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Hello.

I have been offered a very good deal on the controller in the subject, and I
understand that it is supported by OpenBSD. Does anyone have any experience
with it, and most important, any reason why I would _not_ want to use it for
an OpenBSD server?

TIA
/Helge

On 26/02/2004 9:18 AM, Helge Olsen wrote:
> I have been offered a very good deal on the controller in the subject, and I
> understand that it is supported by OpenBSD. Does anyone have any experience
> with it, and most important, any reason why I would _not_ want to use it for
> an OpenBSD server?

Googling on '"adaptec 2400a" openbsd' shows that some people have had
issues with software RAID, at least on earlier releases of OBSD. Sorry,
don't have first-hand experience.

--
cm

> > I have been offered a very good deal on the controller in the subject,
and I
> > understand that it is supported by OpenBSD. Does anyone have any
experience
> > with it, and most important, any reason why I would _not_ want to use it
for
> > an OpenBSD server?
>

I've had one for a few years now and just recently exchanged it for a
Raidcore RC4852. I'm planning to build my OpenBSD PC around the 2400A but
haven't started yet so my experience is only from Windows.
It has been rock solid, no problems whatsoever and it supports JBOD, RAID0,
RAID1 and RAID5. I've seen better BIOS user interfaces though to create the
arrays but it's manageble. However, I bought it for its RAID5 capability but
the performance in RAID5 mode is lousy at best. Even with a maximum of four
HDs it's a lot slower than even one single HD attached to the motherboard. I
understood later that this is because the XOR engine is implemented in the
firmware and not the hardware. Some performance loss is also caused by the
SCSI-IDE bridge that Adaptec choosed to put on the controller (it's not a
native IDE controller) and the extra data writes generated by the parity in
RAID5 mode. I haven't tried the other RAID modes myself but judging from
benchmarks on the Internet, it doesn't perform much worse than any other
popular controller from Promise or Highpoint.
Great support from Adaptec on this adapter though. They haven't abandoned it
although it's rather old now. With the latest firmware upgrade it even
supports HDs larger than 137GB.

/PP

"news1.comhem.se" <someone@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:wrr%b.84201$dP1.231234@newsc.telia.net...
> > > I have been offered a very good deal on the controller in the subject,
> and I
> > > understand that it is supported by OpenBSD. Does anyone have any
> experience
> > > with it, and most important, any reason why I would _not_ want to use
it
> for
> > > an OpenBSD server?
> >
>
> I've had one for a few years now and just recently exchanged it for a
> Raidcore RC4852. I'm planning to build my OpenBSD PC around the 2400A but
> haven't started yet so my experience is only from Windows.
> It has been rock solid, no problems whatsoever and it supports JBOD,
RAID0,
> RAID1 and RAID5. I've seen better BIOS user interfaces though to create
the
> arrays but it's manageble. However, I bought it for its RAID5 capability
but
> the performance in RAID5 mode is lousy at best. Even with a maximum of
four
> HDs it's a lot slower than even one single HD attached to the motherboard.
I
> understood later that this is because the XOR engine is implemented in the
> firmware and not the hardware. Some performance loss is also caused by the
> SCSI-IDE bridge that Adaptec choosed to put on the controller (it's not a
> native IDE controller) and the extra data writes generated by the parity
in
> RAID5 mode. I haven't tried the other RAID modes myself but judging from
> benchmarks on the Internet, it doesn't perform much worse than any other
> popular controller from Promise or Highpoint.
> Great support from Adaptec on this adapter though. They haven't abandoned
it
> although it's rather old now. With the latest firmware upgrade it even
> supports HDs larger than 137GB.
>
> /PP
>

Thanks for info. I read an Adaptec benchmark paper (can't remember the url)
which compared its performance to other controllers in different RAID
setups, and it seemed to be fast enough for RAID1+0 and RAID0 (obviously)
while being on par with the others on RAID5. I'm sure that Adaptec has done
all they can to make their controller seem attractive, but that's ok since I
am aware of it.
As it will be used in a quite busy file server, IO is important, so I think
I'll go for 4*200gb WD disks and RAID1+0 for performance and reliability. I
was hoping for RAID5 with good performance, but since I get the controller
for less than $100 I have money to spend on bigger disks :-)

/Helge

"Helge Olsen" <helge@nospam-olsentech.net> wrote in message
news:403e016b@news.broadpark.no...
> Hello.
>
> I have been offered a very good deal on the controller in the subject, and
I
> understand that it is supported by OpenBSD. Does anyone have any
experience
> with it, and most important, any reason why I would _not_ want to use it
for
> an OpenBSD server?
>
> TIA
> /Helge
>
>

After 2-3 years i use this raid in my old server.
I make updates to can user hard drives > 137 GB.
But i recive terrible prbleblem. My Raid have problems when
trying to write data in hard disk if disk is full more of 137 GB.
I switch off JBOD function but all disks works very slowly and
i remove raid from system (guarantine has been expired) and put in
garbage. I buy 3ware controler with 3 years guarantine and is work fine.

Regards,
Condor