Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Christopher Key wrote: I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? Just a follow up to let anyone else considering a similar set up that I now have this combination working on 7.1p3 (I upgraded to take advantage of zfs, and haven't tested 6.3), although there are a couple of non-obvious problems: Firstly, in addition to the documented 'device hptrr', 'device scbus' and 'device da', a kernel with 'device pass' is also required in order to be able to see individual disks. Secondly, the card/driver will only expose disks to FreeBSD if it recognises them as 'legacy disks', i.e. they contain a MBR. Fortunately, zfs leaves the first 8k of each disk untouched, so I created a 'protective mbr' as per gpt partitioned disks. It has a single partition of type 0xed (unused, next to 0xee used for by GPT) running from lba1 to the last lba on the disk, and with CHS start and end of 1023/255/63. This clearly has to be done before connecting the drives to the controller, but is easily done with, e.g. a USB external enclosure. Regards, Christopher Key ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Graeme Dargie wrote: -Original Message- From: Elliot Finley [mailto:efinleyw...@efinley.com] Why not just upgrade to 7-Stable and then use these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 they cost less than port multipliers. They don't do RAID, but then if you're on 7-Stable, you can use ZFS zraid. In then end I trumped for a new motherboard with 6 sata ports on it and it is running 6 x 500gb drives in a ZFS array just perfectly. Regards Graeme Thanks all, I probably should have given a little more background. My current setup involves a 6xSATA port motherboard, with 5 media storage drives in a http://www.icydock.com/product/mb455spf.html. 2x500Gb gmirrored for music, photos and homedirs; 3x1Gb with indepdent filesystems overlayed using symlinks for dvds. There isn't really any space in left in the case for many external drives, and certainly not to make them externally available, hence I was looking at external storage solutions. There's one PCIe x16 port,and one PCIe x1 port, and I don't think that an additional 8 drives will prove sufficient in the long term, hence the use of port multipliers quite appealed, giving me a potential total of 20 drives. I would probably go for something like, http://www.starmount.co.uk/productversion/591.html, with 4x the aforementioned devices installed, and unless I'm missing something, the port multipliers themselves seem quite cheap: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Lycom-ST-126RM-SATA-II-3Gbps-1-To-5-Port-Multiplier-bridge-board-(for-Rack-Mount). I was always intending to use software raid, although I've yet to decide over ZFS, or multiple graid5s (groups of 5 disks) gconcated together as I buy additional sets of disks. If sufficiently stable, ZFS does quite appeal. Regards, Chris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Daan Vreeken wrote: Hi Christopher, On Thursday 05 March 2009 15:25:35 Christopher Key wrote: Hello, I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? The Sil3726 works very well if you run a recent enough version of FreeBSD. We use the device in a custom storage appliance. I don't know the RocketRAID 2314 though. You need a SATA 2.0 controller for Port Multipliers to work. I'm pretty sure the RocketRAID 2314 is a SATA 2.0 controller. I've references in places to it supporting port multipliers, but have been unable to to find any further details on quite what this means. To be honest, I don't fully understand how the ATA system fits together. HighPoint offer a FreeBSD driver, but I don't know whether this replaces functionality within FreeBSD, or is an additional requirement. Nor do I know whether port multiplier support is the responsibility of the ATA driver, the ATA controller, both or either, nor whether the ATA controller being a RAID card in JBOD mode affects anything. I was thinking that for the RR2314 to work with port multipliers whilst it was doing hardware RAID, it must fully understand how to address drives behind a port multiplier and might do the same in JBOD mode, simply presenting the ATA driver with a list of drives. Whether this is valid reasoning, I've no idea. FreeBSD has (experimental) support for Port Multipliers since the following commit : On Thursday 10 April 2008 15:05:05 Søren Schmidt wrote: sos 2008-04-10 13:05:05 UTC FreeBSD src repository ... Log: Add experimental support for SATA Port Multipliers Support is working on the Silicon Image SiI3124/3132. Support is working on some AHCI chips but far from all. Remember this is WIP, so test reports and (constructive) suggestions are welcome! Thanks, I've found the relevent revision in SVN, http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base?view=revisionrevision=178067 I'll read through the diffs to see if I can get a better idea of how everything works. Kind Regards, Christopher Key ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
