suggestions for SATA RAID cards

[Freddie Cash]

On Wed, August 23, 2006 1:02 am, Willem Jan Withagen wrote:
> I've ran into sort of a snag with building a 2T file server. Given
> all the good press here for 3ware and the talk to the guys at the
> CeBIT I decided to go for a 9550SX-LP8. With that I bought a ASUS
> serverboard: K8N-LR with 165 dual core opteron.
>
> In itself is this a combo that I thing would do for a long time at my
>  home. ;)
>
> However the 3ware controler decided not to play nice with 2 of the
> PCI-X boards I have here. It gets stuck in the bios disc scan. I've
> RMA-ed the card, but my guess is that it'll take a too long a time to
> fix/replace it for my patience.

Odd.  We've had nothing but success with 3Ware Escalade controllers. 
7000-series on 32-bit FreeBSD 6.0 with PATA drivers, 9000-series on
32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD 6.1 and Debian testing, 9550-series on
32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD 6.1 and Debian testing.  Plugged directly
into a 64-bit/133 MHz PCI-X slot, or plugged into a 64-bit/100 MHz
riser card, on Tyan Thunder K8S, K8SD, and K8SD-Pro motherboards.

Haven't tried with any other motherboards, though.

I've heard good things about Areca's line of SATA RAID controllers. 
Supposedly, they're the fastest things around, with good Linux and
FreeBSD support.  Haven't tried them, personally, though.

> So I'm looking for alternatives with good support under amd64. I've
> seen that the Adaptecs are supported under aac(4). But what about
> Promisse or Highpoint RAID controllers?

Avoid Promise and Highpoint, as it's very easy to get a hybrid,
non-hardware RAID controller from them, when you think you're getting
a true hardware controller, and support is spotty for most of their
cards.

----
Freddie Cash
fcash at ocis.net