3ware 9650se

[Ante Karamatić]

David Kempe wrote:

> wondering if anyone is using the above card with dapper?

I do.

> Particularly, are you using software raid and jbod, or native raid6? 
> kernel work ok?

I use Hardware RAID5, but there is a catch. This card isn't supported in 
Dapper. There is a patch for it on ubuntu-kernel list. You should build 
a module on another computer and download it on server during 
installation, before 'scanning for disks'. Driver is available at 
3ware.com or take a look at [1].

> Any comments or recommendations? I need 5TB of storage. I am tempted to 
> go with software raid6, as I like having linux as the only raid 
> controller I have to rely on :)

I could only say that 9650 is the best SATA controller I've worked with. 
As for 5TB... If you create >2TB partition, make sure you have BIOS that 
supports EFI boot loaders and install EFI loader after install, but 
before reboot. If that's not the case, create small disk (not 
partition!) for /. If you are doing software raid, then you will not 
have these problems.

For kernel team: Please, is it possible to include patch from [1] in 
Dapper, cause this is hardware will get popular very fast? It's just an 
(official) driver update.

[1] - 
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2007-February/001262.html