On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 09:59:33AM +0200, Antoine Jacoutot via smartos-discuss 
wrote:

> I am considering getting an HP Proliant DL 380 G7 (model 583914-B21).
...
> Are there any known issues with smartos running on this hardware (KVM and 
> zones) ?
> Google did reveal some possible problems with the p410i RAID controller but 
> that seems like a long time ago so I am not sure whether that still stands or 
> not.
> Any input is appreciated ;-)

We recommend this instead: http://eng.joyent.com/manufacturing/.

First, as a general principle, you don't want hardware RAID, ever.  It
offloads work from observable open-source software to invisible
proprietary firmware, and puts you at the vendor's mercy when things go
wrong.  It's also often a performance bottleneck.  And of course it will
preclude any of the existing management stack (FMA, ZFS disk
replacement, fault LEDs, etc.) from working.

Second, this particular driver (cpqary3) was deeply troubling to read.
Public documentation is very dated and likely would not be useful if you
encountered a bug in the part that communicates with hardware.  And the
driver does not integrate well with the rest of the OS's SCSI, FMA, and
other infrastructure.  However, if you have the sort of relationship
with HP that would enable you to get them to refresh and maintain this
driver in illumos themselves, that would likely alleviate many of these
concerns.

Finally, on a non-storage-related note, if you ignore all of that and go
to buy this anyway, be sure you're not getting any Broadcom Ethernet
NICs; many of the models being sold today are either entirely
unsupported (i.e., don't have a driver at all) or have significant
problems.  You really want Intel, preferably i350 and/or 82599.


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