Re: [sucess] upgrading LSI SAS9211-8i fw IR->IT

[Phil Turmel <philip@turmel.org>]

On 11/06/2017 04:38 PM, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
> On 07/11/17 07:15, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>> Dear Eyal,
>> 
>> In message <c12a2a32-2321-1ed7-e1de-ce0e408552e1@eyal.emu.id.au>
>> you wrote:
>>> 
>>> (I had many disk failures/replacements in the 4 years life of
>>> this array).
>> 
>> Reading this makes me wonder if you checked your environment for 
>> other influences.  there must be some reason for an exceptional
>> high number of failures.
>> 
>> I remeber we also had a nighmare of disk errors in the rack in the 
>> 2nd floor of our building - which disappeared after moving the
>> rack into the basement.  I can't prove it, but I blame it on
>> vibrations. We have a heavy traffic train line less than 50 meters
>> away, and disks (classic, magnetic ones) definitely do not like
>> vibrations - see [1].  Maybe you have other influences you did not
>> check for yet?
> 
> Interesting Wolfgang,
> 
> - This array is at  home, a relatively quiet place. - I monitor the
> disks temperatures and it is OK. - The machine runs off a UPS which
> can be a source of bad power (if the PS does not filter it out). -
> The HBA may be somehow bothering the disks?
> 
> The disks are under warranty until late next year so there is time to
> see if the disks do better with the LSI.
> 
> BTW, two of the RMAs were for disks that arrived DOA (as RMAs). I  do
> not have high regard for the WD blacks. The failures were spread
> across the last 4 years (so not infant mortality).
> 
> If nothing else, this experience made me comfortable with software 
> raid, and encouraged me to stick to my backup schedule.

That's a really bad failure rate.  But they're WD Blacks, which if I
recall correctly, do not support scterc.  Did you deal with your driver
timeouts?  If not, those drives probably weren't really dead.  Just not
raid-compatible out-of-the-box.

Phil