[nycbug-talk] FreeBSD SATA Raid Controllers

[matador-gtabug at matadorsplace.com]

Heh.

I have a decent one from Adaptec powering my web server.

Adaptec 2410SA

Its nice to be able to have a hardware RAID card.  Meaning, when you put
in the 5.x CD, and choose install partition, it comes up as -- /dev/aacd0*

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/aacd0s1a   117M    71M    37M    66%    /

That's 2 * 80 GByte in a RAID-1 configuration.

When I first tried the card -- when it wasnt in the 2U rackmount at 25
Broadway it is now -- I left the side of the ATX case open.

I then pulled one of the SATA cables from a 80gb.

Of course, top was still running, everything was going ok.  Nothing
stopped, all is good :)

I then burst into a evil laugh, and proclaimed "BSD owns me"

Then I rebooted, and put back the cable while everything was still running.

Upon reboot, I went into Adaptec's BIOS ; and looked at status, and saw it
rebuilding on the drive I reconnected.

I got out, and BSD booted of course.

Then for fun, I pulled first sata cable, and everything was running.  I
rebooted, and nothing booted.

This is obviously because it was still rebuilding, and within those few
minutes, I pulled the drive it was building from.

Total loss of data.

Also, within the bios, you can specify a spare.  So if you have a RAID-1
set like I had.  You can connect a 3rd drive, and tell it to use it in the
event of a castrophy.

I paid ~CDN$475 for the card with taxes.  So ~$355 USD at 0.75 exchange.

I will for sure use this card in future servers I build.

Cheers,

--Matador


> Hi All,
>
> I found sparse info online, but wanted to know if anyone had any
> experience with 4 channel SATA Raid Controllers on FreeBSD?  I want to
> make sure that atacontrol(8) would work for live raid rebuilds etc...
>
> Thanks for any info or urls...
>
> Rocket-
> .ike
>