* Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users @ 2011-01-21 16:00 Michael Evans 2011-01-21 19:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Michael Evans @ 2011-01-21 16:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-raid The SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID Controller seems to fit my needs and budget except for one glaring omission on Supermicro's product page, and every other site that blindly copies it. Has anyone tested this hardware with a 48-bit LBA required drive (EG one of the 3TB drives that still exposes 512k sectors)? The other question, which is more on topic for linux-raid, is related to current driver support. I understand that the drivers have greatly matured since the last time I saw the card discussed in the list. With recent kernels have all the older issues been resolved? Thank you, Michael ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-21 16:00 Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users Michael Evans @ 2011-01-21 19:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-22 5:50 ` Michael Evans 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-21 19:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux RAID Michael Evans put forth on 1/21/2011 10:00 AM: > The SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID > Controller seems to fit my needs and budget except for one glaring > omission on Supermicro's product page, and every other site that > blindly copies it. > > Has anyone tested this hardware with a 48-bit LBA required drive (EG > one of the 3TB drives that still exposes 512k sectors)? NewEgg has an excellent return policy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101358 But, BTW, if you can afford over $1000 of 3TB drives, why are you demanding to go so cheap with the HBA? There are plenty of much better LSI based dual SFF8087 HBAs available with no LBA or driver issues. For instance: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157 $155 Quality/compatible LSI SAS1068E chip+driver vs $109 Marvell 88SE6480 less than quality chip+driver If you can afford 5+ 3TB drives you can certainly afford an extra ~$50 for a decent quality known to work SAS/SATA HBA. I say 5+ because you're obviously starting out with 5 or you'd be looking at cards with a single SFF8087, or simply 4 individual SATA connectors. I can't imagine an easier decision to make: $50 for guaranteed piece of mind, performance, compatibility. -- Stan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-21 19:04 ` Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-22 5:50 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 16:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Michael Evans @ 2011-01-22 5:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Stan Hoeppner; +Cc: Linux RAID On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote: > Michael Evans put forth on 1/21/2011 10:00 AM: >> The SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID >> Controller seems to fit my needs and budget except for one glaring >> omission on Supermicro's product page, and every other site that >> blindly copies it. >> >> Has anyone tested this hardware with a 48-bit LBA required drive (EG >> one of the 3TB drives that still exposes 512k sectors)? > > NewEgg has an excellent return policy: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101358 > > But, BTW, if you can afford over $1000 of 3TB drives, why are you demanding to > go so cheap with the HBA? There are plenty of much better LSI based dual > SFF8087 HBAs available with no LBA or driver issues. For instance: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157 > > $155 Quality/compatible LSI SAS1068E chip+driver vs > $109 Marvell 88SE6480 less than quality chip+driver > > If you can afford 5+ 3TB drives you can certainly afford an extra ~$50 for a > decent quality known to work SAS/SATA HBA. I say 5+ because you're obviously > starting out with 5 or you'd be looking at cards with a single SFF8087, or > simply 4 individual SATA connectors. > > I can't imagine an easier decision to make: $50 for guaranteed piece of mind, > performance, compatibility. > > -- > Stan > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > I wouldn't mind spending an extra $50 on the controller IF I knew it supported 48 or 64 bit LBA, however neither the documentation on Intel and NewEgg specifies what is supported. In fact I have to assume PCI-E 1.0 since it doesn't specify (not that it's an issue, 8 lane 1x vs 4 lane 2x is more or less the same thing; though 4x is more future proof since there is likely to be a slot that big on future motherboards at /least/ for physics GPU support). Are you suggesting the LSI based Intel card because you know it to properly support >32 bit LBA? