SAS 5iR - Dell Poweredge 860

goran · Jun 16, 2007, 10:03 AM

Hi guys,

I'm looking to run Pfsense on two Dell poweredge 860 systems:
http://premierconfigure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?config_data=&%7etgt=global_cfg&c=nl&cs=RC1078544&customer_id=RC1078544&fb=1&l=nl&oc=PE8601&s=PAD

It's configured with a SAS 5iR raid controller. It's not exactly on the HCL but I was woundering how hard it would be install drivers for these kinds of devices.

Does anybody have a suggestion?

Thanks!

goran · Jun 22, 2007, 2:54 PM

Anyone has a clue? ;)

cmb · Jun 22, 2007, 10:43 PM

I think it'll work, but the driver has performance issues from what some people have said on the freebsd-stable list. If performance issues are the only problem with it, it shouldn't be a problem in a firewall scenario since disk I/O really doesn't matter unless you have a large scale Squid installation or some similar package using a lot of disk I/O.

goran · Jun 23, 2007, 9:04 AM

Thanks for the response.

As you said it performance wouldn't be a problem as the main 'feature' would be natting and firewalling. Though as I understand there are some packages available for anti-virus / anti-spam. Those could be a nice add-on for customers not wanting to run theire own anti-rubbish package.

I think I'll give it a go then.

Thanks!

cmb · Jun 23, 2007, 11:11 PM

Let us know how it goes. I don't think anybody has tried the SAS PE 860's, I know some have tried the SATA version and had SATA issues but I don't know if that's still an issue.

meh · Jul 17, 2007, 5:32 AM

jaw drops to floor

Lucky…..... I only have ONE 860 and it doesn't even have a RAID controller. (Not used for pfSense either)
It's got a Xeon 3060 though :)

Well, I guess if that's what you need, that's what you get!