[nycbug-talk] 2x 3Ware Escalade 9500S-4LP SATA

[Gordon Smith]

Ike & Chris,

Were you able to get closer to identifying a cause for the problem with
using the 3Ware Escalade 9500S RAID cards with SMP enabled in FBSD 6?  Is it
possible that some other device used in all the affected machines is the
"lynch pin" that causes the instability when combined with the 3Ware card
and SMP?

Cheers,
Gordon

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at lists.nycbug.org [mailto:talk-bounces at lists.nycbug.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Buechler
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 10:55 AM
To: NYC Bug List
Subject: Re: [nycbug-talk] 2x 3Ware Escalade 9500S-4LP SATA

Charles Sprickman wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, Isaac Levy wrote:
>
>> Hey All,
>>
>> I've got 2 brand-spankin' new RAID cards I'd like to ditch, they're 
>> not that smooth to use with FreeBSD (but reported rock-solid for 
>> OpenBSD use):
>>
>> '3Ware Escalade 9500S-4LP SATA'
>> http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata9000.asp
>
>
> Ike,
>
> Just curious what issues you have with these.  I have a 8506-4LP in a 
> 6.0 box I'm testing, and it's been stable.  Also have one in a 
> production 4.11 box and have been very happy with it.  Not a speed 
> demon though on the 6.0 box, and it's still under "giant".



I must say, I'm curious as well.  Curious if it's the same issue I've 
been seeing for about 2 years.  I've used a variety of 3Ware cards in 
FreeBSD boxes, 4.x through 6.x, and they've been solid except for one 
thing.  Enable SMP and everything goes all to hell real fast.  Ranging 
from a dual P3 500 MHz to a dual Xeon 3+ GHz, with several different 
3Ware cards, the symptoms vary from instability (kernel panics ranging 
in frequency, typically a couple times a week at least), to complete 
inability to boot, and a few things in between.  Disabling SMP in the 
kernel, or physically taking out the second proc, always has completely 
resolved the problems.  The hardware is rock solid in every case, 
without SMP on the same boxes with 3Ware cards, or with SMP and without 
the 3Ware cards, I've had 1+ year uptimes. 

haven't had time to look into it any closer than that. 

-Chris
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