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 5:50 ` Michael Evans @ 2011-01-22 16:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-22 16:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux RAID Michael Evans put forth on 1/21/2011 11:50 PM: > I wouldn't mind spending an extra $50 on the controller IF I knew it > supported 48 or 64 bit LBA, however neither the documentation on Intel No product descriptions list 48 bit LBA because ALL SAS/SATA devices and HbAs since ATA-6 (around 2003) natively support 48 bit LBA. LBA48 is what got us past the 137GB barrier. The industry jumped from 28 bit LBA straight to 48 bit LBA. Google will show you this information in about 0.5 seconds. I'll save you those 0.5s: http://www.48bitlba.com/ > and NewEgg specifies what is supported. In fact I have to assume > PCI-E 1.0 since it doesn't specify (not that it's an issue, 8 lane 1x > vs 4 lane 2x is more or less the same thing; though 4x is more future > proof since there is likely to be a slot that big on future > motherboards at /least/ for physics GPU support). It doesn't matter what card you choose, either x4 or x8, PCIe 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0. They all have plenty of b/w, all support 48bit LBA, and someone, somewhere, makes a motherboard with all the slots of the size/type mix you need to fit the specific PCIe 'width' cads you buy. "Desktop" style boards are probably more likely not to have PCIe x8 slots, but to have mostly x1 slots and maybe a single x4 slots. Server boards are more likely to have multiple x8 and x4 slots. However, many desktop boards have multiple x16 slots into which you can install and x8 or an x4 unless you really _need_ two, three, or 4 GPU cards. > Are you suggesting the LSI based Intel card because you know it to > properly support >32 bit LBA? I know it supports 48 bit LBA in SATA mode and 64 bit LBA in SAS mode. However, so does the SuperMicro Marvell based HBA. I recommend the Intel/LSI HBA simply because it's a higher quality SAS chip, it'll give better performance, and you won't have any potential driver headaches with it as you may with the Marvell based card. If your time is worth $25/hour, two hours wasted fighting an issue with the Marvell chip/driver combo bought you the Intel/LSI HBA in the first place. If your time is worth nothing and you enjoy pulling hair out, go with the $50 cheaper Marvell based solution. And, once again, if you're going to spend $1000 on drives, what an extra $50 for a good HBA for them? It seems from reading your posts that this is a "dream" system you've been _thinking_ about building for a few years now, and isn't something you're actually going to build. Even if this is simply an exercise in mental masturbation, I'm glad to have spent the time on this thread if merely to educate you about ATA, SATA, SAS, specifically WRT LBA, and the difference between quality HBAs/storage chip and low quality HBAs/storage chips. -- Stan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 16:04 ` Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 22:42 ` Matt Garman ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Michael Evans @ 2011-01-22 20:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Stan Hoeppner; +Cc: Linux RAID On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote: > Michael Evans put forth on 1/21/2011 11:50 PM: > >> I wouldn't mind spending an extra $50 on the controller IF I knew it >> supported 48 or 64 bit LBA, however neither the documentation on Intel > > No product descriptions list 48 bit LBA because ALL SAS/SATA devices and HbAs > since ATA-6 (around 2003) natively support 48 bit LBA. LBA48 is what got us > past the 137GB barrier. The industry jumped from 28 bit LBA straight to 48 bit > LBA. Google will show you this information in about 0.5 seconds. I'll save you > those 0.5s: http://www.48bitlba.com/ Thank you, /that/ was the missing part of the picture; that ATA-6 required support for it. Ironically I'd seen most of the result articles on Wikipedia, but was expecting something like that in a place other than the very top paragraph. I was looking for some kind of table that specifically associated a standard with relevant minimal requirements. I'm also very glad that I asked here first since I would have just gone with the better sounding hardware (4x PCI-e 2.0) over the more reliable and closely priced older hardware (the 8x PCI-e 1.0). Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. However I'm looking to rebuild that aging system and now that I have the proper funds want to do it with more reliable hardware. I wanted to buy an adapter that would last until whatever standard comes out in another decade or so and handle any drives that might come on the market within that time. