>>>>> "jcm" == James C McPherson <james.mcpher...@oracle.com> writes:
>> storage controllers are more difficult for driver support.
jcm> Be specific - put up, or shut up.
marvell controller hangs machine when a drive is unplugged
marvell controller does not support NCQ
marvell driver is closed-source blob
sil3124 driver has lost interrupt problems
ATI SB600/SB700 AHCI driver has performance problems
mpt driver has disconnect under heavy load problems that may or may
not be MSI-related
mpt driver is closed source blob
mpt driver is not SATA framework and thus does not work with DVD-ROMS
or with smartctl XXX -- smartctl does work now, with '-d sat,12'?
or only AHCI works with that?
USUAL SUGGESTION: use 1068e non-raid and mpt driver, live with problems
USUAL OPTIMISM: lsi2008 / mega_sas, which i THINK are open source but
opengrok seems to be down so I did not verify.
>> My perception is if you are using external cards which you know
>> work for networking and storage, then you should be alright.
>> Am I out in left-field on this?
jcm> I believe you are talking through your hat.
network performance problems with realtek
network performance problems with nvidia nforce
network working-at-all problems with broadcom bge and bnx because of
the ludicrous number of chip steppings and errata
closed-source blob drivers with broadcom bnx
performance and working-at-all problems for atheros L1
USUAL SUGGESTION: use intel 82540 derivative. which, for an AMD
board, will almost always be an external card because AMD boards are
usually realtek, broadcom, or marvell for AMD chipsets, and realtek or
nforce for nVidia chipsets (if anyone still uses nvidia chipsets).
FAIR STATEMENT: Linux shares most of these problems except over there
bnx is open source.
USUAL OPTIMISM: crossbow-supported cards with L4 classifiers in the
MAC other than bnx, such as 10gig ones, may be the future, much more
performant, ready for CoS pause frames, and good multicore
performance, and having source. god willing their quality might turn
out to be more uniform but probably nobody knows yet, and they're not
cheap and ubiquitous onboard yet. I'm hoping infiniband comes back
and 10gig goes away, but that's probably not realistic.
WELL POISONING: saying ``if you want open-source drivers go whine at
the hardware vendor because they make us sign an NDA, so there's
nothing we can do,'' is hogwash. (a) Sun's the one able to
realistically bargain with the vendor, not users, because they bring
to the table developer hours, OS support, a class of customers,
trusting contacts within the vendor, and a hardware manufacturing arm
that can make purchasing decisions long-term and at a motherboard
component level; no user has anywhere near this insane level of
bargaining power; see OpenBSD presentation and ``the OEM problem'',
(b) usually only one chip works anyway, so there is no competition,
(c) Linux has open source drivers for all these chips and is an
existence proof that yes, you can do something about it, and (d) the
competition for users is between Solaris and Linux, not between
Marvell and LSI. If we want complete source for the OS we will get it
faster and more reliably by going to the OS that offers it, not by
whining to chip vendors. This is not flamebait but just obvious
reality---so obvious that almost everyone who really cares enough to
say it is already gone.
HTH, HAND.
pgpGJkSjxmX5x.pgp
Description: PGP signature
_______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
