Subject: Re: Help - don't understand SATA!
To: Arne Kaiser <kaiser@hauptsache.net>
From: Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 10/06/2005 14:47:07
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On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 10:56:35PM +0200, Arne Kaiser wrote:
  | Maybe you should think about a 3ware sata raidcontroler, they are not that
  | expensive (about 120 Euro in Germany) with two ports and it is much easier
  | than building a softraid if that should be bootable.

Except that the 3ware management tools are not up to scratch in NetBSD.
The currently available ones are emulated FreeBSD binaries.
The twa(4) driver (for the "Apache" 9xxx series) is a bit out of date
compared to the FreeBSD version too.

You also have to keep the firmware, driver, and userland tools
"in sync" when you upgrade.  I.e, new firmware and old tools
isn't supported.  Or vice-versa.  Which makes doing a controlled
upgrade/downgrade more difficult than it should be.
(E.g, in NetBSD we make an effort to support old binaries on
new kernels.  This is a similar analogy.)

The firmware's handling of added, removed, and failed drives needs
improving as well.

I used to use Adaptec and 3ware IDE RAID cards in my file server.
Now I use RAIDframe again (on ATA & SATA disks).

YMMV.

cheers,
Luke.

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