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans @ 2011-01-22 22:42 ` Matt Garman 2011-01-22 23:40 ` Spelic 2011-01-23 0:49 ` Stan Hoeppner 2 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Matt Garman @ 2011-01-22 22:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michael Evans; +Cc: Stan Hoeppner, Linux RAID Another way to get an LSI SAS 1068 based card is the IBM ServeRAID BR10i, discussed in detail here: http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-br10i-lsi-sas3082e-r-pciexpress-sas-raid-controller/ I bought two off ebay for $50 US. The only caveat with these LSI SAS1068 cards is a driver bug that pops up when using smartd on drives connected to the controller. IIRC, the bug was fixed in kernel version 2.6.36. Lots of info on this on the web and the list archives. -Matt On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Michael Evans <mjevans1983@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote: >> Michael Evans put forth on 1/21/2011 11:50 PM: >> >>> I wouldn't mind spending an extra $50 on the controller IF I knew it >>> supported 48 or 64 bit LBA, however neither the documentation on Intel >> >> No product descriptions list 48 bit LBA because ALL SAS/SATA devices and HbAs >> since ATA-6 (around 2003) natively support 48 bit LBA. LBA48 is what got us >> past the 137GB barrier. The industry jumped from 28 bit LBA straight to 48 bit >> LBA. Google will show you this information in about 0.5 seconds. I'll save you >> those 0.5s: http://www.48bitlba.com/ > > Thank you, /that/ was the missing part of the picture; that ATA-6 > required support for it. > > Ironically I'd seen most of the result articles on Wikipedia, but was > expecting something like that in a place other than the very top > paragraph. I was looking for some kind of table that specifically > associated a standard with relevant minimal requirements. I'm also > very glad that I asked here first since I would have just gone with > the better sounding hardware (4x PCI-e 2.0) over the more reliable and > closely priced older hardware (the 8x PCI-e 1.0). > > Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years > I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e > 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. However I'm looking to rebuild > that aging system and now that I have the proper funds want to do it > with more reliable hardware. I wanted to buy an adapter that would > last until whatever standard comes out in another decade or so and > handle any drives that might come on the market within that time. > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 22:42 ` Matt Garman @ 2011-01-22 23:40 ` Spelic 2011-01-23 2:44 ` Andre Tomt 2011-01-23 0:49 ` Stan Hoeppner 2 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Spelic @ 2011-01-22 23:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michael Evans; +Cc: linux-raid On 01/22/2011 09:36 PM, Michael Evans wrote: > > Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years > I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e > 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. So you are trying to reach 12 ports? C'mon don't be cheap, there are lightning-fast 16-ports HBA controllers from LSI, at 6.0gbit/sec, $350 or so. $25 per port is not much; it is much less than the cost of the disk you are attaching to it. This frees you from the choice of the mainboard, and this is important, firstly because you can save $$$ in there, and secondly because if the mainboard fails, what are you going to do? you are going to buy another one with 6 ports? Difficult to find... and expensive also. Also using 2 different controllers for your disks (part from mainboard, part from addon card) is a bit of pain in the *** for administration things, also performances would be the slowest of the two for every request. > However I'm looking to rebuild > that aging system and now that I have the proper funds want to do it > with more reliable hardware. I wanted to buy an adapter that would > last until whatever standard comes out in another decade or so and > handle any drives that might come on the market within that time. > Right so you need 6.0gbit/sec ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 23:40 ` Spelic @ 2011-01-23 2:44 ` Andre Tomt 2011-01-23 3:19 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-23 4:00 ` Spelic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Andre Tomt @ 2011-01-23 2:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michael Evans; +Cc: Spelic, linux-raid On 01/23/2011 12:40 AM, Spelic wrote: > On 01/22/2011 09:36 PM, Michael Evans wrote: >> >> Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years >> I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e >> 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. > > So you are trying to reach 12 ports? > C'mon don't be cheap, there are lightning-fast 16-ports HBA controllers > from LSI, at 6.0gbit/sec, $350 or so. $25 per port is not much; it is > much less than the cost of the disk you are attaching to it. > This frees you from the choice of the mainboard, and this is important, > firstly because you can save $$$ in there, and secondly because if the > mainboard fails, what are you going to do? you are going to buy another > one with 6 ports? Difficult to find... and expensive also. > Also using 2 different controllers for your disks (part from mainboard, > part from addon card) is a bit of pain in the *** for administration > things, also performances would be the slowest of the two for every > request. Since we're talking about "non hardware raid" usage, I don't really understand how it would be harder to manage mixed controllers? Care to explain? I can't quite get the performance statement to compute, either.. Its not like the same I/O goes out to all controllers. If your other controller is slower, just put fewer drives on it. Balance it out. Anyways, If you settle for SATA and a desktop motherboard, most mid to high end s1156/1155 motherboards nowadays are fitted with 6 to 8 SATA ports. They're in now way hard to come by - even 8 ports seems to be available at $130 (I spent 10 seconds looking on newegg). But then again not all of them will *boot* off 3TB drives - at least many of the 1156 ones. As for on board performance, integrated Intel ICH's AHCI controllers tend to top out at around 750MB/s aggregate. 