[Beowulf] Supermicro H8SSL-R10 versus H8SSL-i motherboards,, Broadcom SATA chips

[Maurice Hilarius]

 Bruce Allen wrote:

>Supermicro makes a couple of single processor dual core Opteron 
>motherboards based on the Serverworks/Broadcom HT1000 chipset:
>
>http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/HT1000/H8SSL-i.cfm
>http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/HT1000/H8SSL-R10.cfm
>
>As far as I can tell, the ONLY difference between these motherboards is 
>that the H8SSL-i does not support the Broadcom Xelcore Raid 0/1.  The 
>second system supports RAID 0/1.  But I'm not quite sure what this 
>actually means!
>
>..
>Has anyone on the list seen or used a Supermicro H8SSL-R10 motherboard? 
>I have been unable to get one. If you have access to it, could you please 
>run 'lspci' on it.  Does it report Broadcom device 0241 (RAIDCore RC4000)?
>
>My impression is that on the systems we are building (which will at most 
>have two drives) we can use standard Linux software RAID to mirror the two 
>drives with the BCM5785, so we don't need the RAIDCore RC4000 support. 
>Does anyone konw what advantages (if any) that might offer?
>
>Cheers,
> 	Bruce
>
We too are waiting for SMicro to release the Serverworks boards with
**functioning** RAID on them.
For example we are using their 1020P-T server, but for now have to use a
3rd party card, such as the 3Ware 9550 to get this working.

As I understand it the problem is something in the SWorks/Broadcom chip.

As far as "RAID" goes, from what I understand the SWorks is still a
"FRAID" device, so I think your idea about using mdadm or similar
software RAID makes good sense for a RAID1 scenario.
About the only drawback that counts (to some) would be the lack of disk
hot-swap capability.


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