Re: New hardware thoughts

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