Fellow FreeBSD Fans,
Would y'all boldly use ZFS with an LSI9268-8i 9267-8i RAID controller (with no JBOD option)? And if so, would you configure its eight SAS disks as a single RAID 6 virtual disk, or eight RAID 0 virtual disks?
Here's why I'm asking.
On page six of FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, Michael W Lucas and Allan Jude write, "Do not use a hardware RAID controller. Ever." And on page eight, "If you're condemned to use hardware RAID, probably because you were a very bad person in a previous life, present the operating system with single disks. If the RAID controller insists on formatting each drive as RAID-0, you're stuck."
So, a comrade and I were putting 10.3-RELEASE amd64 on a computer today with an LSI9268-8i 9267-8i + eight SAS disks. It seems that this is one of the unlucky LSI cards that can't be flashed with IT firmware. We tried to swap the card out for an LSI 9211-8i, yet the computer was too persnickety to accept it--no POST messages; no detection by mfi(4)--the computer Just Said No. 'tried a couple 9211-8i firmware levels; 'tried every slot in the computer, all to no avail.
Back to the forbidden LSI9268-8i 9267-8i RAID controller we went.
Vaguely remembering the author's sage words, "Do not use a hardware RAID controller. Ever," we made a MegaRAID virtual disk, and put UFS on top. But we'd really be happier using ZFS.
This9268-8i 9267-8i's cache is set to Write-Through mode; it doesn't have a BBU.
And here's how the card shows up while booting:
Thank you very much!
Would y'all boldly use ZFS with an LSI
Here's why I'm asking.
On page six of FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, Michael W Lucas and Allan Jude write, "Do not use a hardware RAID controller. Ever." And on page eight, "If you're condemned to use hardware RAID, probably because you were a very bad person in a previous life, present the operating system with single disks. If the RAID controller insists on formatting each drive as RAID-0, you're stuck."
So, a comrade and I were putting 10.3-RELEASE amd64 on a computer today with an LSI
Back to the forbidden LSI
Vaguely remembering the author's sage words, "Do not use a hardware RAID controller. Ever," we made a MegaRAID virtual disk, and put UFS on top. But we'd really be happier using ZFS.
This
And here's how the card shows up while booting:
Code:
mfi0: <ThunderBolt> port 0x8000-0x80ff mem 0xdfd60000-0xdfd63fff,0xdfd00000-0xdfd3ffff irq 26 at device 0.0 on pci1
mfi0: Using MSI
mfi0: Megaraid SAS driver Ver 4.23
mfi0: FW MaxCmds = 1008, limiting to 128
mfi0: MaxCmd = 1008, Drv MaxCmd = 128, MaxSgl = 70, state = 0xb75003f0
mfi0: 2607 (523163360s/0x0020/info) - Shutdown command received from host
mfi0: 2608 (boot + 8s/0x0020/info) - Firmware initialization started (PCI ID 005b/1000/9267/1000)
mfi0: 2609 (boot + 8s/0x0020/info) - Firmware version 3.340.65-3296
mfi0: 2610 (boot + 9s/0x0020/info) - Package version 23.22.0-0023
mfi0: 2611 (boot + 9s/0x0020/info) - Board Revision 02D
mfi0: 2612 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0a(e0xfc/s1)
mfi0: 2613 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0a(e0xfc/s1) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=02, sasAddr=5000cca056179f5d,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2614 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0b(e0xfc/s0)
mfi0: 2615 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0b(e0xfc/s0) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=03, sasAddr=5000cca05617c2c9,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2616 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0c(e0xfc/s3)
mfi0: 2617 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0c(e0xfc/s3) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=00, sasAddr=5000cca05617c791,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2618 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0d(e0xfc/s2)
mfi0: 2619 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0d(e0xfc/s2) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=01, sasAddr=5000cca05609fbdd,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2620 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0e(e0xfc/s7)
mfi0: 2621 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0e(e0xfc/s7) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=04, sasAddr=5000cca05613e695,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2622 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0f(e0xfc/s6)
mfi0: 2623 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 0f(e0xfc/s6) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=05, sasAddr=5000cca056055935,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2624 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 10(e0xfc/s5)
mfi0: 2625 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 10(e0xfc/s5) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=06, sasAddr=5000cca056176bed,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2626 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 11(e0xfc/s4)
mfi0: 2627 (boot + 27s/0x0002/info) - Inserted: PD 11(e0xfc/s4) Info: enclPd=fc, scsiType=0, portMap=07, sasAddr=5000cca05617c271,0000000000000000
mfi0: 2628 (523163410s/0x0020/info) - Time established as 07/30/16 3:10:10; (29 seconds since power on)
mfi0: 2629 (523163419s/0x0020/info) - Time established as 07/30/16 3:10:19; (38 seconds since power on)
mfi0: 2630 (523163485s/0x0020/info) - Host driver is loaded and operational
Thank you very much!
Last edited: