Re: Which RAID Controllers to pick/avoid?

[Greg Smith <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Scott Marlowe wrote:

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 10:46 PM, Greg Smith <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  

example.  Scott Marlowe was griping recently about a similar issue in some
of the LSI models, too.  I suspect it's a problem impacting several of the
larger RAID cards that use the big Intel IOP processors for their RAID
computations, given that's the part with the heatsink on it.
    

Specifically the LSI 8888 in a case that gave very low amounts of air
flow over the RAID card.  The case right above the card was quite hot,
and the multilane cable was warm enough to almost burn my fingers whe

Interesting...that shoots down my theory.  Now that I check, the LSI 8888 uses their SAS1078 controller, which is based on a PowerPC 440 processor--it's not one of the Intel IOP processors at all.  The 8308 Dan has as an option is using the very popular Intel IOP333 instead, which is also used in some Areca 1200 series cards (1220/1230/1260).

The Adaptec 5405 and 5805 cards both use the Intel IOP348, as does the Areca 1680.  Areca puts a fan right on it; Adaptec does not.    I suspect the only reason the 5805 cards have gotten more reports of overheating than the 5405 ones is just because having more drives typically connected increases their actual workload.  I don't think there's actually any difference between the cooling situation between the two otherwise.

-- 
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant US    greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   Baltimore, MD
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