Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 03:32:47 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Nathan Vidican" <nvidican@wmptl.com>, "Charles Swiger" <cswiger@mac.com> Cc: don@lizardhill.com, questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: 3Ware Escalade Issues Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNKEHBFDAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <43FCAC3A.6040904@wmptl.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Nathan Vidican >Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 10:24 AM >To: Charles Swiger >Cc: don@lizardhill.com; questions@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: 3Ware Escalade Issues > > >Charles Swiger wrote: >> On Feb 22, 2006, at 12:31 PM, Don O'Neil wrote: >> >>>>> 3) Is there some way I can do a faster FSCK, or perhaps >'fool' the >>>>> system >>>>> into thinking the file system is clean? >>> >>> >>>> If you update to 5.x or later, you can use background FSCK >rather than >>> >>> having to >>> >>>> wait for the FSCK to complete the way it does under 4.x. >>> >>> >>> I wasn't aware 5.x could do this. My next question is how are my >>> existing >>> apps going to be affected by upgrading to 5.x? >> >> >> If you install the 4.x compatibility libraries, your old 4.x >binaries >> should continue to work just fine. However, you will want to >rebuild >> as much of your existing software under 5.x as possible. >> >>>> Also, if you update to 5.x, you can run the smartmon tools, which >>>> will let >>> >>> you >>> >>>> do a drive self-test using SMART, this will give much better >>>> information >>> >>> about >>> >>>> what is going on with the drive, and also give an estimate of its >>>> remaining >>>> lifespan. >>> >>> >>> Yes, this would help a lot!!! >> >> >> Well, once you're running 5.x, install smartmon and run: >"smartctl -t >> long /dev/ad0", or whatever the right device is. >> >>>> How old are the drives, if you know? >>> >>> >>> They're less than 2 years old, and still under warranty. >This is the >>> second >>> drive to fail and it's driving me nuts. >>> >>> They're Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y250P0 250 GB PATA >drives... Never >>> had a >>> problem with that particular drive until this batch. >>> >>> Can anyone suggest some good 250GB PATA drives for me to >use? I might as >>> well swap them all out since I'm starting over. The 6000 >series Escalade >>> card I'm using doesn't support anything more than 250 GB. >> >> >> I've had somewhat better luck with the so-called "special edition" >> variants of the drives, such as the WD1200JB, which have more >cache RAM >> and a longer warranty period than the generic versions.... >> > >According to Western Digital, ONLY their 'SD' or (RAID-Edition) >drives should be >attempted in an array; WDC utilizes proprietary error >correction mechanisms >which mangle the error-handling done by an array controller. In >short, while the >drive is doing it's internal error-correction, the raid >controller sees it as a >drive failure and a whole new mess develops. > Whoah, there chicken little! The article is in Western Digital's knowledgebase, article# 1397 Here are the relevant bits: "...If you install and use a desktop edition hard drive connected to a RAID controller, the drive may not work correctly. This is caused by the normal error recovery procedure that a desktop edition hard drive uses...." "...When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the severity of the issue..." "... Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array..." So let me explain. If you have a WD ide disk that is NOT in an array, has a major error, and goes away and hides for TWO MINUTES this is supposed to BE OK in a desktop? How many users do you know are going to sit twiddling their thumbs waiting for 2 minutes for their computer to unfreeze? I thought so. You must have an extremely elastic idea of what an acceptable error handling is on an IDE drive. Yes, IDE, you know, Intelligent Drive Electronics?!? As in, intelligent enough to know that if the problem is so severe it's going to take 2 minutes of scrubbing to fix, that it's a sign of imminent disk failure and the disk ought to be thrown out anyway? I think what we have here is a bit of creative justification by WD for why you should pay more money for their RAID edition drives. I'll tell you what. I will keep an eye on my ATA raid setups that use WD drives in them. If one disk dies for 2 minutes and the array dumps it, I'll RMA the drive back to WD for a new one. You by contrast, can keep your failing drives in your array until they croak permanently. Ted
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