Subject: Re: Dell Support and NetBSD?
To: Martti Kuparinen <martti.kuparinen@iki.fi>
From: Roy Flacco <rff@mcci.com>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 11/29/2006 16:48:38
Hello Martti,


>Michael Gorsuch kirjoitti:
>>Greetings all.  Is anyone here running production NetBSD systems on 
>>Dell hardware?  If so, what have your experiences been with the 
>>support staff when hardware fails?
>
>At work we have several Dell PowerEdge servers (currently in active 
>use model numbers 750, 1800, 1850, 2400, 2600 and 2850) and so far 
>only one (of two available) power supply has failed from the old PE2400 :-)
>
>So I'm very happy with the hardware (including hardware RAID 
>controller -- we have both SCSI and SATA) but I have only once 
>needed on-site support...
>
>All these are running NetBSD 3.x.
>
>Martti


I have run NetBSD for a many years on inexpensive, generic i386 
hardware.  My company recently purchased some Dell servers (PowerEdge 
860 with SATA h/w RAID1 SAS 5/iR) and I am looking forward to placing 
NetBSD 3.1 on them.

However, I am unable to find a driver for the SAS 5/iR hardware RAID 
controller that is specific to NetBSD.  I have seen comments to the 
effect that there are OpenBSD drivers that may be adapted to NetBSD 
someday, but I hope that your comments above indicate that there is 
something available now.

Can you tell me, is your "hardware RAID controller" a SAS 5/iR, 
running SATA drives?  If so, what driver are you using?  If not, can 
you tell me what RAID hardware you have that is supported by existing 
NetBSD drivers?

Thanks,
Roy Flacco