[geeks] In which 3Ware can bite me

[nate at portents.com]

> And forgot to ask ... can anyone here with first-hand experience offer

Can't offer first-hand experience, but can offer what is probably a good
suggestion...

> useful advice on what OSen have:
> (a) out-of-the-box 9500 RAID support, since I'm clearly not getting any
> from 3Ware;

FreeBSD 7.1
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R/hardware.html

No experience, but since it supports the 3ware 9500 series and has ZFS,
seems like a good place to start:

http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFS

> (b) software RAID1 support for mirrored boot;

Probably FreeBSD (I've done it in Linux, and would be surprised if FreeBSD
didn't).

> (c) a decently functional, decently configurable, decently fast, and
> generally not-brain-damaged nfsd?

I'd expect FreeBSD to have a good one, but I don't personally know.

> I'd hoped to use this box to learn both Solaris 10 and ZFS.  It seems
> clear now that neither of those is happening, but I may as well at least
> get some use out of the box.

FreeBSD should get you ZFS anyway.

- Nate