3Ware KB Article Clearance
Some 3Ware articles I found useful. From: http://www.3ware.com/KB/kb.asp
- Q14928 - FAQ: Do you have support for Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14928 - Q15385 - Compatibility: I want to use the 3ware 9690SA with the SATA Seagate Barracuda ES.2 family drives (ST31000340NS, ST3750330NS, ST3500320NS, ST3250310NS drives) drives. Are they compatible with each other?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15385 - Q14911 - How to question: I have a 9550SX with a RAID 5 array on it. I suspect one of the drives is slow, causing overall lower performance in my array. How can I figure out which drive is the culprit?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14911 - Q14952 - Performance/Optimization: I am running a 3ware 9550SX/9590SE under Windows. What kind of performance can I expect to get?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14952 - Q14956 - Performance/Optimization: Hi, I have a 9550SX, 9590SE and 9650SE. Performance is very good when I transfer data locally, but when I transfer data over the network performance is very slow. How can I fix this?
A firmware fix for this performance problem is available in the 9.4.2 or newer code set
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14956 - Q14875 - How to question: I am using Ghost with 3ware controllers and it is very slow. How can I speed this up?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14875 - Q14855 - Performance/Optimization: Are there any benchmark results available for the 9550SX?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14855 - Q11690 - Performance/Optimization: I am using the Atto Bench32.exe benchmark under Windows to measure performance with my 9500S, 9550SX, 9550SXU, 9590SE, 9650SE, or 9690SA controllers. Is there any way to increase the Atto performance numbers?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=11690 - Q12546 - Software Configuration: I was using the 8506 and 9500S in my SuperMicro X5DPE-8 and getting great write performance with RAID 0 and RAID 5. I moved the controller and drives to a SuperMicro P4SCI motherboard and now my write performance is about half of what it was before. The read performance is the same. What is going on?
This applies only to PCI and PCI-X, and not PCI-Express (e.g. 9590SE, 9650SE).
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=12546 - Q15129 - FAQ: I am using a 3ware 9650SE in a Windows system as a domain controller. On reboot the controller's write cache is disabled.
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15129 - Q15244 - Performance/Optimization: I am not getting the performance I expect. What can I do?
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15244
Any I miss?
3Ware 9650SE and Windows Server 2008 Boot Problems
Summary:
The latest firmware/drivers (February 2008 beta) with 3Ware 9650SE (8LP) and Windows Server 2008 do not get along. The system gets to the boot screen with the progress indicator, then locks up.
The problem is resolved with older firmware version 9.4.0.1 with bootloader 3.05.00.002, using the latest beta drivers (3wareDrv.sys is version 3.0.3.108). I have Windows Server 2008 Enterprise running now.
Workarounds:
- (March 20th 2008) Use the latest in-engineering firmware and drivers, as per http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14928
Firmware 3.08.00.022 or newer should be compatible, when using the driver 3.0.3.108. - (March 2nd 2008) Downgrade the firmware. Download firmware/bootloader: http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15103 (older firmware 9.4.0.1 with bootloader 3.05.00.002)
Drivers: http://www.3ware.com/download/productseng/Driver/windrv_x64.zip (I'm using 3wareDrv.sys, version 3.0.3.108)
Known Issues:
- Back up your RAID containers before downgrading - I had some weird errors. I ended up nuking my RAID containers, then recreating them.
- I'm running the latest management utilities - no problems so far.
Details:
January 13th 2008
I have a Tyan FT48 with a quad core Xeon E5335. I moved my 3Ware 9650SE (8LP) over to it this afternoon to do a Windows Server 2008 RC (Hyper V) install and discovered that the drivers provided for 3Ware are non-functional with Server 2008. The system hangs at start up, at the Server 2008 boot up screen. The green progress indicator locks up.
This is also happening with a 9550SX on a different system. But just to be safe: The system BIOS is the latest available, 2.00b, from Tyan.
The 3Ware 9.5.0 production driver, and the in-engineering drivers have been tested.
Both cards have been updated to the latest firmware.
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14928 is not very helpful. Has anyone tried the 9650SE with Vista? Any boot problems?
My server remains on Server 2003 R2 x64 until this issue is resolved. I'm disappointed that 3Ware doesn't have functioning drivers, still.
January 15th 2008
My email to 3Ware was promptly replied to. They've sent me updated drivers, soon to be posted on their website under "In Engineering", I'm told. Bypassing the signature requirement is still necessary at this point, via http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14928 I'm told.
I will get these tested the coming weekend.
February 2nd 2008
I got the 2008 RTM bits off Connect today - and I'll try to find some time to get this tested this coming weekend, using the latest engineering drivers.
February 6th 2008
I'm not checking the 3ware KB daily at http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=14928 , but some more 'information' has been posted: 64-bit Vista/Windows 2008 support is not currently available. A firmware upgrade for the 9550SX(U)/9590SE/9650SE is required. This will be officially supported with the 9.5.1 code set (due out August 2008), but a beta version will be posted to the 'In Engineering Phase' section of the 3ware web site soon (February 2008).
