OT: Upgrade feasibility, to AMD64/5.x.x or to stay i386/4.9 on AMD64 hardware?

[David O'Brien]

On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 10:07:44PM +0200, Eirik ?verby wrote:
> >Hey all, looking to upgrade a server used in a small business here,
> >looking for opinions and advice about migrating to an AMD64 system,
> >vs. using i386 box, also if it would not be just as feasible to use
> >i386 distribution on AMD64 hardware simply for the speed?

It is very feasible to run FreeBSD/i386 on AMD64 hardware.  I encourage
you to go ahead and move to AMD64 hardware regardless what version of
FreeBSD you decide to run for now.  You will get excellent performance, and
you will have a 64-bit upgrade path when you decide to move 32-bit ->
64-bit.


> >Here's what we're proposing for the new hardware:
> >AMD Athlon64 - 3200+ (Socket 754 - I know, but it's cheap)
> >MSI K8T-FSR (VIA Chipset)
> >Adaptec AAC-2410SA 4-Port S-ATA RAID Controller
> 
> This one is gonna be tricky on you, I think. The driver used for most 
> Adaptec RAID controllers (IDE and SCSI alike) isn't currently working 
> on amd64 (in 64-bit mode, that is). I have repeatedly asked if anyone 
> will step up to the task and fix that,

You're really exaggerating here.  There are two families of Adaptec RAID
controllers -- aac and asr.  'aac' family controllers are quite popular
and are the higher performing of the two families.  The AAC-2410SA 4-Port
S-ATA RAID Controller uses the aac(4) driver and the driver very much
works on 64-bit machines.


> as I have an Adaptec Zero-Channel RAID add-on-board for my dual opteron
> just collecting dust at the moment, but the general answer is 'no
> time'... Too bad.

The Adaptec Zero-channel products are from the other product family.
That particular driver has issues.

-- 
-- David  (obrien at FreeBSD.org)