On 15 May 2009 at 17:11, Chuck Robey wrote: > I'm trying to see if there's any way I can get my Raid controller, which is a > AMCC (3Ware) 9650-4, to work under OpenBSD. The man page for the twe driver > says it works for several different 3Ware controllers, but it seems to omit > the > 9000 controllers. The FreeBSD driver, named twa.c, well, I can't see that > it's > been brought into OpenBSD anywhere. If it's in as part of another driver, > then > my only chance to find it would be to ask here, right? I've been using that > twa > driver under FreeBSD for a couple years now, it (at least) works really well, > so > I sure hope there's some option I have (beyond launching off on a project to > move that driver, because I already have myself a project I'm working on under > OpenBSD, and it would just take me too darn long to wait, if I had to put it > onto my own stack). > > I saw that the current OpenBSD driver supports the "Escalade" model, I've > never > heard that term before, if it's supposed to stand in for some 3Ware model, > well, > the AMCC 3Ware site seems to be unaware of it. I suppose it might be some > name > that they're trying to forget, for some odd marketing reason. It hasn't got > anything to do with the 9650, has it? > > Boy, I sure hope I don't have to wait until I get enough time to port that > FreeBSD driver myself, it's going to take me a good long while. >
Unlike FreeBSD, this project (OpenBSD) does not support or incorporate drivers based around binary-blobs. Furthermore, with rare exceptions, the project does not reverse-engineer but insists on having complete documentation to do proper development. Back in the days of the Escalade product line (the 5000 and 6000 series PATA RAID) 3ware Corp. produced the twe driver. But they have subsequently abandoned support for it and have steadfastly refused to release any documentation for their hardware. As a result, you should expect this hardware to be non- functional in OpenBSD. AFAIK, the FreeBSD twa driver is not portable to OpenBSD because a major portion of it is a binary blob. If you want more details and additional background on these matters, you should search the mailing list archives for the discussions involving 3ware.
