>>>>> "sb" == Simon Breden <no-re...@opensolaris.org> writes:
sb> The situation regarding lack of open source drivers for these
sb> LSI 1068/1078-based cards is quite scary.
meh I dunno. The amount of confusion is a little scary, I guess.
sb> And did I understand you correctly when you say that these LSI
sb> 1068/1078 drivers write labels to drives,
no incorrect. I'm using a 1068 (``closed-source / proprietary
driver''), and it doesn't write such labels.
The firmware piece is big, so not all 1068 are necessarily the same:
I think some are capable of RAID0/RAID1. but so far I've not heard of
a 1068 demanding LSI labels, and mine doesn't.
The LSI 1078 (PERC) with the open-source x86-only driver is the one
with the big ``closed-source / proprietary'' firmware blob running on
the card itself. Others have reported this blob demands LSI labels on
the disks. I don't have one.
who knows, maybe you can cross-flash some weird firmware from some
strange variant of card that doesn't need LSI labels on each disk, or
maybe some binary blob config tool will flip a magic undocumented
switch inside the card to make it JBOD-able. I don't like to deal in
such circus-hoop messes unless someone else can do the work and tell
me exactly how.
sb> go for the non-LSI controllers -- e.g. the AOC-SAT2-MV8
no, you misunderstood because there are two kinds of LSI card with two
different drivers.
compared to Marvell, LSI 1068 has a cheaper bus (PCIe), performs
better, and seems to have fewer bugs (ex. 6787312 is duplicate of a
secret Marvell bug), and its proprietary driver includes a SPARC
object. The Marvell controller is still ``closed-source /
proprietary'' driver (Linux driver for the same chip: open source), so
you gain nothing there. The one thing Marvell might gain you is, it's
SATA framework, so smartctl/hd may be closer to working. On Linux
both cards use their uniform SCSI framework so smartctl works.
I have both AOC-SAT2-MV8 and AOC-USAS-L8i and suggest the latter. You
have to unscrew teh reverse-polarity card-edge bracket and buy some
octopus cables from thenerds.net or adaptec or similar, is all.
AOC-USAS-L8i works with these cables among others:
http://www.thenerds.net/3WARE.AMCC_Serial_Attached_SCSI_SAS_Internal_Cable.CBLSFF8087OCF10M.html
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