[ On Friday, February 25, 2005 at 16:06:01 (-0500), Allen Briggs wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: ServeRAID support in -current
>
> No.  ServeRAID support is on my list, but far enough down that
> I have not yet gotten to it.  I have an older ServeRAID here

I have a small pile of two types of older ServeRAID (original and 3L,
IIRC) cards sitting on the cabinet behind me that I was hoping to use to
help port the FreeBSD ips(4) driver over with, but of course I haven't
found any time to even start that project. ;-)

On the other hand I'd be quite willing to part with at least one of each
type to anyone who does have time to get them to work.  ;-)

In my experience older ServeRAID cards are quite common and show up now
in surplus boxes for cheap or free (even the 3L which does Ultra2/LVD),
and the newer ones (FreeBSD ips(4) supports up to the 6i/6M, which is
Ultra320) are apparently quite good performers with current drives.

They also have a built-in configuration utility, making them even more
useful in NetBSD-only environments than many other RAID cards are.  :-)

> and was debating the value of it for myself since it only
> supports Ultra-Wide disks.

I have lots of still-functioning older too (though sadly many are SCA
and I've not near enough adapter hardware for SCA drives, unless perhaps
I find some extremely-cheap-to-free BA350 boxes with the appropriate
interface boards, as I have lots of spare SBBs too, incl. power supplies).

Assuming they're installed in a system with enough BIOS support for
booting from I think even the oldest ones would still be quite useful
for system disk mirroring, etc., at least for some applications. 

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

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