Re: Non-raid PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports?
- as you mentioned, without the battery backup the cache on the controller would have to be write-through, which disabled much of the advantage of the thing. I can't have NCQ on the NVidia SATA ports, Yes, very annoying to choose hardware that supports NCQ and then discover you can't use it due to no software support. :-( Surely someone can translate this from penguin to daemon? http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/libata/archive/2.6.17-nv-adma.patch.bz2 and hence have to use the disk's write cache. Huh? Is a write-back cache in a disk somehow safer than a write-back cache in a controller? We really really need NCQ. :-/ ___ freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Non-raid PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports?
Hi, is there any PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports that has decent FreeBSD drivers, including NCQ, and decent performance on the level of the ICH or Nvidia onboard ports? I don't need hardware RAID. I suppose I can use an 8-port Areca as a dumb controller, but that's kinda wastish. Thoughts? Martin -- %%% Martin Cracauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cons.org/cracauer/ FreeBSD - where you want to go, today. http://www.freebsd.org/ ___ freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Non-raid PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports?
Martin Cracauer wrote: Hi, is there any PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports that has decent FreeBSD drivers, including NCQ, and decent performance on the level of the ICH or Nvidia onboard ports? As far as i know, there's no NCQ for the ata(4) driver, so you can only use SCSI TCQ and NCQ on a true hardware controller like Areca. I think you need either a motherboard with 8 onboard connectors, multiple PCI/PCIe cards or a hardware controller like HighPoint RocketRaid 2320 PCI-e with 8 ports. This last one is quite affordable and has quite good driver support i think. I don't need hardware RAID. I suppose I can use an 8-port Areca as a dumb controller, but that's kinda wastish. Well, an Areca might give you the flexibility to use true RAID and even on single disks you can benefit from increased performance due to request reordering and the onboard buffercache. Be aware that any controller with write-back cache offers a potential dataloss risk, without the use of a battery backup unit (BBU). Also, if you need performance, why would you want to use an Areca as a normal controller, why not pick RAID0 or RAID5? Do you really need 8 seperate disks? - Veronica ___ freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Non-raid PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports?
Fluffles wrote on Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 05:48:34PM +0200: I don't need hardware RAID. I suppose I can use an 8-port Areca as a dumb controller, but that's kinda wastish. Well, an Areca might give you the flexibility to use true RAID and even on single disks you can benefit from increased performance due to request reordering and the onboard buffercache. Be aware that any controller with write-back cache offers a potential dataloss risk, without the use of a battery backup unit (BBU). Also, if you need performance, why would you want to use an Areca as a normal controller, why not pick RAID0 or RAID5? Do you really need 8 seperate disks? I use software raid for a variety of reasons including: - can put in disks on other controllers, such as in an emergency put a P-ATA disk as a replacement. - working SMART. - more control, no black box. - buying one hardware raid controller is a joke from a reliability standpoint, you'd need a second one on the shelf. - freedom to move to a different controller. To my knowledge none of the hardware raid makers obey to the common disk file format, not even optionally. Neither does software raid, but software raid doesn't bind me to a piece of hardware. - as you mentioned, without the battery backup the cache on the controller would have to be write-through, which disabled much of the advantage of the thing. I found the performance with modern CPUs to be more than sufficient, even on raid-5 writes. http://cracauer-forum.cons.org/forum/raid.html The thing that I'm trying to solve is not speed as such. What goes on my nerves is that I can't have NCQ on the NVidia SATA ports, and hence have to use the disk's write cache. Also, boards with more than 4 ports usually only have 4 ports on the primary controller and the rest of the ports are on some 32bit/33MHz PCI bus piece of junk like the Promise 3112. Hence, a dumb but decent 8-port controller would give me what I want. (Well, that was when I thought we do have NCQ on ICH SATA :-/)/ Martin -- %%% Martin Cracauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cons.org/cracauer/ FreeBSD - where you want to go, today. http://www.freebsd.org/ ___ freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Non-raid PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports?
is there any PCIe SATA controller with 8 ports that has decent FreeBSD drivers, including NCQ, and decent performance on the level of the ICH or Nvidia onboard ports? I don't need hardware RAID. I suppose I can use an 8-port Areca as a dumb controller, but that's kinda wastish. What do you thing about the SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA 8-Channel Card Controller ? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 ___ freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
