From owner-freebsd-scsi Sun Oct 22 16: 1:30 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Received: from panzer.kdm.org (panzer.kdm.org [216.160.178.169]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0365337B479 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 16:01:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from ken@localhost) by panzer.kdm.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) id RAA81833; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:01:14 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from ken) Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:01:14 -0600 From: "Kenneth D. Merry" To: Graham Guttocks Cc: freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: help disabling write caching upon bootup Message-ID: <20001022170114.A81754@panzer.kdm.org> References: <20001022225104.11606.qmail@web10302.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <20001022225104.11606.qmail@web10302.mail.yahoo.com>; from graham_guttocks@yahoo.co.nz on Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 11:51:04AM +1300 Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 11:51:04 +1300, Graham Guttocks wrote: > On my 4.1.1-RELEASE system, I was having problems with the system > locking up when my seagate scsi drives underwent heavy I/O. After > searching through this list, I decided to try disabling write caching > on the drives, and it worked like a charm. > > The command "camcontrol modepage -v -n da -u 0 -m 0x8 -e" brings me > into an editor where I can edit the WCE variable and turn it off. > > However, each time I reboot the system, I have to repeat this. Is > there > an easy way to handle this automatically every time the system boots? You probably need to add "-P 3" to the command line options above, to make sure you're editing the saved parameters and not just the current mode page parameters. If your drive doesn't like to save the parameter for some reason, you can automate it like this: echo "WCE: 0" | camcontrol modepage da0 -P 3 -m 8 -e The above (accepting parameters from standard input) is only possible in 4.1.1 and later releases. (Thanks to Kelly Yancey.) Even though disabling write caching fixes the problem, you may want to talk to Seagate about getting updated firmware for your drives. Ken -- Kenneth Merry ken@kdm.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message