Re: RAID on Solaris x86

[Earl D. Baugh Jr.]

> Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
>> On Wed, 14 May 2008, Phil Stracchino wrote:
>>
>>> The bad news:  There's no point in me running Solaris 10 on it  
>>> because
>>> the 3Ware 9500 controller in it is completely unsupported under
>>> Solaris x86.  Can't see the disks at all.  And if I don't run  
>>> Solaris
>>> 10 or OpenSolaris on it, I don't get to use ZFS or zones.
>>
>> Yep.  I hit that -exact- -same- -blockade- with my Xeon box.  Neither
>> 3ware nor Sun is inclined to support the other's products for some
>> reason.
>>
>> FreeBSD 7, however, has excellent support for those devices, and I've
>> been very happy with it.  I don't get the virtualization stuff I  
>> wanted
>> to play with under Solaris, but I get an OS that talks to my storage.
>
> Further study seems to show that the only PCI-X SATA RAID controller
> supported under OpenSolaris/Solaris 10 x86 is the Tekram TR-834A.  And
> apparently in JBOD mode, it works just fine with ZFS.

I don't know about Open Solaris, but I just got (for free... yes,  
"SCORE" )
an LSI 8 channel SAS PCI-X RAID Controller... and it has Solaris  
drivers.
Definitely something I wouldn't have budget for without the "free"  
part 8-)
(I didn't check to see if they were x86 or Sparc yet, as it went into  
an Intel
motherboard...the first I got that will support a quad core processor...
and has 12 USB ports....)

Helps to have a friend who's a VP at LSI 8-)

Works great with SATAII drives.... got a 2TB formatted RAID 5 volume  
on it... 500GB drives...
got room in the case for 2 more drives using the standard mounting...  
which will leave me
1 drive short of using all the connectors.   So, not quite in the 10TB  
range of others here
(at least not yet 8-) )but 3TB easily.

And, to make it easy for what I've got to use it for here, I decided
to start at least with XP 64 bit for the OS.  Haven't played with  
Solaris x86
(or any of the other Unix x86, aside from Linux, which I really didn't  
want to use...)
so had to settle for that.  Nice Intel board as well.. aside from the  
12 USB ports,
has firewire, gig E, and support for 8GB of ram (has 4GB in it now).  
Fit nicely
in the rack mount SGI case, which has the room for 9 drives using the  
designed
mounting, so overall a nice usable configuration. I figure I'll go to  
Solaris x86 when
I upgrade drives and buy those first 3 1TB drives (and have the space  
to move what's
on the current volume around while I get comfortable with the RAID  
under Solaris.

Side note, has anybody here ever tried using Firewire as a networking  
mechanism?
I see the connectors as "network adapters" under XP, and just was  
wondering how
it compared to other X-Base-T configs...

Earl
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[Joshua Boyd]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 09:05:48AM -0400, Earl D. Baugh Jr. wrote:

> I don't know about Open Solaris, but I just got (for free... yes,  
> "SCORE" )
> an LSI 8 channel SAS PCI-X RAID Controller... and it has Solaris  
> drivers.
> Definitely something I wouldn't have budget for without the "free"  
> part 8-)
> (I didn't check to see if they were x86 or Sparc yet, as it went into  
> an Intel

They say they have drivers for both.  I know of several people using
those cards in Solaris/SPARC machines and SGI Fuel's.

And those cards can be very cheap on ebay sometimes.
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[Phil Stracchino-3]

Earl D. Baugh Jr. wrote:
> I don't know about Open Solaris, but I just got (for free... yes, "SCORE" )
> an LSI 8 channel SAS PCI-X RAID Controller... and it has Solaris drivers.
> Definitely something I wouldn't have budget for without the "free" part 8-)
> (I didn't check to see if they were x86 or Sparc yet, as it went into an
> Intel
> motherboard...the first I got that will support a quad core processor...
> and has 12 USB ports....)
>
> Helps to have a friend who's a VP at LSI 8-)

Sir,
You inhale with great vigor.  :)

The system I'm working with here has two PCI-X slots.  I don't suppose
you could find out for me what a pair of those controllers would cost
me...?  What's the model number, to check against the Sol10 x86 HCL?