6 ports are usually on the Intel, the rest on some AHCI compatible chip from Marvell. In general you can expect around 1GB/s aggregated from the on board controllers at the same time on a standard socket 1156/1155 desktop class intel chipset based motherboard. Regarding the AOC-SASLP-MV8, yes, they're not worth it - the mvsas driver is still buggy when used with SATA. I have heaps of issues with mine - at least when using Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drives on 2.6.36.3. Keeps stalling and throwing IO errors (no corruption yet, though). The card also tops out at ~700MB/s aggregate - and we can't have any of that can we ;-) So yeah, the LSI based cards are seems like a good bet if you go the SAS HBA route. Even the previous 3Gb/s generation can do a cool 1600-1700MB/s if you give them 8 pcie lanes. If he ever plan to expand into expander (he he) territory, that bandwidth is good to have. Well, in a "dream system" anyway, any normal workloads are generally more random and much, much lower in throughput. But hey, we're going for bragging rights here, right? :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-23 2:44 ` Andre Tomt @ 2011-01-23 3:19 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-23 4:00 ` Spelic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Michael Evans @ 2011-01-23 3:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Andre Tomt; +Cc: Spelic, linux-raid On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Andre Tomt <andre@tomt.net> wrote: > On 01/23/2011 12:40 AM, Spelic wrote: >> >> On 01/22/2011 09:36 PM, Michael Evans wrote: >>> >>> Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years >>> I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e >>> 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. >> >> So you are trying to reach 12 ports? >> C'mon don't be cheap, there are lightning-fast 16-ports HBA controllers >> from LSI, at 6.0gbit/sec, $350 or so. $25 per port is not much; it is >> much less than the cost of the disk you are attaching to it. >> This frees you from the choice of the mainboard, and this is important, >> firstly because you can save $$$ in there, and secondly because if the >> mainboard fails, what are you going to do? you are going to buy another >> one with 6 ports? Difficult to find... and expensive also. >> Also using 2 different controllers for your disks (part from mainboard, >> part from addon card) is a bit of pain in the *** for administration >> things, also performances would be the slowest of the two for every >> request. > > Since we're talking about "non hardware raid" usage, I don't really > understand how it would be harder to manage mixed controllers? Care to > explain? I can't quite get the performance statement to compute, either.. > Its not like the same I/O goes out to all controllers. If your other > controller is slower, just put fewer drives on it. Balance it out. > > Anyways, If you settle for SATA and a desktop motherboard, most mid to high > end s1156/1155 motherboards nowadays are fitted with 6 to 8 SATA ports. > They're in now way hard to come by - even 8 ports seems to be available at > $130 (I spent 10 seconds looking on newegg). But then again not all of them > will *boot* off 3TB drives - at least many of the 1156 ones. > > As for on board performance, integrated Intel ICH's AHCI controllers tend to > top out at around 750MB/s aggregate. 6 ports are usually on the Intel, the > rest on some AHCI compatible chip from Marvell. In general you can expect > around 1GB/s aggregated from the on board controllers at the same time on a > standard socket 1156/1155 desktop class intel chipset based motherboard. > > Regarding the AOC-SASLP-MV8, yes, they're not worth it - the mvsas driver is > still buggy when used with SATA. I have heaps of issues with mine - at least > when using Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drives on 2.6.36.3. Keeps stalling and > throwing IO errors (no corruption yet, though). The card also tops out at > ~700MB/s aggregate - and we can't have any of that can we ;-) > > So yeah, the LSI based cards are seems like a good bet if you go the SAS HBA > route. Even the previous 3Gb/s generation can do a cool 1600-1700MB/s if you > give them 8 pcie lanes. If he ever plan to expand into expander (he he) > territory, that bandwidth is good to have. Well, in a "dream system" anyway, > any normal workloads are generally more random and much, much