Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[David Greaves]

Hi all

Have you seen other similar reports coming in recently?
I've got a similar problem and have been exchanging emails off-list with
Mark.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113769509617034&w=2

I've cc'ed linux-ide - suggest you re-post your report their too - maybe
reply to this to keep the thread?

Uninformed speculation and grasping at straws leads me to consider that
the problem may be related to having 2 libata sata_xxx drivers loaded at
once.

David
PS Of course it may just be a slew of people with PSU problems...

Brad Campbell wrote:

> Mark Hahn wrote:
>
>>> So, I bought another TX4 card and another 4 SATA drives and plonked
>>> them in the machine, thinking it would be as easy as the last time I
>>> did it (going from 4 to 8 drives).
>>
>>
>> 4 drives is easy; 8 is pushing it; 12 requires a fairly heroic system...
>
>
> I have 3 cards with 12 drives in one box, and 4 card with 15 drives in
> another.
> They work just dandy. They are not the fastest machines in the world,
> and the PCI but sometime groans under the strain, but it's reliable
> and error-free.
>
>>> The first problem is that the Promise cards' onboard BIOS(es) only
>>> recognise(s) (or, at least, list) 8 of the 12 drives in the machine
>>> at boot.  However, once Linux has booted it detects all three cards
>>> and all twelve drives, so this is a relatively insignificant issue.
>>
>>
>> sounds like a spinup time on marginal power to me.
>
>
> No, it's a limitation of the Promise BIOS on the cards, it will only
> detect a maximum of 8 drives. I had a quick convo with tech support
> from Promise over this and they told me they don't support more than
> one card in a machine in any case. (Which is odd given they advertise
> the ability to RAID-5 across 2 cards!)
>
> I used the BIOS detection to get to the drives in DOS once (when I was
> playing with SpinRite) and found the easiest way to get to the last
> drives was just to pop the 1st 4 out of their hotswap cages and
> re-boot. The BIOS just registers the first 8 drives it can find.
>
> <snipped the rest about power issues>
>
> Which could all be good stuff, but I doubt it in this case. If the PSU
> can happily spin up 12 drives at once, then while they are actually
> running the load is significantly less. Unless it's a nasty cheap PSU
> I'd look elsewhere. Given the problem can be triggered by
> "Additionally, a dd to only /dev/sd[abcd] with no other system
> activity also produces the errors - again within seconds.", implying
> the other drives are idle and consuming minimum power, I'd be looking
> elsewhere.
>
> Can you send an lspci -vv please? I did have some strange problems
> with the BIOS setting up weird timing modes on some of the cards. This
> did not present a reliability problem for me, just performance however.
>
> My 1st quick and dirty test would be to boot with a UP kernel. (Only
> because that is all I have also) And to try a vanilla kernel.org
> kernel rather than the Redhat one. (I have one machine on 2.6.10 and
> one on 2.6.15-git11. Both are solid)
>
> bklaptop:~>ssh storage1 uname -a
> Linux storage1 2.6.15-git11 #1 Sun Jan 15 22:25:19 GST 2006 i686
> GNU/Linux
> bklaptop:~>ssh srv uname -a
> Linux srv 2.6.10 #4 Mon Feb 14 23:10:38 GST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
>
> Are you using the cards in standard PCI 33Mhz Slots? I recall an issue
> a while ago where someone had a big problem with the cards in 66Mhz
> Slots.
>
> Another test I'd like you to try if you would, is place one or two
> drives on each controller, so you only have 3 in the system.. and then
> try to reproduce the error.
>
> Brad



-- 

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[Erik Slagter]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 683 bytes --]

On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 17:40 +0000, David Greaves wrote:
> >> sounds like a spinup time on marginal power to me.

> > No, it's a limitation of the Promise BIOS on the cards, it will only
> > detect a maximum of 8 drives. I had a quick convo with tech support
> > from Promise over this and they told me they don't support more than
> > one card in a machine in any case. (Which is odd given they advertise
> > the ability to RAID-5 across 2 cards!)

> > <snipped the rest about power issues>

I'd really consider the PSU. I had all sorts of weird problems with my
promise SATA150 TX2plus until I replaced the PSU. Apparently it doesn't
suffice to supply _enough_ power.

