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

[Enrico]

thank you Andy for this info
let us know your experience when you'll setup-up the disks

On 04/29/2012 09:24 AM, andy thomas wrote:
> 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