Jon Tsu wrote: > Hi > > I am currently running a ZFS home server and want to add more disks. However > my motherboard only has 4 SATA ports which are all used as follows: > > Onboard SATA1 : Boot disk > Onboard SATA2 : ZFS Disk 1 > Onboard SATA3 : ZFS Disk 2 > Onboard SATA4 : ZFS Disk 3 > > I wish to purchase a 4 port SATA PCI controller card (StarTech.com 4 Port PCI > SATA uses the Silicom Image SIL3114 Chipset) to accommodate an extra disk in > the following configuration: >
I've had no luck getting the SIL3112 Chipset working, although I know some people have it working. Solaris tries to drive it, but always just gets back a 'not ready' status, IIRC. I tried several different SIL3112 PCI controllers, all with the same result. It may be that it works if integrated onto the motherboard and initialised by the BIOS, but I couldn't get any add-in PCI cards working. (Yes, I did flash them with the non-RAID BIOS, which you'll have to do if you get one with the RAID BIOS on it.) Also, it's a rather old chipset now (one of the earliest SATA interfaces). It's basically emulating an IDE drive interface as far as the system is concerned, and I guess that it probably doesn't support some SATA features as a result. > Onboard SATA1 : Boot disk > Onboard SATA2 : ZFS Disk 1 > Onboard SATA3 : ZFS Disk 2 > > PCI SATA1 : ZFS Disk 3 > PCI SATA2 : ZFS Disk 4 > > I obviously have to blow my existing zpool, That depends how your existing pool is configured, which you haven't said. > but my question is will I see any performance loss by splitting my disks > across different controllers? No, but you might see a performance loss using such an old SATA controller (for example, if it doesn't support queueing, which I don't know if it does or not). > Or is it better to stick all the 4 disks on the PCI card? > -- Andrew _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
