Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751223AbVJGGrT (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Oct 2005 02:47:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751246AbVJGGrT (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Oct 2005 02:47:19 -0400 Received: from web35509.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([66.163.179.133]:51084 "HELO web35509.mail.mud.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751223AbVJGGrS (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Oct 2005 02:47:18 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=vPp8R/J0CJvOlVjgmzbJYafahcXdVXB63vcLfgmRAvYii/mzGHpLgUijfEn6IdfKX4/V6liov8NdzZEvzaRNB9MLTg/YyPDdO11zhA1+9F2DWJjWIY2nZOORsmhIInZmPCR0x38iaSVxvJoVxelm0ytlNTuwSo33TyVKWt3PeCQ= ; Message-ID: <20051007064718.44670.qmail@web35509.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 23:47:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan C Marinescu Subject: Re: quick (software versus hardware raid) question (cpu) To: Dan C Marinescu , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20051007062425.56683.qmail@web35507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2879 Lines: 92 it seams to me tha SCSI_SATA_SIL works with Sil 3114! // happy now :-) daniel --- Dan C Marinescu wrote: > hi there, > > i have a mission critical system with an unsuported > raid controller (4 sata channels, sil 3114). so, i > set > up a software raid... now, the problem is at pick > hours, when nics hardware interrupts compete with > the > software raid kernel thingie... i know you avoid > spawning threads but regarless the scheduller's > preeptivenes, the two kernel tasks are > scheduller-wise > competing and this is killing my server (slowing it > down, cpu is at 100% user and 40-60% kernel). > another > issue is that not being able to "see" the "bios" > partition (controller is totally unsuported) i > cannot > boot (unless i go like raid 1 on /boot). so what > about > performance? what about scalability? if case of 1 > array (hardware raid) versus n distinct sata > connectors, you big o notation goes like O(n) > instead > of O(1), no matter how smart the scheduller _is_ > implemented, for the simple reason that hardware > interrupts are hardware interrupts... preemptive or > not, you have to serve them sooner or later and it's > one thing to sever 1 instead of n... another issue > is > reliability. if you use software raid, and the > kernel > goes down (for unrelated reasons) your parity > calculations and the raid cache go down as well, > huh? > and the other way around... the raid goes down, > taking > the sata driver with him... that takes the whole > system down, huh? well, maybe i am too pesimistic > but > still, the scalability concern remains! nics are > huge > scheduller enamies... they have to do so much with > cpu, and transfers to system memory, in order to > actually server thier purpose (protocols) it seams > to > me that there isn't much left for user-land and > software raid... (especially when many nics and many > satas are involved...) > > in short, could you recommend me a peformant (sata > connectors) raid controller, which is fully > supported? > please don't go like "make gconfig" cause i've been > there... thanks! > > regards, > daniel > > > > __________________________________ > Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 > http://mail.yahoo.com > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line > "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at > http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/