The LSI 9201-16i definitely does pass SMART functions, because I see them listed for all the other drives. It's just odd that only one drive doesn't list the serial number, which I believe is what's preventing SMART from verifying that drive. Correct me if I'm wrong on that statement.
Not sure.. keep reading.
Heya Mlovelace,
I wasn't able to get the 'smartctl -a /dev/daX' command to work. And just curious, what numbers are you pulling with your LSI board?
So how do you know it passes SMART functions if smartctl -a didn't work. Literally, smartctl -a *is* a query of the SMART data on your drive. So if it's not working then what is working? Getting more confused the more I read.
Every device can be a bottleneck. Might be your SSD, might be your NIC. The only thing you can do is figure out what the least common denominator is and make that faster. That's all.
I don't recommend Plextor SSDs around here. Intel are the way to go for L2ARCs and ZILs. There's plenty of users that have bought other drives (read: cheaper) and they've more often than not found out that the SSD didn't perform as advertised and, in some cases, actually made their server slower because the SSD wasn't fast enough.
All this thread is doing right now is talking about theoretical "what might be the problem". We could easily be talking about the possibility that the universe will end on Dec 31st and be just as productive.
What you need to do is read our stickies, do some of our tests for finding bottlenecks and use those results to figure out where your limitations are. Until then we're spinning wheels and getting nowhere fast. ;)