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Can someone recommend a good raid card for OpenSolaris (2009.6)? Requirements: 6-8 SATA ports, RAID5, preferable fanless (the server will be installed in the office environment).

p.s. please don't offer to use raidz. it's slow like any other software raid.

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2 Answers

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I've used 3Ware (only 4-port) SATA cards on Windows, Linux and Xen so I can't comment on specifically OpenSolaris. I have yet to have an issue with them yet. The 8-port 3Ware 9650SE-8LPML "officially" supports OpenSolaris 2008.11 as stated here. I realize the versions aren't quite a match, but I can't imagine it being too much of an issue unless 2009.6 is has changed radically.

You should also specific what bus (PCI, PCI-X, PCI-e, etc. etc.) you plan on installing the RAID card as different RAID card vendors tend to put different features on different buses. For example, 3Ware supports RAID 6 only on PCI-e x4 for 8-ports or more.

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I have pci-e as well as pci-x on my board so I don't care about a bus. I like 3ware and know 9650SE support OpenSolaris 2008.11 but 3ware support is very skeptic about 2009.6. I will test it but it seems it is officially not supported neither by 3ware nor by Sun. – disserman Sep 17 '09 at 23:43
Well, Areca is another solid vendor in the SATA RAID market. I don't want to recommend gambling on a particular vendor's support but I'm not aware of many other vendors that offer such support for OpenSolaris. – osij2is Sep 18 '09 at 4:03
Well, I suggest taking a look at the HCL from OpenSolaris here: sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/os/components/views/… It mentions a lot more Intel, HP, LSI based controllers but not 3Ware directly. Take a look around the list but I would start here. – osij2is Sep 18 '09 at 19:23
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I use the Areca 1220 and it seems to be well supported by Solaris.

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what about a fan? is it loud? – disserman Sep 17 '09 at 23:45
The card itself isn't loud, but if you have have lots of hard drives they can be loud. You'll also need to cool them which can add some additional noise. – Amuck Sep 18 '09 at 17:24
we have a special enclosure system to cool 8 hdds with one 12" 1200rpm fan so that's no problem. all hdds are below 115F – disserman Sep 20 '09 at 0:32

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