On Sep 21, 2005, at 2:12 PM, Danny Howard wrote:
1) Would anyone like to share a preferred storage solution? My
dream is
something where I can connect two FC controllers to two FreeBSD
servers.
If one controller fails, or if one server fails, I can still mount the
same disks via the redundant server or controller.
It sounds like most solutions have the disks on one controller or the
other, so if a controller fails, the disks are inaccessible until you
swap out the failed controller. The Apple Xserve RAID comes to mind.
The Xserve RAID does indeed have two separate controllers, each
attached to a separate 2GB SBF port, and thus is a single point of
failure. On the other hand, having a dedicated channel for each
drive rather than hooking them all into the FC mesh is a heck of a
lot less expensive than providing completely redundant controllers,
dual-loop connections for each storage device, etc, etc. You get
what you pay for.
If need be, have one set of 7 drives configured as a complete warm
backup for the second set of 7 drives, which you can do using higher
level software (like the ADIC StorEdge filesystem stuff Apple
recommends).
It may be the case that you'd be happier with a NAS solution from
Auspex, NetApp, etc, rather than trying to roll your own SAN...
2) Would anyone like to share a preferred HBA? I am constantly
frustrated by suggested solutions because it seems that every disk
appliance only ever supports one HBA. For example, the Apple ... only
supports LSI7202XP. My research has found zero evidence that this is
supported by FreeBSD. So, if that wont work, I should just run Linux?
Or has someone stress-tested their favorite HBA and found it to be
totally robust in some configuration ... ?
FreeBSD has driver support described in isp (Qlogic 2100, 2200, 2300)
and mpt (LSI FC909, 919, 929). I believe the LSI7202XP dual-port
PCIX card uses the FC929X controller chip, so FreeBSD ought to
support that HBA.
--
-Chuck
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