Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?

[Marc G. Fournier]

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Nikolas Britton wrote:

> On 6/21/06, Marc G. Fournier <scrappy at hub.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Nikolas Britton wrote:
>> 
>> > On 6/21/06, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >-----Original Message-----
>> >> >From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> >> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Marc
>> >> >G. Fournier
>> >> >Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:24 AM
>> >> >To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> >> >Subject: Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?
>> >> >
>> >
>> > [deleted]
>> >
>> >> >
>> >> >   What can we, as a community, due to improve this situation?
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Simple.  If you want to run RAID-5 then purchase the HiPoint card or
>> >> the 3ware card, both of them come with manufacturer-written drivers.
>> >> 3ware is really great, they have a developer with committ rights and
>> >> they just stick their driver right into the FreeBSD source repository.
>> >>
>> >
>> > s/HiPoint/HighPoint/ a.k.a HighPoint Technologies, Inc. or simply HPT.
>> >
>> > I have two HighPoint controllers and like them both:
>> > FreeBSD 6.1/i386 + HPT2220 + 8x250GB.
>> > FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE/amd64 + HPT1820A + 8x300GB.
>> >
>> > Areca also supports FreeBSD:
>> > $ man arcmsr (FreeBSD 5.4+)
>> > http://www.areca.com.tw
>> >
>> > My next controller will probably be from Areca because they support
>> > RAID level 6 and have multi-lane connectors... maybe ARC-1130ML +
>> > 12x500GB. Does anyone know what SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) RAID
>> > controllers are supported by FreeBSD?, they can use SATA drives
>> > correct?
>> 
>> SAS is what I'm using in our HP servers ... don't know about SATA drives,
>> since the SAS drives are closer to a 'laptop size' then full size drive
>> ... the HP controller is supported by the CISS driver, and is, by far,
>> IMHO, the best driver we have, since you don't need any 'external
>> utilities' to check the status of the RAID controller ... wish they all
>> provided that :(
>> 
>
> HighPoint and Areca both have native FreeBSD array management
> utilities and 12port, and up, Areca controllers have a built-in
> Ethernet port with an embedded http/smtp/snmp/telnet server running on
> them.
>
> Oh and SAS controllers can support SATA drives, from Adaptec's website:
>
> "The SAS connector is a universal interconnection that is form-factor
> compatible with SATA, allowing SAS or SATA drives to plug directly
> into a SAS environment whether for mission critical applications with
> high availability and high performance requirements or lower
> cost-per-gigabyte applications such as near-box storage.
>
> SATA connector signals are a subset of SAS signals, enabling the
> compatibility of SATA devices and SAS controllers. SAS drives will not
> operate on a SATA controller and are keyed to prevent any chance of
> plugging them in incorrectly.
>
> In addition, the similar SAS and SATA physical interfaces enable a new
> universal SAS backplane that provides connectivity to both SAS drives
> and SATA drives, eliminating the need for separate SCSI and ATA drive
> backplanes. This consolidation of designs greatly benefits both
> backplane manufacturers and end-users by reducing inventory and design
> costs."
>
> -- 
> http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/sata/_education/SAS_SATA_unprlcompat.htm

a. HPs SAS drives don't have the same form-factor as the SATA drives, or,
    at least, not the SATA drives I've had experience with, so although the
    interface may work with either, the rack mount servers don't have that
    option ... my love of the SAS drives is 4 drives per 1U rack, which
    means I can do RAID1+0 instead of RAID5 on SCSI/SATA racks ...

b. are ppl actually using/promoting SATA drives in a server environment?
    Or are we just talking about situations where you have a large number
    of spindles to work with?  My one experience with an SATA configuration
    is that the server doesn't *feel* like its performing as well as my
    SCSI servers do ... under load ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy at hub.org                              MSN . scrappy at hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664