--
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric@...   alaric@...   phil@...
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.
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[Earl D. Baugh Jr.]

> Earl D. Baugh Jr. wrote:
> > I don't know about Open Solaris, but I just got (for free... yes, "SCORE"
> )
> > an LSI 8 channel SAS PCI-X RAID Controller... and it has Solaris drivers.
> > Definitely something I wouldn't have budget for without the "free" part
> 8-)
> > (I didn't check to see if they were x86 or Sparc yet, as it went into an
> > Intel motherboard...the first I got that will support a quad core
> processor...
> > and has 12 USB ports....)
> >
> > Helps to have a friend who's a VP at LSI 8-)
>
> Sir,
> You inhale with great vigor.  :)

Yeah, if it weren't me I'd think the same thing 8-)

BTW, I have 6 SATA II drives plugged into the SAS card, works swimmingly 8-)
Same cables.

I checked with my friend at LSI and I can even MIX SAS and SATA II drives on
the
controller...that's a supported configuration.  So, lots of options on
drives.

The system I'm working with here has two PCI-X slots.  I don't suppose
> you could find out for me what a pair of those controllers would cost
> me...?  What's the model number, to check against the Sol10 x86 HCL?


Let me dig here...Ah found it.  Here's the card:
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_sas/megaraid_sas_8408e/index.html?remote=1&locale=EN

I actually read the downloads and it's got a Solaris x86 (32 and 64 bit)
driver.
The list prices I've found for these were in the $500-$700 range per card.
(yes, it was a very nice gift!)
I did some checking after I got it and didn't find any of this model "cheap"
on EBay...just checked, and there
are some in the $500 range...

I don't have the battery backed memory modules (but normal memory sticks
work...and a UPS covers the rest 8-) )
(though I do have a e-mail search waiting for one on ebay...they seem to pop
up in the $20 range)

It is a very nice card, you can access full config during boot, web based,
and via installed OS apps...
(almost as nice as a bios that works out the serial port 8-) )

BTW, you might not need 2 of these cards... you can get an "expander" which
according to my friend,
lets you expand (docs say at least 32 drives, with some of their cards
supporting up to 100+ drives...)
It's called an "extender", and apparently you don't get any "drop off" in
performance...
Googling for "LSI SAS Expander" will give you at least some info...
(as will this link :
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/standard_product_ics/sas_expander_ics/index.html)
You basically remove some cables from drives and connect them to this
thing... (you end up with an external drive box of some sort...)


Earl
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[Joshua Boyd]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 01:17:06PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> >on EBay...just checked, and there
> >are some in the $500 range...
>
>
> As I suspected, well outside my present budget.  Does look like a nice
> card though.

Do you really need the PCIe version?  And do you really need the
hardware raid?  Do you really need 8 ports?

If the answer is yes to the first 2 and you can do with 4 ports, there
is a $160 option currently on ebay.

Since the original topic related to ZFS, I suspect that something like a
3800X, for about $70 would be a good pick.  Although since you later
mention internal ports, something like a 3080 or 3442 might be a better
choice. There aren't any listed for good prices currently, but they pop
up with some regularity.

Tentatively, I plan to pop a 3800X into a SPARC machine at some point to
beef up home storage.  
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[Phil Stracchino-3]

Earl Baugh wrote:

> Let me dig here...Ah found it.  Here's the card:
> http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_sas/megaraid_sas_8408e/index.html?remote=1&locale=EN
>
> I actually read the downloads and it's got a Solaris x86 (32 and 64 bit)
> driver.
> The list prices I've found for these were in the $500-$700 range per card.
> (yes, it was a very nice gift!)
> I did some checking after I got it and didn't find any of this model "cheap"
> on EBay...just checked, and there
> are some in the $500 range...

As I suspected, well outside my present budget.  Does look like a nice
card though.

[...]

> BTW, you might not need 2 of these cards... you can get an "expander" which
> according to my friend,
> lets you expand (docs say at least 32 drives, with some of their cards
> supporting up to 100+ drives...)
> It's called an "extender", and apparently you don't get any "drop off" in
> performance...
> Googling for "LSI SAS Expander" will give you at least some info...
> (as will this link :
> http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/standard_product_ics/sas_expander_ics/index.html)
> You basically remove some cables from drives and connect them to this
> thing... (you end up with an external drive box of some sort...)

