Excuse the top posting, I'm stuck on OWA :) There are still some additional benefits if you really need speed, and they are the onboard memory hardware raid cards have, and the ability to add a BBU so you can turn on write-back caching and geta nice speed boost for doing it. Dave
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Rafiu Fakunle Sent: Sat 7/21/2007 3:13 p.m. To: Dave Johnson Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OF-users] Getting I2O RAID to work Dave Johnson wrote: > i for one would like to start the trend of ceasing to call these > "RAID" cards, since they aren't, Hear hear. > and instead calling them exactly what they are, Lemons! ;) > storage device controller cards with an integrated -but for all > intents and purposes- outboard XOR Offload Engine (XOE). > > XOE (zo-wee) cards are notorious for failing on you at the most > inopportune time. I 2nd Rafiu's recomendation to go with a complete > RAID subsystem which includes XOE, storage device controller, and data > transport IO processor all in one complete card. Or simply not use > the XOE of the card and use only the storage controller portion, > relying instead on the RAID support within the LVM2 component, which > has been designed and vetted for safety by considerably more testing > than Promise' 5 beta testers in Taiwan. > > That XOE can be a biotch ! =P > You know, with the average CPU having at minimum 2 cores, the only advantage to using a RAID controller these days - when you weigh softraid against the management overhead of hardraid - is for the hot-swap capability. Otherwise a decent SAS controller + MD RAID and you're good to go. External RAID is a different matter of course, especially when you get into the realm of shared storage. R. > -=dave > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rafiu Fakunle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Jim Kusznir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 3:48 PM > Subject: Re: [OF-users] Getting I2O RAID to work > > >> Jim Kusznir wrote: >>> Hi all: >>> >>> After over a week of messing with OpenFiler, I think I'm finally close >>> to getting my hardware I2O RAID card working (Promise SX6000). I had >>> to upgrade the kernel, as the version shipping with OF has a bug in it >>> that breaks all I2O RAID cards. I don't need iSCSI target for now, so >>> I though tthis was acceptable. >> >> Don't use i2o cards ;) >> >> Stay away from anything named "Promise" or "Highpoint" if you want OF to >> play nice with the RAID Controller. >> Cards we tend to play better with are: >> >> 1) 3Ware / AMCC >> 2) Areca >> 3) LSI Logic / Intel >> 4) Adaptec >> 5) ICP Vortex >> >>> >>> Now that I have it showing up in my system, things are close. The >>> problem is I2O raid devices are created in /dev/i2o/hd* (my case: >>> /dev/i2o/hda -- this is NOT the same disk as my system disk: >>> /dev/hda). So, under "Physical Volues", it does not see it, and thus >>> I can't partition or use it. I have verified that the volume itself >>> works by partitioning and formatting it directly. Both operations >>> completed sucessfully, verifying the raid drivers funcitionality. >>> >>> So my question at this point is: how do I get OF to see the disk and >>> be able to create volumes and such. Or, if I partition and set up LVM >>> by hand, will it pick it up at that point? If so, what are its >>> requirements to make it seen? >> Here's a patch to /opt/openfiler/sbin/list-disks.pl >> >> --- list-disks.pl.orig 2007-07-20 15:18:22.000000000 -0700 >> +++ list-disks.pl 2007-07-20 15:26:24.000000000 -0700 >> @@ -123,6 +123,7 @@ >> close(MEDIA); >> if ($media =~ /^disk/ && !$_[0]) { >> push(@devs, "/dev/hd$n"); >> + push(@devs, "/dev/i2o/hd$n"); >> } >> } >> } >> >> >> >> R. >> _______________________________________________ >> Openfiler-users mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.openfiler.com/mailman/listinfo/openfiler-users >> > > _______________________________________________ > Openfiler-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openfiler.com/mailman/listinfo/openfiler-users _______________________________________________ Openfiler-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openfiler.com/mailman/listinfo/openfiler-users
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