On 18 August 2016 at 16:02, Bob Friesenhahn <bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote: > I am looking at a 16-bay SuperMicro chassis. There is the option of using a > SAS HBA with 16 channels (e.g. Avago SAS 9300-16i) and no expander or a SAS > HBA with 4 channels and an expander. Most drives would be SAS but I might > want to fit a couple of SATA SSDs. > > Is there a strong technical reason (performance, reliability, uptime) to > prefer one or the other with OmniOS and zfs? > > The main technical issue I am already aware of is that one should not put > SATA devices behind an expander. > > I am leaning toward the 16 channels and no expander solution since it feels > better from a failure-mode standpoint, because it lessens contention, and > because it should allow use of SATA SSDs.
If it's an option (as it seems to be here), I would always opt for a system without an expander. An expander is just another active component with its own potentially buggy firmware. Less firmware is essentially a riff on "less moving parts" from a reliability standpoint. Also, if you ever need to upgrade the firmware in the expander, that will likely be extremely difficult or even impossible. -- Joshua M. Clulow UNIX Admin/Developer http://blog.sysmgr.org _______________________________________________ OmniOS-discuss mailing list OmniOS-discuss@lists.omniti.com http://lists.omniti.com/mailman/listinfo/omnios-discuss