lower in > throughput. But hey, we're going for bragging rights here, right? :-) > Oh I'm extremely frugal. I typically wind up going with AMD chipped systems since they support all the nice CPU features across everything (well, I don't know about semprons, but honestly spend a tiny bit more for a dual core). Sure they've not been the most power efficient since the Core architecture came out, but they're still priced so that they offer excellent results dollar for dollar. The number of ports is more in relation to the cost per gigabyte sweetspot and what I can spare on storage. Currently said sweetspot seems to be 2TB drives, if I were to buy RIGHT now I'd go for a Samsung Spinpoint F4 since IIRC out of Seagate, WD, and Samsung only Samsung still enables scterc to alter the timeout/recovery time. As it's a personal array for everything (data backups, networked media storage for set top boxes, etc) I don't really need killer performance; once I saturate the gigabit link I'm happy that way. What I really need is a good way of using raid6 to get the most cost effective volume of storage while still tolerating failure. I'm more interested in waiting for the 3TB drives to migrate down to the 100-150 range though; support for even larger drives is something I'll need in an upgrade cycle or two (which is still within my planned lifespan for the card). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-23 2:44 ` Andre Tomt 2011-01-23 3:19 ` Michael Evans @ 2011-01-23 4:00 ` Spelic 2011-01-24 11:45 ` Sven Eschenberg 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Spelic @ 2011-01-23 4:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Andre Tomt; +Cc: Michael Evans, Spelic, linux-raid On 01/23/2011 03:44 AM, Andre Tomt wrote: > > Since we're talking about "non hardware raid" usage, I don't really > understand how it would be harder to manage mixed controllers? Care to > explain? Well, yeah, probably I have exxagerated. If you need to replace a drive you have to associate the drive letter to the hardware slot, and if you have two controllers you have to remember two mappings. Also you have to know the idiosincracies of 2 controllers, like, do they support hot swap or they freeze? Do the support smartmontools well or not, are both capable of withstanding high IOPS situation or one drops out and degrades the array... but probably the OP can accept these drawbacks. > I can't quite get the performance statement to compute, either.. Its > not like the same I/O goes out to all controllers. If your other > controller is slower, just put fewer drives on it. Balance it out. I was thinking more to the round trip time, which will be different for the 2 controllers, and supposing the OP is creating an array spanning both controllers. > > Anyways, If you settle for SATA and a desktop motherboard, most mid to > high end s1156/1155 motherboards nowadays are fitted with 6 to 8 SATA > ports. They're in now way hard to come by - even 8 ports seems to be > available at $130 (I spent 10 seconds looking on newegg). I think other mainboards can cost down to $50, but I haven't checked recently ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-23 4:00 ` Spelic @ 2011-01-24 11:45 ` Sven Eschenberg 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Sven Eschenberg @ 2011-01-24 11:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-raid Would you mind explaining what you mean by mapping and why this should be an issue? Or are you suggesting, when talking about drive letter, to still use sdN names when handling drives? Because that seems to be somewhat from the dark ages... On Sun, January 23, 2011 05:00, Spelic wrote: > On 01/23/2011 03:44 AM, Andre Tomt wrote: >> >> Since we're talking about "non hardware raid" usage, I don't really >> understand how it would be harder to manage mixed controllers? Care to >> explain? > > Well, yeah, probably I have exxagerated. If you need to replace a drive > you have to associate the drive letter to the hardware slot, and if you > have two controllers you have to remember two mappings. Also you have to > know the idiosincracies of 2 controllers, like, do they support hot swap > or they freeze? Do the support smartmontools well or not, are both > capable of withstanding high IOPS situation or one drops out and > degrades the array... but probably the OP can accept these drawbacks. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 22:42 ` Matt Garman 2011-01-22 23:40 ` Spelic @ 2011-01-23 0:49 ` Stan Hoeppner [not found] ` <4D3C64CB.2080002@harddata.com> 2011-01-24 21:58 ` Leslie Rhorer 2 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-23 0:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michael Evans; +Cc: Linux RAID Michael Evans put forth on 1/22/2011 2:36 PM: > Also, you are half right about this being a 'dream' system. For years > I've been using a carefully selected 6 port motherboard, and 3 PCI-e > 1x cards to get a total of 12 ports. However I'm looking to rebuild > that aging system and now that I have the proper funds want to do it > with more reliable hardware. I wanted to buy an adapter that would > last until whatever standard comes out in another decade or so and > handle any drives that might come on the market within that time. The LSI based Intel SAS HBA I mentioned, the SASUC8I, will directly support 8 SAS/SATA drives, but using multiple SAS/SATA expanders it will support over 100 drives. The following Intel SAS expander card is a matched partner to the SASUC8I. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207 $280 To maximize drive count, you would directly connect 4 drives to the lower numbered SFF8087 4 port connector with either a straight 8087 cable if you're using a hot swap backplane with an 8087 style connector, or you'd use an 8087 to 4 SATA breakout cable if directly connecting to the drives or individual hot swap cages. The fun part: You'd connect an 8087 cable from the other port on the HBA to one of the 6 8087 connectors on the SAS expander card. You would then connect the remaining 5 SFF8087 ports to *20* SAS or SATA drive using the appropriate cables. This would give you 24 drives total. Your aggregate bandwidth to/from the set of 20 drives on the expander would be 1.2 GB/s full duplex or 2.4 GB/s total. It will be the same for the 4 direct connected drives but 4 drives simply can't push that much data. If you want symmetrical bandwidth for all drives, you'd simply connect both HBA connectors to the expander, which would give you 2.4/4.8 GB/s aggregate, but would limit you to 'only' 16 drives. Here a are a couple rack chassis with hot swap bays perfect for such a setup: Inexpensive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219039 http://www.norcotek.com/RPC-4116.php Better quality, includes redundant PSU, twice the price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123135 http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=144 I've built quite a few servers over the years with Chenbro cases. They are excellent quality. One of my personal servers resides in an old double wide Chenbro pedestal chassis with 12x3.5" hot swap SCSI bays. Been using it since 1999, not a bit of trouble with it, and it has survived 5 moves. I've never used the Norco products. -- Stan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
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* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users [not found] ` <4D3CB72E.3050000@harddata.com> @ 2011-01-24 1:52 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-24 3:28 ` John Robinson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-24 1:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Maurice Hilarius, Linux RAID Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: > On 1/23/2011 2:24 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> .. >>> Chenbro backplanes do not support 6Gb SAS/SATA. >> Considering no single (mech) drive can push 600 MB/s, let alone 300 MB/s, is >> this really an issue? > Yes. > I have seen it first hand. > If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of errors. > One has to be careful to set all devices to 3GB, assuming the devices have > jumpers or other means to do so. Which chassis model was this? >> Mech drives aren't even going to be surpassing 300 MB/s >> in the foreseeable future. >> > Perhaps, but their buffers do, and if one uses expanders it is useful The _real world_ application performance difference between SATA II and SATA III mech drive interfaces is something on the order of 1%. With SSDs a little more as some of them can actually push data faster than 3 Gb/s. Upstream of an expander the additional b/w is useful, not downstream. -- Stan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 1:52 ` Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-24 3:28 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 11:27 ` Mark Knecht 2011-01-24 22:06 ` Leslie Rhorer 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: John Robinson @ 2011-01-24 3:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux RAID On 24/01/2011 01:52, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: [...] >> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of errors. The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. Cheers, John. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 3:28 ` John Robinson @ 2011-01-24 11:27 ` Mark Knecht 2011-01-24 11:56 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 22:06 ` Leslie Rhorer 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Mark Knecht @ 2011-01-24 11:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John Robinson; +Cc: Linux RAID On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 7:28 PM, John Robinson <john.robinson@anonymous.org.uk> wrote: > On 24/01/2011 01:52, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> >> Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: > > [...] >>> >>> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of errors. > > The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. > > Cheers, > > John. You make me feel old. I was part of the 'boot CPM from floppy' era... 5MHz and it didn't have a hard drive... ;-) My home