DragonflyBSD on Areca w/ HAMMER

[Francois Tigeot]

Hi,

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 03:07:25PM +1000, Dean Hamstead wrote:
> 
> Im thinking about reloading my home file server with dragonflybsd.
> Mainly so i can take advantage of the rather awesome looking HAMMER
> filesystem.

:-)

> My home server has an Areca 1260 SAS raid card, which is reported as
> being supported by the arcmsr man page.

It should work fine, like most Areca boards. I have to point out it is
not a SAS but only a SATA model, tho.
Do not expect to be able to plug it into a SAS expander, only
direct-attachment is possible AFAIK.

> Im looking for confirmation from other users that areca cards work
> well,

I've done some extensive testing of different RAID cards one month ago.
All Areca models worked out of the box.

> and that the admin tools are supported from freebsd or
> otherwise implemented independently.

This is something I have yet to check. Howewer, the ARC-1260 has an
ethernet port and you can directly manage it from the network, without
the need to install tools on your main operating system.

> Also id like to get some feedback that HAMMER is up to the task of
> being belted really hard over sustained periods.

HAMMER has been production-ready for years now, there shouldn't be
any reliability issues.

> Im also not able to see find a conclusive answer to if HAMMER can be
> expanded (as im relatively frequently adding more disks, and
> expanding my raid array - currently im using UFS tool growfs)

Someone else will have to answer this question, I've not tried to expand
a HAMMER volume yet.

Best,

-- 
Francois Tigeot