ZFS SAS/SATA controller recommendations

Posted by ewwhite on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by ewwhite
Published on 2009-11-12T14:32:01Z Indexed on 2010/06/12 19:23 UTC
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opensolaris

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zfs

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proliant

I've been working with OpenSolaris and ZFS for 6 months, primarily on a Sun Fire x4540 and standard Dell and HP hardware. One downside to standard Perc and HP Smart Array controllers is that they do not have a true "passthrough" JBOD mode to present individual disks to ZFS.

One can configure multiple RAID 0 arrays and get them working in ZFS, but it impacts hotswap capabilities (thus requiring a reboot upon disk failure/replacement). I'm curious as to what SAS/SATA controllers are recommended for home-brewed ZFS JBODs. In addition, how does battery-backed write cache (BBWC) play into the solution?

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