Linux friendly SAN

[stack]

Hey guys,
Let me start out with a disclaimer. I have had a bit of a bad experiance with everyone involved that has lasted many hours over several days. So while I have tried to remove/edit/censor my seething loathing hatred for everyone involved, some sarcasm may have leaked out....

So one of the companies that we work with (they do the Disaster Recovery stuff for us as well as maintain some of the windows servers) just bought one of these bad boys [ http://www.xiotech.com/Products-and-Ser ... -3000.aspx ]. With Terrabytes of storage available, they asked if I wanted a piece. The answer was yes before they finished asking.

Well they gave me a QLogic qla2460 [ http://www.qlogic.com/Products/SAN_prod ... A2460.aspx ] and I am having a devil of a time getting it to work. I have seen them install this on a Windows box and it is no different then any other device. Plug it in, boot it up, load the drivers, restart, and Tada!

Well I have to use CentOS 4, so I did a fresh install on a spare box, and I ran my updates. After that I started poking around. All by itself, Linux saw the QLA2460, saw the XIOtech SAN, and loaded up all the drivers and everything for me! Off to a good start I thought. Unfortunately thats where it ends. Even though it all points to the right spot, I do not see the partition on the SAN. I do not get a /dev/ entry for the device. I do not have a partition seen by `fdisk -l`. In short, I have all the bits in place but I don't get the SAN drive. I have now worked on this for several days and am tired of dealing with it so I am going to every source of information I can think of hoping that maybe someone has some experience that they can share (and possibly a better company I can do business with).

What I got was:
QLogic appears to "support" Linux in marketing terms only (I have yet to find anyone who has actually installed or used this product). So far dealing with them has only wasted my time. Their documentation sucks more then a 2$ whore that owes her pimp money (I honestly have not seen this poor of documentation in years...and that was written by a high schooler). Their support so far has been reading off of a card. I get to call a different number tomorrow.
XIOtech support got me as far as knowing for certain that it isn't a problem with the SAN and even though they "support" Linux and "support" this card under Linux with their product, they don't have a clue as to what is wrong and have thrown their hands up in the air and said that they give up and since it technically isn't their product they are not going to do any thing more.
The other source of information I have was able to get the 2300 card working with SuSE enterprise 9 but was unable to get it to work with any other Linux distro.

So does anyone have any experience with QLogic? Anyone have any source of information that I can try? Better yet, does anyone have a company that they are willing to recommend for a fiber-connect SAN card that works* with Linux?

I have a ton of details. If someone does have experience with this, I can give much clearer examples of the problem I am facing (probably more details then you really want to know).

Thanks!
~Stack~

*I am willing to take native Linux graphics card type support here. You know, not quite 3d capable but it will get you a GUI to work with type support. Right now, as long as I can connect to the SAN I am happy. Even if that means I don't have 3d support...or whatever

[stack]

Well I have finally got this issue resolved!

Horray!

Take this advice however you would like, but if you are interested in buying a SAN to use with Linux, consider HP.
I have dealt with so many companies recently trying to get this SAN working that even if I tried to mention all of them, I would probably forget a few. The vast majority of them would read off of a card and when the card fails they would throw up their hands and say "It's not my job! Tough luck! You are on your own!". Several of them (QLogic! I am looking at you!) had horrible customer service and I swear they only "support" Linux so that they can claim that Linux is supported. I swear its nothing more then bad marketing. Trying to actually get them to give decent support is miserable and their documentation is worse! Unfortunately, it seems that they are the leaders right now for SAN access fiber cards. Even if you buy Generic X brand it is still powered by QLogic....

I, however, lucked out. The card I bought is one that HP supports. Even though it isn't their SAN and I did not buy the QLogic card from them, they still know what they are doing and their driver sets work. Even though its not perfect, their documentation is so far ahead of everyone else in this subject that it will probably take years for competition to catch up. I am not going to be saying anything bad about their business class Linux support for a long time..thats for certain.

Letting the Linux kernel install the drivers, and using their configuration utilities makes it as easy as it should be. Going from nothing to working is measured in single digit minutes.

It just works.

Now to see how much space I can use on that SAN


[edit] Everything I have posted in this topic is my opinion based on my experience. If any company should stumble across this and feel that I was wrong, please prove me wrong. I will gladly and humbly admit an apology. Why? Because it means that you truly support Linux and that my fellow Linux users won't have to go through 2 months of misery to get your product working. That is completely unacceptable by any means. Either prove me wrong, or work towards proving me wrong. Make your hardware and software 'Just Work'. Until then, I will not buy your product and I certainly will inform others to not buy your product either. OK thats the end of my speech... promise:-D