3ware (now AMCC) does not yet offer software for their 7000 and 8000 series PCI RAID controllers on NetBSD, though NetBSD has a driver for these cards (twe(4)). Also call the Escalade series. The problem remains that in order to manage the controller, you have to jump to the BIOS, which means downtime.

This is the problem that twedm was intended to solve. It is capable of managing the controller without rebooting. It is available for the i386, amd64, and alpha platforms.

Note that there have been recent fixes, included in NetBSD 3.0, which allow the 3ware's management command-line interface, called twcli, for FreeBSD to work on NetBSD in binary-compatibility mode (see freebsd_compat(8)). This may not work for amd64 and certainly does not work for alpha. However, I believe that you will find twedm more user-friendly than twcli; it is at least worth trying.

Download it here:

Sorry, binaries only. Please do not ask for the source code.

Please send problems/contributions/suggestions to twedm at shrubbery dot net.

We hope that 3ware will begin supporting NetBSD soon and you can help. Every time a customer shows interest, it helps drive home the idea. Please take a moment to visit 3ware's web site and send a comment to their support department asking that they support NetBSD. Be polite and prompt. Thanks!