suggested RAID controller for FreeBSD 6.1 + PostgreSQL 8.1

I am currently running FreeBSD 4.11 (due to IT requirements for now) and
Adaptec's 2200S RAID controller running in RAID5. I was advised in the past
that the 2200S is actually a poor performing controller and obviously the
RAID5 is less than ideal for databases. I chose to run the controller in
RAID5 as the tech I talked to suggested that the 2200S was primarily designed
for RAID5 and it would operate the best that way. My server is a dual Xeon
3.06Ghz box running on a motherboard approximately 2-3 years old now. I'd
like to know what an ideal RAID controller that would be compatible with
FreeBSD 6.1 would be these days.

Thanks in advance,
Kenji

Kenji Morishige wrote:
> I am currently running FreeBSD 4.11 (due to IT requirements for now) and
> Adaptec's 2200S RAID controller running in RAID5. I was advised in the past
> that the 2200S is actually a poor performing controller and obviously the
> RAID5 is less than ideal for databases. I chose to run the controller in
> RAID5 as the tech I talked to suggested that the 2200S was primarily designed
> for RAID5 and it would operate the best that way. My server is a dual Xeon
> 3.06Ghz box running on a motherboard approximately 2-3 years old now. I'd
> like to know what an ideal RAID controller that would be compatible with
> FreeBSD 6.1 would be these days.
>
>

I've had good experience with 3Ware on FreeBSD - painless installs and
excellent performance! (in my case the older 7506 models for (P)ATA on
4.10, 5.4, 6.0 and 6.1).

It looks like the new 9550 series is supported in 6.1 onwards. Given
that this has been added recently I would suggest mailing
freebsd-hardware to see what experiences folks are having (I don't
recall seeing any postings about issues with the 9000 or 9550 series).

Cheers

Mark

Thanks for the suggestion Mark, though the server chassis I am trying to
utilize already has 4 10,000 RPM SCSI drives with SCA interfaces. Ideally I
would like to use the existing drives and chassis and find another SCSI RAID
controller. It looks like 3Ware only makes ATA controllers.
-Kenji

On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 12:52:09PM +1200, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> Kenji Morishige wrote:
> >I am currently running FreeBSD 4.11 (due to IT requirements for now) and
> >Adaptec's 2200S RAID controller running in RAID5. I was advised in the
> >past
> >that the 2200S is actually a poor performing controller and obviously the
> >RAID5 is less than ideal for databases. I chose to run the controller in
> >RAID5 as the tech I talked to suggested that the 2200S was primarily
> >designed
> >for RAID5 and it would operate the best that way. My server is a dual Xeon
> > 3.06Ghz box running on a motherboard approximately 2-3 years old now.
> > I'd
> >like to know what an ideal RAID controller that would be compatible with
> >FreeBSD 6.1 would be these days.
> >
> >
>
> I've had good experience with 3Ware on FreeBSD - painless installs and
> excellent performance! (in my case the older 7506 models for (P)ATA on
> 4.10, 5.4, 6.0 and 6.1).
>
> It looks like the new 9550 series is supported in 6.1 onwards. Given
> that this has been added recently I would suggest mailing
> freebsd-hardware to see what experiences folks are having (I don't
> recall seeing any postings about issues with the 9000 or 9550 series).
>
> Cheers
>
> Mark

On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 13:10, Kenji Morishige wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestion Mark, though the server chassis I am trying to
> utilize already has 4 10,000 RPM SCSI drives with SCA interfaces. Ideally I
> would like to use the existing drives and chassis and find another SCSI RAID
> controller. It looks like 3Ware only makes ATA controllers.

Take a look at LSI. They make solid and reliable SCSI RAID
controllers. be sure and get the BBU cache.

Take a look at: http://www.icp-vortex.com/english/index_e.htm

They have always made good RAID controllers.

Cheers
Paul

On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 11:10 -0700, Kenji Morishige wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestion Mark, though the server chassis I am trying to
> utilize already has 4 10,000 RPM SCSI drives with SCA interfaces. Ideally I
> would like to use the existing drives and chassis and find another SCSI RAID
> controller. It looks like 3Ware only makes ATA controllers.
> -Kenji
>
> On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 12:52:09PM +1200, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> > Kenji Morishige wrote:
> > >I am currently running FreeBSD 4.11 (due to IT requirements for now) and
> > >Adaptec's 2200S RAID controller running in RAID5. I was advised in the
> > >past
> > >that the 2200S is actually a poor performing controller and obviously the
> > >RAID5 is less than ideal for databases. I chose to run the controller in
> > >RAID5 as the tech I talked to suggested that the 2200S was primarily
> > >designed
> > >for RAID5 and it would operate the best that way. My server is a dual Xeon
> > > 3.06Ghz box running on a motherboard approximately 2-3 years old now.
> > > I'd
> > >like to know what an ideal RAID controller that would be compatible with
> > >FreeBSD 6.1 would be these days.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I've had good experience with 3Ware on FreeBSD - painless installs and
> > excellent performance! (in my case the older 7506 models for (P)ATA on
> > 4.10, 5.4, 6.0 and 6.1).
> >
> > It looks like the new 9550 series is supported in 6.1 onwards. Given
> > that this has been added recently I would suggest mailing
> > freebsd-hardware to see what experiences folks are having (I don't
> > recall seeing any postings about issues with the 9000 or 9550 series).
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Mark
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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>
> http://archives.postgresql.org

Kenji Morishige wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestion Mark, though the server chassis I am trying to
> utilize already has 4 10,000 RPM SCSI drives with SCA interfaces. Ideally I
> would like to use the existing drives and chassis and find another SCSI RAID
> controller. It looks like 3Ware only makes ATA controllers.
>

I should have checked that the 2200S was a *SCSI* RAID controller, sorry!

Cheers

Mark

--On July 6, 2006 2:21:15 PM -0400 Paul Khavkine
<paul(dot)khavkine(at)distributel(dot)ca> wrote:

>
>
> Take a look at: http://www.icp-vortex.com/english/index_e.htm
>
> They have always made good RAID controllers.

I'll give a huge thumbs up for the ICPs, and also make sure you get the BBU
cache as well (batter back-up) otherwise TURN OFF YOUR WRITE CACHE ON THE
CARD. You will hose your database severely if you don't the one time hte
machine acidentally loses power.

I'm getting ready to put together a pretty beefy server with either an LSI
or ICP card (we're discussing options at this point) -- I've had really
good experience with the all of the ICP cards we've used. LSI used to be
worthless, couldn't do anything online at all in any form of *nix, but
atleast in Linux you can now, I don't know about FreeBSD, look into that,
drives fail, and it bites to have to take your server down, and leave it
down for a rebuild.

On Jul 5, 2006, at 7:46 PM, Kenji Morishige wrote:

> like to know what an ideal RAID controller that would be compatible
> with
> FreeBSD 6.1 would be these days.

LSI MegaRAID 320-2X and put half disks on one channel, half on the
other, and MIRROR+STRIPE them (ie, RAID10).

There is nothing faster for FreeBSD 6.

Just make sure you don't buy a Sun Fire X4100 to put it in, as it
will not fit :-(