work machine has 2.5TB. - Mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 11:27 ` Mark Knecht @ 2011-01-24 11:56 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 23:09 ` Leslie Rhorer 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: John Robinson @ 2011-01-24 11:56 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Mark Knecht; +Cc: Linux RAID On 24/01/2011 11:27, Mark Knecht wrote: > On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 7:28 PM, John Robinson > <john.robinson@anonymous.org.uk> wrote: >> On 24/01/2011 01:52, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >>> Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: >> [...] >>>> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of errors. >> >> The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. > > You make me feel old. I was part of the 'boot CPM from floppy' era... > 5MHz and it didn't have a hard drive... ;-) We're probably actually about the same age then; my first computer used cassette tape and had a 2MHz 8-bit processor. I started using PC-compatibles 7 or 8 years later, but didn't buy one myself for another 6 years (that was the one with the 6GB hard drive) by which time I'd contributed patches to the Linux kernel, Postgres and PHP - and that was 12 years ago now... Cheers, John. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* RE: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 11:56 ` John Robinson @ 2011-01-24 23:09 ` Leslie Rhorer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Leslie Rhorer @ 2011-01-24 23:09 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'John Robinson', 'Mark Knecht'; +Cc: 'Linux RAID' > -----Original Message----- > From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid- > owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of John Robinson > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 5:56 AM > To: Mark Knecht > Cc: Linux RAID > Subject: Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA > questions for HW owners/users > > On 24/01/2011 11:27, Mark Knecht wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 7:28 PM, John Robinson > > <john.robinson@anonymous.org.uk> wrote: > >> On 24/01/2011 01:52, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > >>> Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: > >> [...] > >>>> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of > errors. > >> > >> The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. > > > > You make me feel old. I was part of the 'boot CPM from floppy' era... > > 5MHz and it didn't have a hard drive... ;-) > > We're probably actually about the same age then; my first computer used > cassette tape and had a 2MHz 8-bit processor. I started using Ah, that's better. For many years, I didn't own any of the computers I used, at all - purchasing an IBM 360 was a good bit beyond my means. The first "micro" on which I ever worked was a Nicolet 20 bit rackmount with DTL logic and magnetic core memory. The first home computer I ever bought was a Texas Instruments 99/4a. > PC-compatibles 7 or 8 years later, but didn't buy one myself for another > 6 years (that was the one with the 6GB hard drive) by which time I'd > contributed patches to the Linux kernel, Postgres and PHP - and that was > 12 years ago now... Yeah, once the 80386 was introduced, I became interested in an Intel based "clone". I didn't like the limitations of the x86 platform - I still don't - but its processing power, 32 bit architecture, and programming features were sufficient to lure me into purchasing a clone. It had an unbelievable 1MB of memory and a vast 40 MB hard drive, with a system clock of 16 MHz, and of course a 32 bit wide address bus and memory bus. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* RE: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 3:28 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 11:27 ` Mark Knecht @ 2011-01-24 22:06 ` Leslie Rhorer 2011-01-25 18:30 ` Maurice Hilarius 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Leslie Rhorer @ 2011-01-24 22:06 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'John Robinson', 'Linux RAID' > -----Original Message----- > From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid- > owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of John Robinson > Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 9:28 PM > To: Linux RAID > Subject: Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA > questions for HW owners/users > > On 24/01/2011 01:52, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > > Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/23/2011 5:18 PM: > [...] > >> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of > errors. > > The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. Infant. :-) The first computer I bought (not a "PC") didn't have a hard drive, at all. The first x86 computer I ever bought (I waited for the introduction of the 80386 before going with an x86 computer) had a 40 MB hard drive. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-24 22:06 ` Leslie Rhorer @ 2011-01-25 18:30 ` Maurice Hilarius 2011-01-25 20:00 ` Stan Hoeppner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Maurice Hilarius @ 2011-01-25 18:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: linux-raid On 1/24/2011 3:06 PM, Leslie Rhorer wrote: >> .. >>>> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of >> errors. >> >> The first PC I bought had a 6GB drive in it. > Infant. :-) > > The first computer I bought (not a "PC") didn't have a hard drive, > at all. The first x86 computer I ever bought (I waited for the introduction > of the 80386 before going with an x86 computer) had a 40 MB hard drive. > Of course I was speaking of 6GB/Sec SAS2 drives.. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-25 18:30 ` Maurice Hilarius @ 2011-01-25 20:00 ` Stan Hoeppner 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Stan Hoeppner @ 2011-01-25 20:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Maurice Hilarius; +Cc: linux-raid Maurice Hilarius put forth on 1/25/2011 12:30 PM: > On 1/24/2011 3:06 PM, Leslie Rhorer wrote: >>> .. >>>>> If you connect 6GB drives and interfaces to it, you see a lot of >>> errors. > Of course I was speaking of 6GB/Sec SAS2 drives.. Capital "B" stands for BYTES. Small "b" stands for bits. You stated 6 GigaBYTES/sec when you meant to say 6 gigabits/sec. Always use a BIG B when stating parallel bus data rates. Always use small b when stating serial interconnect data rates. SAS and SATA are serial interconnect technologies. You've formed a bad habit which may be difficult to break. Nonetheless, you must break this habit if you want those reading your text to correctly understand what you're saying. -- Stan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* RE: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users 2011-01-23 0:49 ` Stan Hoeppner [not found] ` <4D3C64CB.2080002@harddata.com> @ 2011-01-24 21:58 ` Leslie Rhorer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Leslie Rhorer @ 2011-01-24 21:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'Stan Hoeppner', 'Michael Evans'; +Cc: 'Linux RAID' > -----Original Message----- > From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid- > owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Stan Hoeppner > Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2011 6:50 PM > To: Michael Evans > Cc: Linux RAID > Subject: Re: Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA > questions for HW owners/users <snip> > Inexpensive: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219039 > http://www.norcotek.com/RPC-4116.php > > Better quality, includes redundant PSU, twice the price: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123135 > http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=144 > > I've built quite a few servers over the years with Chenbro cases. They > are > excellent quality. One of my personal servers resides in an old double > wide > Chenbro pedestal chassis with 12x3.5" hot swap SCSI bays. Been using it > since > 1999, not a bit of trouble with it, and it has survived 5 moves. I've > never > used the Norco products. I have. I cannot recommend Norcotek. I had a horrendously bad experience with one of their 12 bay SAS RAID chassis. Their tech support was pathetic, and despite numerous RMAs, replacing essentially every component of the chassis, the chassis could not be made stable. The drives experienced all sorts of massive errors when installed in the chassis, and it was never possible to get more than 8 drives visible. Plugging a drive into one slot would cause 1 or 2 drives in other slots to disappear. I lost the entire array several times, and suffered massive amounts of data corruption. I finally gave up and purchased another chassis, and all the problems went away completely. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2011-01-25 20:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 21+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2011-01-21 16:00 Low cost PCI-E unRAID - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Driver/LBA questions for HW owners/users Michael Evans 2011-01-21 19:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-22 5:50 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 16:04 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-22 20:36 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-22 22:42 ` Matt Garman 2011-01-22 23:40 ` Spelic 2011-01-23 2:44 ` Andre Tomt 2011-01-23 3:19 ` Michael Evans 2011-01-23 4:00 ` Spelic 2011-01-24 11:45 ` Sven Eschenberg 2011-01-23 0:49 ` Stan Hoeppner [not found] ` <4D3C64CB.2080002@harddata.com> [not found] ` <4D3C9C94.8090607@hardwarefreak.com> [not found] ` <4D3CB72E.3050000@harddata.com> 2011-01-24 1:52 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-24 3:28 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 11:27 ` Mark Knecht 2011-01-24 11:56 ` John Robinson 2011-01-24 23:09 ` Leslie Rhorer 2011-01-24 22:06 ` Leslie Rhorer 2011-01-25 18:30 ` Maurice Hilarius 2011-01-25 20:00 ` Stan Hoeppner 2011-01-24 21:58 ` Leslie Rhorer
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