On 20-10-2006 16:58 Dave Cramer wrote:
Ben,
My option in disks is either 5 x 15K rpm disks or 8 x 10K rpm disks
(all SAS), or if I pick a different server I can have 6 x 15K rpm or 8
x 10K rpm (again SAS). In each case controlled by a PERC 5/i (which I
think is an LSI Mega Raid SAS 8408E card).
You mentioned a "Perc" controller, so I'll assume this is a Dell.
My advice is to find another supplier. check the archives for Dell.
Basically you have no idea what the Perc controller is since it is
whatever Dell decides to ship that day.
As far as I know, the later Dell PERC's have all been LSI
Logic-controllers, to my knowledge Dell has been a major contributor to
the LSI-Linux drivers...
At least the 5/i and 5/e have LSI-logic controller chips. Although the
5/e is not an exact copy of the LSI Mega raid 8480E, its board layout
and BBU-memory module are quite different. It does share its
functionality however and has afaik the same controller-chip on it.
Currently we're using a Dell 1950 with PERC 5/e connecting a MD1000
SAS-enclosure, filled with 15 36GB 15k rpm disks. And the Dell-card
easily beats an ICP Vortex-card we also connected to that enclosure.
Ow and we do get much more than, say, 8-50 MB/sec out of it. WinBench99
gets about 644MB/sec in sequential reading tops from a 14-disk raid10
and although IOmeter is a bit less dramatic it still gets over
240MB/sec. I have no idea how fast a simple dd would be and have no
bonnie++ results (at hand) either.
At least in our benchmarks, we're convinced enough that it is a good
set-up. There will be faster set-ups, but at this price-point it won't
surprise me if its the fastest disk-set you can get.
By the way, as far as I know, HP offers the exact same broadcom network
chip in their systems as Dell does... So if that broadcom chip is
unstable on a Dell in FreeBSD, it might very well be unstable in a HP too.
Best regards,
Arjen