Yeah, so I see.  It appears it's an external expansion solution though.
  The nice thing about the 3Ware (besides not costing me anything) is
that it's got 12 internal ports to match the 12 hot-swap bays in this
rackmount case.


Well, until someone comes up with working 3Ware drivers for Solaris, it
looks like I need to come up with a different OS for the machine.
Unless of course I take out the 3Ware controller for now and just fill
the three PCI slots with supported 4-port SATA controllers.  (Since all
I need is JBOD anyway....)

Throughput will probably suffer somewhat, but I'll be able to get the
machine up and start working with it.


--
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric@...   alaric@...   phil@...
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.
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[Sridhar Ayengar]

Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Earl D. Baugh Jr. wrote:
>> I don't know about Open Solaris, but I just got (for free... yes,
>> "SCORE" )
>> an LSI 8 channel SAS PCI-X RAID Controller... and it has Solaris drivers.
>> Definitely something I wouldn't have budget for without the "free"
>> part 8-)
>> (I didn't check to see if they were x86 or Sparc yet, as it went into
>> an Intel
>> motherboard...the first I got that will support a quad core processor...
>> and has 12 USB ports....)
>>
>> Helps to have a friend who's a VP at LSI 8-)
>
> Sir,
> You inhale with great vigor.  :)
>
> The system I'm working with here has two PCI-X slots.  I don't suppose
> you could find out for me what a pair of those controllers would cost
> me...?  What's the model number, to check against the Sol10 x86 HCL?

Don't they also make a 16-channel?  I know a bunch of the other
manufacturers do.

Peace...  Sridhar
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[Joshua Boyd]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 02:19:04PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> I looked at the 3800X and the 3800X-R, yes, but they both appear to be
> external-only cards.

The 3080 is internal slots, but currently they show up less frequently.
When they do show up, I'd say it is about 50/50 that it will be really
cheap or really expensive (I've seen some going for under $50 and other
going for over $200).
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[Phil Stracchino-3]

Joshua Boyd wrote:
> Do you really need the PCIe version?  And do you really need the
> hardware raid?  Do you really need 8 ports?

I don't need PCIe on this at all, the Big Honkin' Fast Slots on this
board (a Tyan Tiger i7320R) are PCI-X.  I don't need hardware RAID, I
just need JBOD.  I need 12 ports, but they could be divided across two
PCI-X slots or three PCI slots.

> If the answer is yes to the first 2 and you can do with 4 ports, there
> is a $160 option currently on ebay.
>
> Since the original topic related to ZFS, I suspect that something like a
> 3800X, for about $70 would be a good pick.

I looked at the 3800X and the 3800X-R, yes, but they both appear to be
external-only cards.


--
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric@...   alaric@...   phil@...
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.
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[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Phil Stracchino <alaric@...>
>Date: 2008/05/15 Thu PM 01:17:06 EDT
>To: The Rescue List <rescue@...>
>Subject: Re: [rescue] RAID on Solaris x86

>Earl Baugh wrote:
>> Let me dig here...Ah found it.  Here's the card:
>> http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_sas/megaraid_sas_8408e/index.html?remote=1&locale=EN
>>
>> I actually read the downloads and it's got a Solaris x86 (32 and 64 bit)
>> driver.
>> The list prices I've found for these were in the $500-$700 range per card.
>> (yes, it was a very nice gift!)
>> I did some checking after I got it and didn't find any of this model "cheap"
>> on EBay...just checked, and there
>> are some in the $500 range...
>
>
>As I suspected, well outside my present budget.  Does look like a nice
>card though.

I've been testing my $30 SiI3114-based "RAID" card, and it blows. Seriously, for anything other than JBOD the system crawls (lots lower than IDE on the same box), but I suspect my 2 GHz Celeron is not helping the card very much. Resynch of a 3x 500 Gig RAID 5 array takes over 12 hours, hardware or Windows Server 2003 "soft" RAID...

JBOD runs very nicely though.

Lionel
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