[OpenIndiana-discuss] Hitachi 4 TB disks + HP Microserver + OI 151 + ZFS

[andy thomas]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012, Enrico wrote:

> did a little research, just because i'm curious about this, my storage needs 
> are much lower :)
>
> they say 
> (http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=13963218&postcount=4727) 
> that SB820M south-bridge on n40l has a limit of 3.2tb for hdd capacity. but 
> there are no such details on the official specs:
> support.amd.com/us/Embedded_TechDocs/47283.pdf
> i hope this helps a bit

A comment from a poster called 'AFireInside' on this same forum says AMD 
confirms that 4 TB disks will work in the N40L Microserver:

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?s=a97e85a928a1e6997245557220f4b729&t=1009531&page=2

Also, HP's own specifications confirm that this unit is suitable for 4 TB 
disks:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13716_div/13716_div.html

A lot of the comments saying otherwise seem to relate to the earlier N36L 
model, earlier BIOS versions and booting Windows from disks larger than 
3.2 TB.

As for using Advanced Format disks with 4K sectors in ZFS pools, the worst 
case scenario would be that these disks can be used in a 
backwards-compatible legacy 512 byte sector format but with slower r/w 
performance. Also, Hitachi provide a Windows utility to re-align 4k 
sectors on their drives although I'm not sure whether this would suit 
OI/ZFS.

Finally, it looks like OI has some support for 4k sector disks:

http://wiki.openindiana.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4883847

and ZFS pools can be created with the 'zpool create block-size 4096 ...' 
option.

I'll take the plunge and order a N40L Microserver plus 3 x 4 TB disks and 
I'll post my experiences here.

cheers, Andy

> On 04/28/2012 08:39 PM, Enrico wrote:
>> Hi roy,
>> yes, right, it was just to tell Andy what I've tested with this hp system 
>> and
>> OI. i think there are many people who have written in detail their 
>> experience
>> about supported hdd sizes in forums easily reachable just by googling n40l. 
>> let
>> me also correct what i've written before: the adaptec 1045/1405 are luckily
>> supported by the aac driver, despite what is written on the man page. the 
>> si3124
>> driver refers to a sata controller i've tested successfully on the pciex1 
>> slot.
>> Best regards,
>> Enrico
>> 
>> On 04/28/2012 06:13 PM, Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk wrote:
>>> It probably won't help much. Any SATA controller should recognize the 4TB
>>> drives, and the problem with the drives lying about sector sizes won't be 
>>> any
>>> better whatever controller you use.
>>> 
>>> roy
>>> 
>>> ----- Opprinnelig melding -----
>>>> maybe this might help:
>>>> http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/controllers/hardware/sas/entry/asc-1045/
>>>> it is recognized on a n40l and it is supported by the si3124 driver
>>>> 
>>>> On 04/28/2012 09:54 AM, andy thomas wrote:
>>>>> For some time now I've successfully been using ZFS RAIDz pools made
>>>>> up of 3 x 1
>>>>> TB or 3 x 2 TB Western Digital Caviar Black disks in a HP
>>>>> MicroServer N36L
>>>>> running OI 148 or 151. I'm now thinking of using the newer HP N40L
>>>>> microserver
>>>>> with 3 x 4 TB disks (Hitachi DeskStart 7K4000) which have 4096 byte
>>>>> sectors. Can
>>>>> anyone foresee a problem with this?
>>>>> 
>>>>> I plan to set up several of these storage servers in mirrored pairs
>>>>> so I want to
>>>>> make sure this will work before ordering anything.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks in advance for any comments or advice,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Andy
>>>>> 
>>>>> ---------------------------------
>>>>> Andy Thomas,
>>>>> Time Domain Systems
>>>>> 
>>>>> Tel: +44 (0)7866 556626
>>>>> Fax: +44 (0)20 8372 2582
>>>>> http://www.time-domain.co.uk
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
>>>> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>>>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>>> 
>
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---------------------------------
Andy Thomas,
Time Domain Systems

Tel: +44 (0)7866 556626
Fax: +44 (0)20 8372 2582
http://www.time-domain.co.uk