Message-ID: <4BE7271C.8050109@2ndquadrant.com>
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 17:20:28 -0400
From: Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>
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To: Craig James <craig_james@emolecules.com>
CC: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Dell Perc HX00 RAID controllers: What's inside?
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	<4BE4526E.9050703@agliodbs.com> <4BE481E6.9040701@emolecules.com>
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Craig James wrote:
> Now that it's time to buy a new computer, Dell has changed their RAID 
> models from the Perc6 to Perc H200 and such.  Does anyone know what's 
> inside these?  I would hope they've stuck with the Megaraid controller...

The H700 and H800 are both based on the LSI 2180 chipset:  
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/Storlink/H700H800/en/UG/HTML/chapterb.htm

I'm not sure what's in the H200, but since it does not have a write 
cache you don't want one of those anyway.

Note that early versions of these cards shipped such that you could not 
use non-Dell drives with them.  Customer feedback was so overwhelmingly 
negative that last month they announced that the next firmware update 
will remove that restriction:  
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/906/p/19324790/19689719.aspx#19689719

If I were you, I'd tell Dell that you refuse to make your purchase until 
that firmware release is actually available, such that your system ships 
without that restriction.  That's the right thing to do for the 
protection of your company, and it sends the right message to their 
sales team too:  this sort of nonsense only reduces their sales.

-- 
Greg Smith  2ndQuadrant US  Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com   www.2ndQuadrant.us