Marvell controllers work great with solaris. Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 is what I currently use. I bought it on recommendation from this list actually. I think I paid 110$ for mine.
-Andy On 11/2/07 4:10 PM, "Peter Schuller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > Short version: Can anyone recommend a *many port* (8 or more) SATA/SAS > controller (RAID or otherwise) that will allow *SAFE* use of ZFS, including > honoring cache flush commands in the sense of submitting them to the > underlying device, that is also *low budget* (suitable for personal use; say > in the <= $250 range)? > > Long version: > > I am having difficulty getting reliable information on SATA controllers for > use with ZFS (that also work with FreeBSD in this case; though I magine the > same problem applies with Solaris). > > The problem is that most non-RAID controllers do not have enough ports. In > fact the only one I have found that is decent is the Supermicro Marvell card; > but that is PCI-X rather than PCI (or PCI Express). Works in one machine, > doesn't in another (presumably because of PCI-X; only have PCI slots). And > even if it does work, you are rather limited in bandwidth. Not that I really > care about the latter for low budget use. > > You might say that just get a RAID controller and configure it for JBOD. Well, > I was assuming that would be aafe bet, but apparanly you cannot trust them to > behave correctly with respect to write caching and cache flushing. > > I recently found out that the Dell supplied LSI MegaRaid derived Perc 5/i RAID > controllers will not honor cache flush requests (according to Dell technical > support, after quite some time trying to explain to them what I wanted to > know). So assuming this information is correct (I never saw the actual > response from the "behind the lines" tech support that my tech support > contact in turn asked), it means that running without battery backup, you > actually negate the safety offered by ZFS with respect to write caching, > making the pool less reliable than it would be with a cheap non-RAID card. > > Right now I have noticed that LSI has recently began offering some > lower-budget stuff; specifically I am looking at the MegaRAID SAS > 8208ELP/XLP, which are very reasonably priced. > > The problem again is that, while they are cheap raid cards without cache, my > understanding is that it is still primarily intended for RAID rather than > plain SATA "pass-through". As a result I am worried about the same problem as > with the Perc 5/i. > > Of course, LSI being a large corporation, it is seemingly impossible to obtain > contact information for them, or find any technical specifications that would > contain information as specific as what it will do in response to cache flush > requests, so I am at a loss. Unless you're buying 10 000 cards it's difficult > to get answers. > > Does anyone have suggestions on what to choose, that will actually work the > way you want it for JBOD use with ZFS? Or avenus of investigation? Is there > any chance of a lowly consumer getting any information out of LSI? Is there > some other manufacturer that provide low-budget stuff that you can get some > technical information about? Does anyone have some specific knowledge of a > suitable product? _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
