[OpenIndiana-discuss] [developer] HBA recommended except LSI and ARECA

[Discussion list for OpenIndiana]

On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 02:13:38AM +0800, Fred Liu wrote:

> > That uses the PM8001, which I believe is the same ASIC I have direct
> > experience with.  So it would be good to look at too, yes.
> >
> > [fred]: gotcha! I will give it a try. Does it work well with commodity
> > sata drives?

Unknown.  The interface to the ASIC is basically SAS-only; the model in
the 8001 was that the SATL is provided by software, not firmware or
hardware.  Presumably PMC/Adapted implemented a SATL in their bundled
drivers for legacy OSs.  This is markedly different from LSI's model
(and a big advantage of PMC's).  I do not know how far they got on
making that work, because by the time we started using this device we
had long since decided that we would never again ship a storage product
with SATA devices in it.  So from my perspective this HBA is completely
untested with SATA end devices ("commodity" or otherwise).  It may work,
it may not.  Certainly it was intended that it be usable in that
configuration by the people at Sun who wrote the drivers, and it is
possible to make it work if it does not.  But I don't recommend using
SATA, ever.  SAS disks cost $30 more.  Best $30 you'll ever spend.