mates,
little updates, about week ago I install Areca ARC-1882-24 RAID controller (8gb ecc cache + bbwc) on my esxi v5.1 b1117900 passthru (VMDP) to vm like windows 2008 r2 and freenas 9.1 rc and after little tuning it working realy nice.
hw used:
mb: supermicro server board x8dah+f
144gb ram on 1333MHz (forced)
2x L5638 sc cpu
1x areca arc-1882-24 with 6x cheap seagate 3TB in hw raid 6, 8k cluster size, 7x ssd on raid 6 4kb cluster size
sw solution:
esxi v5.1 b1117900 on the host
1x freenas 9.1 rc vm with VMDP of Areca arc-1882-24 RAID Controller
1x windows 2008 r2 with Areca VMDP of arc-1882-24 RAID Controller
modified .vmx files to use inferno480 mate sugestion/solution " pciPassthru0.msiEnabled = "FALSE" "
on this 2 systems Areca and esxi itself working stable under moderate load (500-2000 iops) about 5 days for now, there is no any "idle cpu" consuming or something strange, so I may say it looks like looking stabe and smooth (but for real tests we need to wait 2-3 months to be quite sure it's really stable and fast).
soon I will also test other NAS solutions in such configuration to choose best cheap nas for home/soho small lab enviroment. I'll try to info you mates how its ride...:P
regards
NTShad0w