[-- Attachment #2: smime.p7s --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 2771 bytes --]

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[Christopher Smith]

Erik Slagter wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 17:40 +0000, David Greaves wrote:
>>>> sounds like a spinup time on marginal power to me.
> 
>>> No, it's a limitation of the Promise BIOS on the cards, it will only
>>> detect a maximum of 8 drives. I had a quick convo with tech support
>>> from Promise over this and they told me they don't support more than
>>> one card in a machine in any case. (Which is odd given they advertise
>>> the ability to RAID-5 across 2 cards!)
> 
>>> <snipped the rest about power issues>
> 
> I'd really consider the PSU. I had all sorts of weird problems with my
> promise SATA150 TX2plus until I replaced the PSU. Apparently it doesn't
> suffice to supply _enough_ power.

I've since setup the machine so only the motherboard and boot drive are 
powered from the system PSU and the 12 SATA drives are powered from a 
separate PSU.

Since the machine has previously been running with 8 drives fine on just 
the system PSU, I feel confident saying power supply has nothing to do 
with my problems.

CS

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[Erik Slagter]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 635 bytes --]

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 11:26 +1100, Christopher Smith wrote:
> > I'd really consider the PSU. I had all sorts of weird problems with my
> > promise SATA150 TX2plus until I replaced the PSU. Apparently it doesn't
> > suffice to supply _enough_ power.
> 
> I've since setup the machine so only the motherboard and boot drive are 
> powered from the system PSU and the 12 SATA drives are powered from a 
> separate PSU.
> 
> Since the machine has previously been running with 8 drives fine on just 
> the system PSU, I feel confident saying power supply has nothing to do 
> with my problems.

I'd still be _very_ suspicous.

[-- Attachment #2: smime.p7s --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 2771 bytes --]

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[David Greaves]

Christopher Smith wrote:

> Erik Slagter wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 17:40 +0000, David Greaves wrote:
>>
>>>>> sounds like a spinup time on marginal power to me.
>>>>
>>>> No, it's a limitation of the Promise BIOS on the cards, it will only
>>>> detect a maximum of 8 drives. I had a quick convo with tech support
>>>> from Promise over this and they told me they don't support more than
>>>> one card in a machine in any case. (Which is odd given they advertise
>>>> the ability to RAID-5 across 2 cards!)
>>>
>>>> <snipped the rest about power issues>
>>>
>> I'd really consider the PSU. I had all sorts of weird problems with my
>> promise SATA150 TX2plus until I replaced the PSU. Apparently it doesn't
>> suffice to supply _enough_ power.
>
>
> I've since setup the machine so only the motherboard and boot drive
> are powered from the system PSU and the 12 SATA drives are powered
> from a separate PSU.
>
> Since the machine has previously been running with 8 drives fine on
> just the system PSU, I feel confident saying power supply has nothing
> to do with my problems.

And I've bought a new (expensive and high quality) 460W PSU and have
exactly the same problems I had previously.
(http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113769509617034&w=2)

and I'm not running Promise - I'm running sata_via and sata_sil (not as
modules)

David

PS A Bit rushed as in a few hours I'm away on holiday for a week - if
someone has time to have a scan through recent postings on the ide and
raid lists they'll find quite a few problems that seem - to my untrained
eye - to be similar. I've gathered some individuals together on the cc
(hope that's OK) to see if the symptoms could be compared. If this isn't
done next week then I'll try and do it when I get back (or maybe if I
get net access next week)

PPS Note that Mitchell's on verizon.net and mails to him from non-US
ISPs may bounce (grr)

-- 

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[Hans Kristian Rosbach]

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 14:22 +0000, David Greaves wrote:
> Christopher Smith wrote:

> PPS Note that Mitchell's on verizon.net and mails to him from non-US
> ISPs may bounce (grr)

verizon.net hasn't liked us Europeans for a good while now actually.

But at least a good friend of mine is still reachable by appending
"online" to the domain. ie: someuser@verizononline.net
I have no idea whether all users have this kind of alias, but that
is the workaround I've been using for the last 1-2 months.

-HK

Re: Problems with multiple Promise SATA150 TX4 cards

[Ian Oliver]

In article <43D66681.708@dgreaves.com>, David Greaves wrote:
> PS Of course it may just be a slew of people with PSU problems...

I fixed my Promise lockup problems (DriveStatusError when hammering the 
drivers and the odd lock solid) by ditching the 4x two-port Promise 
SATA  cards and fitting 2x four-port SiL cards. Same PSUs.

Regards

Ian