem ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
In general, I've found following page very informative about what's available: http://www.hardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1413050 I've also tried AOC-SAT2-MV8: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SAT2-MV8.cfm It's based on Marvell 88sx8061 chipset. Technically it is supported by FreeBSD, but I'd rather stay away from it at least for now. The main issue is that the largest transfer size is 32K. ZFS does push this card hard and under load this card showed noticeably slower transfer rate than LSI1068 under the same circumstances. Folks on zfs-discuss list also mentioned issues with hot-swap on this card on controller level. The somewhat better news is that NetBSD does seem to have much better driver for this marvell chip. If someone gets to port it to FreeBSD, the card may be pretty decent choice for those who have PCI-X slot on-board. --Artem On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Artem Belevich fbsdl...@src.cx wrote: LSI SAS 3080X-R 8-port SATA/SATA PCI-X This one uses LSI1068 chip which is supported by mpt driver. I'm using motherboard with an on-board equivalent of this and don't have much to complain about. I did see some CRC errors with SATA drives in 3Gbps mode, but those went away after updating firmware to 1.29.0.0. I've seen some comments on zfs-discuss mailing list that -IR variant of the firmware (the one that provides RAID0/1 capabilities) does have some stability issues and recommended going with simpler -IT version (just pass-through disks). --Artem ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Artem Belevich fbsdl...@src.cx wrote: LSI SAS 3080X-R 8-port SATA/SATA PCI-X This one uses LSI1068 chip which is supported by mpt driver. I'm using motherboard with an on-board equivalent of this and don't have much to complain about. I did see some CRC errors with SATA drives in 3Gbps mode, but those went away after updating firmware to 1.29.0.0. I've seen some comments on zfs-discuss mailing list that -IR variant of the firmware (the one that provides RAID0/1 capabilities) does have some stability issues and recommended going with simpler -IT version (just pass-through disks). If that one uses the LSI1068 chipset, do you know which one uses the LSI1078 chipset? I've seen that number in the comments in one of the mf* drivers (think it was mfi). How does one determine which actual chipset is in which controller? Do they have that buried in the docs somewhere? I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? -- Freddie Cash fjwc...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
Hi, If that one uses the LSI1068 chipset, do you know which one uses the LSI1078 chipset? Supermicro's AOC-USAS-H8iR uses LSI1078: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-H8iR.cfm Dell PERC 6/i is based on LSI1078 as well. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pvaul/topics/en/us/raid_controller?c=usl=encs=555 However, these cards are full-blown RAID controllers with their own CPU, memory and corresponding price. I've seen that number in the comments in one of the mf* drivers (think it was mfi). Yes, it is indeed mfi that supports LSI1078. How does one determine which actual chipset is in which controller? Do they have that buried in the docs somewhere? The docs, if you're lucky. Cards listed above mention controller chip explicitly on the product pages. --Artem ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:38:21PM -0800, Freddie Cash wrote: I've also found a couple of Areca cards (PCI-X, non-RAID/PCIe RAID), and have heard good things about Areca support in FreeBSD. Any comments on their quality/performance/reliability? I have got an Areca ARC-1110 4x SATA2 PCI-X card in my server, and I'm quite impressed with the performance; these cards do very well in terms I/O operations per second and the driver has been rock solid for me. The only downside is that they are quite expensive (but well worth it, IMO) Regards, -- Rink P.W. Springer- http://rink.nu Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth. - Dr. Wilson ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
