I'm pretty darned sure that the LSI 1068-based HBAs will do "true" JBOD. Supermicro makes two such beasts: AOC-USAS-L8i and AOC-USASLP-L8i Both are 8-port PCI-Express x4 cards.
The "low-cost" LSI SATA HBAs should also give you what you want. E.g. LSISAS3081E-R These use the same family of chips that are on the X4xxx-series machines from us (Sun). That said, there are still a number of available PCI-X motherboards out there, particularly if you are looking at a socket-940 Opteron. There's very little PCI-X support for single-socket systems of any sort (I think I've seen 2-slot PCI-X boards for both socket-940 and LGA775, but that's about it). Supermicro has a nice matrix which shows their various motherboards and the slots available: Intel-based: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/matrix/index.cfm AMD-based: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/matrix/ Tyan's complete motherboard matrix is here: http://www.tyan.com/tech/product_matrix.aspx Additionally, I'd look at Asus's Workstation and Server motherboard selection - they have some interestingly weird configurations. http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=9&l2=39 and http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=82 Pål Baltzersen wrote: > Why do they throw these fancy RAID-controllers at us when we have plenty CPU > force to do zfs mirror and even raidz1 and raidz2? > > I have 12 SATA disks and would like to prepare to add 12 new internal SATA > disks to my home server. > The cabinet (Lian Li Modular Cube > http://www.microplex.no/aspx/produkt/prdinfovnet.aspx?plid=33415#) takes 24 > 3.5" or (insane 72 2.5") in front with suitable HDD frames/backplanes. > > I have used two Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 PCI-X true 8-port JBOD SATA HBA and > I'm quite happy with them; They are cheap and works in plain PCI (limited by > the PCI-speed aof course, but for my 12-disk home NAS it's good enough) > The only problem is that no mainstream motherboards come with plenty PCI-X > slots. My MB has none and PCI/PCI-X is not future proof. So adding a third > AOC-SAT2-MV8 seems awkward > > So I'm looking for a PCIe HBA. The Adaptec 31605 or 52445 seems tempting as > I could reuse the old AOC-SAT2-MV8 elsewhere. Or I could add an 8-port > Adaptec 3805 or an LSI SAS3081E-R. > > What scares me off (aside the price for these) is that I've bumped into both > Sun OEM Adaptec and HP OEM Megaraid at work and none of them would do true > JBOD; No disks showed up in format. I had to configure 1-disk volumes in BIOS > to simulate JBOD, and from what I understand this writes this config to disk > destroying any existing data and partitioning, and what shoes up in format is > *not* the disks (i.e. SEAGATE/IBM/whatever) but the logical volumes (i.e. > Sun-STK RAID EXT or HP-LOGICAL VOLUME) > > On the other hand the Sun X4xxx series uses, AFAIK, some LSI chipset for the > boot disks and they show the physical disks unless you deliberately configure > a RAID0. > > Also Adaptec claims the 3- and 5-series can do JBOD, as do LSI for the > Advanced Connectivity Line, though > http://www.lsi.com/DistributionSystem/AssetDocument/LSI_HBA_v_Adaptec_WP_072108.pdf > was more confusing than clarifying on to me on this. > > My almost absolute requirement is that I *must* be able to move disks with > data from one controller to another of different brands (and back!), only > doing zpool export and import, which implies the HBA must be able to run in > JBOD-mode without storing or modify anything on the disks. > > So could anyone confirm whether any of these adapters can operate in true > JBOD-mode by my definition of JBOD; i.e. Just a Bunch Of Disks and not a > Bunch of Volumes that looks like or simulates JBOD!? > > I would like to have a HBA that is just (like the AOC-SAT2-MV8): > + Plug the pieces together > + power on > + devfsadm > + zpool create > > (Though my brain-dead MSI BIOS thinks any added or replaced disk would be a > better boot-candidate than the existing one :/ but I think that's a MB > problem only..) > > Pål > -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