On Friday 06 March 2009 13:43:35 Christopher Key wrote: Daan Vreeken wrote: Hi Christopher, On Thursday 05 March 2009 15:25:35 Christopher Key wrote: Hello, I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? The Sil3726 works very well if you run a recent enough version of FreeBSD. We use the device in a custom storage appliance. I don't know the RocketRAID 2314 though. You need a SATA 2.0 controller for Port Multipliers to work. I'm pretty sure the RocketRAID 2314 is a SATA 2.0 controller. I've references in places to it supporting port multipliers, but have been unable to to find any further details on quite what this means. To be honest, I don't fully understand how the ATA system fits together. HighPoint offer a FreeBSD driver, but I don't know whether this replaces functionality within FreeBSD, or is an additional requirement. Nor do I know whether port multiplier support is the responsibility of the ATA driver, the ATA controller, both or either, nor whether the ATA controller being a RAID card in JBOD mode affects anything. I was thinking that for the RR2314 to work with port multipliers whilst it was doing hardware RAID, it must fully understand how to address drives behind a port multiplier and might do the same in JBOD mode, simply presenting the ATA driver with a list of drives. Whether this is valid reasoning, I've no idea. If the RR2314 controller really does RAID in hardware, then the OS would only see the resulting big 'disks', without needing to know where they came from and if they are behind Port Multipliers or not. I suspect (but I'm not sure here) that RAID on the RR2314 is implemented by the driver instead of the hardware. In that case, the OS (or at least the vendor's own driver) needs to know how to handle Port Multipliers. The current state of Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (at least, in the version we're using on our appliance here) is that it is working very well, but lacks some features. Hot-plugging disks for example doesn't work. All disks need to be present when the system is power up. For us this isn't a problem. FreeBSD has (experimental) support for Port Multipliers since the following commit : ... On Thursday 10 April 2008 15:05:05 Søren Schmidt wrote: sos 2008-04-10 13:05:05 UTC Thanks, I've found the relevent revision in SVN, http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base?view=revisionrevision=178067 I'll read through the diffs to see if I can get a better idea of how everything works. I you would like to know more about the technical details, I would recommend reading the 'Port Multiplier' part of the SATA 2 spec, which can be found here : http://cvs.codeyard.net/svn/SiI24/doc/pm_1_1_Gold.pdf Or you could read this summary on sata-io.org : http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp Regards, -- Daan Vreeken VEHosting http://VEHosting.nl tel: +31-(0)40-7113050 / +31-(0)6-46210825 KvK nr: 17174380 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Christopher Key wrote: Hello, I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? Why not just upgrade to 7-Stable and then use these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 they cost less than port multipliers. They don't do RAID, but then if you're on 7-Stable, you can use ZFS zraid. Elliot ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Why not just upgrade to 7-Stable and then use these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 they cost less than port multipliers. They don't do RAID, but then if you're on 7-Stable, you can use ZFS zraid. or use geom based RAIDs and UFS thanks for URL, anyway new machines usually don't have PCI-X ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
-Original Message- From: Elliot Finley [mailto:efinleyw...@efinley.com] Sent: 05 March 2009 17:57 To: Christopher Key Cc: questi...@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3) Christopher Key wrote: Hello, I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? Why not just upgrade to 7-Stable and then use these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 they cost less than port multipliers. They don't do RAID, but then if you're on 7-Stable, you can use ZFS zraid. Elliot ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org I had utter hell with a belkin pci sata card which used a silicon image chipset. The main problem would show up when writing a large amount of data to the drives which were in a zfs array. I even tried this card on 3 different motherboards with various combinations of sata hard disks and the result was the same when writing a large amount of data, a drive would randomly disconnect from the system. I understand from reading sata controllers based on a promise chipset are much better under freebsd 7. In then end I trumped for a new motherboard with 6 sata ports on it and it is running 6 x 500gb drives in a ZFS array just perfectly. Regards Graeme ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: SATA Port Multipliers in FreeBSD (6.3)
Hi Christopher, On Thursday 05 March 2009 15:25:35 Christopher Key wrote: Hello, I'm looking to substantially expand the storage on my FreeBSD 6.3 home media server. With regards hardware, the simplest way to attach large numbers of drives seem to be to use SATA port multipliers, but I've been unable to find any consensus on their level of support in FreeBSD. I'm currently looking at a RocketRAID 2314 and SiI3726 based port multipliers. Has any had any experience with this combination? The Sil3726 works very well if you run a recent enough version of FreeBSD. We use the device in a custom storage appliance. I don't know the RocketRAID 2314 though. You need a SATA 2.0 controller for Port Multipliers to work. FreeBSD has (experimental) support for Port Multipliers since the following commit : On Thursday 10 April 2008 15:05:05 Søren Schmidt wrote: sos 2008-04-10 13:05:05 UTC FreeBSD src repository ... Log: Add experimental support for SATA Port Multipliers Support is working on the Silicon Image SiI3124/3132. Support is working on some AHCI chips but far from all. Remember this is WIP, so test reports and (constructive) suggestions are welcome! Regards, -- Daan Vreeken VEHosting http://VEHosting.nl tel: +31-(0)40-7113050 / +31-(0)6-46210825 KvK nr: 17174380 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