Later this month? This is surely a problem that became obvious in earlier builds. Perhaps I will dig up some older beta builds of 2008 that I have, and test. I'm curious as to why they've done so little. I'm very disappointed.
February 6th 2008 (again)
3Ware says they found the current bug last week (week of January 28th.) They say they should have updated code by the end of this week (week of February 4th) and testing will be done next week (week of February 11th). I'm told the code will be posted to the "in-engineering" section the week after (week of February 18th).
Pretty disappointing. But at least they respond to emails, with real answers, unlike Adaptec.
February 26th 2008
Tried this past weekend with latest beta firmware on the 9650SE with the latest driver. No boot. Argh.
March 2nd 2008
Success! I booted from a Windows 98SE floppy, and flashed my 9650SE (8LP) to 9.4.0.1 with bootloader 3.05.00.002 from http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15103 .
My RAID containers were a bit wonky in the BIOS after, so make sure you do a complete backup of your RAID containers first. I ended up re-creating the containers - and everything seems functional, so far. Using that firmware and bootloader, coupled with the latest beta driver (3wareDrv.sys is version 3.0.3.108) I'm able to get Windows Server 2008 x64 RTM booting.
Thank you to the person who left the comment! I have contacted 3Ware support, and they have updated the KB article to reflect this workaround.
Drive failure and replacement a breeze
In my IBM xSeries server, I have a 3Ware 9550SX 8 port SATA2 RAID card with two 80 GB SATA2 drives in RAID1. One of the drives died last night during the nightly verify, and I received an email: "Jan 05, 2008 12:10.39AM (0x04:0x000A): Drive error detected: port=0, unit=0"
I went to Canada Computers this morning and purchased a Seagate 7200.10 160GB (ST3160815AS) drive. Pulled the drive out of the simple-swap slot, removed the 4 screws and put the new drive in. The 3Ware card started rebuilding.
Painless. Simple. Fast. It's already 32% done rebuilding.
On the Performance Problem with Dell CERC SATA 1.5/6ch RAID Controller
Revisions:
Originally published December 22 2006.
Summary:
The Dell CERC SATA 1.5/6ch RAID controller is a rebranded Adaptec card, available on Dell's PowerEdge 1800+ and NAS units. Dell sold OEM solutions with this card, coupling it with 250GB or larger drives, touting a 1TB or larger storage solution in 4U.
The problem is, the card performs horribly, compared to other competing solutions. This card is a poor representation of what SATA is capable of doing. Avoid this card if you can.
Dell never officially made claims about the performance of this hardware, but providing it as an option, and refusing to publish benchmarks or performance data means that a lot of people have this card in production - and hate it.
If you need a SATA hardware RAID card for a file server, web server... get a 3Ware 9650SE card.
Details:
As Dell doesn't provide a BBU option with this card, I used this with the write cache disabled. I had 3x320GB WD RE SATA 7200RPM drives in RAID5, and 2x120 WD SATA drives in RAID 1, attached.
I got around 40 MB/sec read and ~3 MB/s write with this card, on my RAID 5 set. This is abysmal, considering its marketed as a "hardware RAID solution". Updated the card firmware, as well as the server BIOS. No use.
Contacting Dell was no help. They scolded me for using a PE1800 with SATA disks; their SCSI solution was clearly the way to go. At a premium of $2000 or more, it ought to be...
I made some changes in the BIOS, and discovered that if I disabled the onboard CERC2S SATA, and onboard LSI SCSI controller, I was able to get much better performance - around 40 MB read/write.
Characterizing the Poor performance:
I never spent the time to run benchmarks with this card. Although I may have a chance in the future, now that I've FINALLY been able to get this card out of service.
However, I have rebuilt the RAID5 set on this card numerous times;
3xWD3200SD (RE, 8 MB cache, 7200RPM, SATA 1.5 Gbps, no NCQ), stripe size 64 kb. Full rebuild with NO load on the drives took 82 hours. EIGHTY-TWO HOURS.
Frustrated with the poor performance, I then added a 4th disk, so I had 4xWD3200SD plugged into a 3Ware 9650SE card. Same 64 kb stipe.
With load on the disks, a rebuild to 42% completion took 3.23 hours. The full rebuild around 7.5 hours.
Comparing just rebuild times, difference is night and day. If I ever had a drive fail on the Dell CERC, I'd likely have another drive fail before the array even finished rebuilding.
I was scolded for having purchased a CERC 1.5/6ch SATA array for such a purpose. The ONLY specifications that Dell had published on the array that they were able to give me over the phone was, "It uses an Intel processor for hardware RAID."
Conclusion:
I have a SATA "RAID" card that performs horribly. While this card is perhaps a nice way to add 6 SATA ports to a system, the cost ($349 with cost of system) is quite hefty. The 3Ware 9650SE 8 port comes in a $591 retail, but the performance difference, driver support, and management utilities are lightyears ahead.