Adaptec management tools

[Nikolai Schupbach]

Hi Charles,

I hear where you are coming from. I also have had the same headache with 
xSeries IBM servers, with the integrated LSI RAID controllers.

At the end of the day, we opted to buy hardware that is specifically 
supported by the manufacture for FreeBSD, rather than trying to make 
hardware work. For us this was the AMCC 3ware 9000 series cards, which 
are very well supported in FreeBSD and have excellent tools, including 
stand-alone web server (no apache needed!) for browser based management 
and also CLI tools. We have had zero problems with them, everything 
works just like you would and should expect.

If you want no hassle, then the solution is simple; drop hardware that 
is not properly supported, that's what we did, and I sleep so much 
better now :)

Cheers, Nikolai.

Charles Sprickman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I think we have a few Adaptec people here...
>
> Having been bit in the ass by "raidutil" in the past (if there's one 
> app I'd like to see with a "Are you sure? (y/n)" dialogue, it's that 
> one) I'm wondering what the other options are.
>
> Some background...  I'm working with about a dozen boxes that have 
> some flavor or Adaptec RAID controller.  It seems that we are reaching 
> a point where more and more drives are reaching the end of their 
> useful lives. This means that I'm having to use the management tools 
> more often.  So far even just replacing a failed drive is a pain:
>
> -yank old drive
> -mount new drive in carrier and install
> -reboot
> -enter SMOR
> -fiddle with interface until it's convinced to rebuild onto new drive
> -hope for the best :)
>
> I would really like to avoid the reboot step, there's no reason for it 
> other than to get to that BIOS screen.  I do not want to install X on 
> these servers to run the full GUI.  I simply will not trust "raidutil" 
> until I see Adaptec post some more detailed documentation, 
> specifically in a "HOWTO" format.  I don't like parsing dense docs 
> when in a panic (who really does?).
>
> There's also quite a disconnect between the paper docs packaged with 
> the units (mostly ZCR units in SuperMicro SuperServers).  There's 
> instructions for a program that I don't think even exists for FreeBSD 
> (Storage Manager Pro?), yet that's what they suggest.
>
> I could possibly stomach an X app if I could connect to it remotely. 
> There are hints of this in the manuals, but I don't see any such thing 
> in the asr-utils package.
>
> For the Adaptec folks:  Is there anything you can do to get more 
> information online?  Will there be any updates to existing tools 
> (RAIDUTIL Version: 3.04  Date: 9/27/2000 - 5 years old)?  Will there 
> be a way to config in a GUI without X libs on the server anytime soon?
>
> For the FreeBSD folks:  What are you using?  Do you trust the tools 
> you can find?  Are you using something besides Adaptec for hardware 
> RAID?  If so, how do you like it?  What are the management tools 
> like?  Does it tend to randomly mark drives as "bad" for no apparent 
> reason then later decide they are indeed "good"?
>
> I'm ranting because Adaptec support has been next to useless.  All 
> total over the last few years I've installed more than two dozen 
> Adaptec RAID products on FreeBSD and I'm struggling to understand why 
> I should continue.  Don't get me wrong, the asr driver "just works", 
> but the management is opaque at best, dangerous at worst.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charles
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