Sun 96GB PCI-E flash accelerator for $20

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I

i386

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Its a lsi hba (or raid controller) with 4x 24gb ssds onboard, you can use it like a normal sas controller.
 
lowfat

lowfat

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Nov 25, 2016
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Damn, shame they don't ship to Canada. FYI this uses SLC NAND. Sequential writes are around 550MB/s.
 
W

wardtj

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Jan 23, 2015
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lowfat said:
Damn, shame they don't ship to Canada. FYI this uses SLC NAND. Sequential writes are around 550MB/s.
Click to expand...
They are very slow. I have a few of these, it's 24GBx4. Not well supported by VMware or Linux, and they stall I/O's pretty easily under light load. I paid about 60ea about 2 years ago.
 
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svtkobra7

svtkobra7

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@BLinux : Spring for the F160 instead ... it is only $0.09 more per GB. :)

intel p3605 | eBay

I bring that up as I've been looking for a new SSD(s) for a VM datastore, and the P3605 is the Oracle OEM version of the Intel 1.6TB P3600, 1/2 Height PCIe (SSDPEDME016T401). It is advertised by Oracle with slightly different specs than Intel:
  • Sequential read = 2500MB/s (v. Intel @ 2600 MB/s)
  • Sequential write = 1500MB/s (v. Intel @ 1600 MB/s)
  • Random read IOPS = 440K v (v. Intel @ 450k)
  • Random write IOPS = 70K (v. Intel @ 56k)
  • Endurance = 5 DPW
At ~$470ish for one of these guys, am I headed down the right path, or: (a) save my $$$ for a better deal, (b) look at something else ???
 
BLinux

BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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svtkobra7 said:
@BLinux : Spring for the F160 instead ... it is only $0.09 more per GB. :)

intel p3605 | eBay

I bring that up as I've been looking for a new SSD(s) for a VM datastore, and the P3605 is the Oracle OEM version of the Intel 1.6TB P3600, 1/2 Height PCIe (SSDPEDME016T401). It is advertised by Oracle with slightly different specs than Intel:
  • Sequential read = 2500MB/s (v. Intel @ 2600 MB/s)
  • Sequential write = 1500MB/s (v. Intel @ 1600 MB/s)
  • Random read IOPS = 440K v (v. Intel @ 450k)
  • Random write IOPS = 70K (v. Intel @ 56k)
  • Endurance = 5 DPW
At ~$470ish for one of these guys, am I headed down the right path, or: (a) save my $$$ for a better deal, (b) look at something else ???
Click to expand...
Those are great for more general purpose use. But for L2ARC and/or ZIL slog, that much space is just a waste. Large L2ARC wastes a lot of RAM, and slog only needs a small amount of space. I have a 1.2TB fusionio, but realized it's too much space. So for $20, 96GB seems more appropriate.
 
svtkobra7

svtkobra7

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BLinux said:
Those are great for more general purpose use. But for L2ARC and/or ZIL slog, that much space is just a waste.
Click to expand...
  • If general purpose use = an ESXi datastore = great. If you think of anything better, see a deal, or the like, ping me please?!? :)
  • I would use it as a local ESXi datastore (I'm sure there is a proper term for that) or pass it through to FreeNAS and present it back to ESXi as iSCSI.
  • As I type that out, I realize how nonsensical it would be to passthrough a PCI device only to hand it back and there is surely a performance hit for doing so. (Still living in Sun F80 land where I did pass through the 8 SSDs to stripe them in FreeNAS)
BLinux said:
Large L2ARC wastes a lot of RAM, and slog only needs a small amount of space. I have a 1.2TB fusionio, but realized it's too much space. So for $20, 96GB seems more appropriate.
Click to expand...
  • Point noted. I suppose there really isn't a have your cake and eat it too type scenario here (that I'm aware of).
  • RE SLOG ... One of the best SLOG devices is the P7000 and it seems like an atrocious waste of storage for what you need, which I believe is precisely: 5 seconds x 0.125 GB (max throughput) = 0.625 GB. To that end, the HGST ZeusRAM, while also expensive, seemed like less of a "waste" considering it is 8GB.
  • RE L2ARC ... Well, ZFS generally gobbles RAM, so that ~1:5 RAM:L2ARC ratio, doesn't surprise me. But on the flip side of that coin provided you have the resources, having an L2ARC can be beneficial.
  • Can't you get creative and partition your drive so you aren't using just 0.625 GB (rounded to 8 GB so you feel better) of your 400 GB / 800 GB / 1.6 TB / or 2 TB of P3700 storage and it is used for more than just that single sliver? I thought I had read something recently about such, but will have to revisit.
Since you created the join between RAM and PLP ...

>> Come to think of it, I wonder if the NAND fabs created ZFS years and years ago, just to drive memory demand higher ??? Far fetched, of course, it is a joke ... just like the power outage at Samsung in March. ;) <<
 
F

fake-name

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Mine showed up friday (pretty fast shipping, actually). Packaging was excellent. The card came with a low-profile PCI bracket, which was annoying.

I happened to have a space LSI-9211 lying about, and the bracket on it was a reasonable fit (I had to flex the screw tabs a tiny, tiny bit), and it installed fine.

I didn't realize the adapter has a battery, but it does.

All 4 SSDs show up in linux without any effort. SMART isn't too helpful, though.

Code: 
4 durr@mainnas:~⟫ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdr
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-147-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     MARVELL SD88SA024SA0 SUN24G 0942M01C9D
Serial Number:    0942M01C9D
Firmware Version: 0519D20Y
User Capacity:    24,575,868,928 bytes [24.5 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS, ATA/ATAPI-7 T13/1532D revision 4a
Local Time is:    Sun May 13 21:09:03 2018 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Read SMART Thresholds failed: scsi error aborted command

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                (    0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x00)         Offline data collection not supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x00) Error logging NOT supported.
                                        No General Purpose Logging support.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x2600   000   000   ---    Old_age   Offline      -       281474959933440
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x30fe   000   004   ---    Old_age   Always       -       281474959933440
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x30fe   000   005   ---    Old_age   Always       -       281474959933440
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x30fe   000   000   ---    Old_age   Always       -       0 (65535 65280)
210 Unknown_Attribute       0x3300   000   000   ---    Old_age   Offline      -       281474959933440
211 Unknown_Attribute       0x3300   000   000   ---    Old_age   Offline      -       281474959933440
212 Unknown_Attribute       0x3100   000   079   ---    Old_age   Offline      -       281474959933440
213 Unknown_Attribute       0x3100   000   000   ---    Old_age   Offline      -       3355443200

SMART Error Log not supported

SMART Self-test Log not supported

Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported
I need to figure out how to get the device to actually do RAID. I assume it does, since it has the battery backup.
 

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F

fake-name

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Anyone know where to find updated firmware for these things?

I attempted to flash it up to a IR firmware, and it seems to have booted OK, but it no longer sees the onboard drives.
 
A

andy

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lowfat said:
Have you used one before? I'm a 1000 km from the border so I'd have to get them to ship it as well.
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I use "cross border pickups" regularly but I pickup locally. They ship apparently and combine items so you do have to double mail 2x
 
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