Re: Frequent SATA errors / port timeouts in 2.6.18.3?

[Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>]

Patrik Jonsson wrote:
> First I thought it was a cabling or card issue, because the same drive
> got kicked twice. That drive was connected to a 2-port SIG sata_sil24
> card. However, I just had another drive kicked that's connected to the
> onboard sata_nv, which leads me to suspect that the upgraded kernel
> might have something to do with it. A quick googling seems to indicate
> that others are seeing this with 2.6.18, too, so I was wondering if
> anyone knows more.

I don't think there has been any change which can affect both sata_sil24
and sata_nv to cause timeouts.  Please post the result of 'smartctl -d
ata -a /dev/sdX' of failed devices.

> The drives contain science data for analysis, so it
> would be a pain (though not a disaster) to lose it. Would it be
> advisable to revert to the previous 2.6.17 that I was running before or
> is this a problem that's fixed in a later kernel than the one I'm
> running now?
> 
> I did at the same time also install an Areca ARC1260 controller and
> connected a bunch of drives to it, so another idea I had was cable
> interference or something (there are now 18 drives in the machine).
> 
> Any ideas or thought would be appreciated,

Power quality degradation can cause transmission failures which can
result in timeouts.  How are your power lines hooked?

-- 
tejun