multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Mitchell Laks]

Dear Experts,

I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives and 
controllers here under linux.

I have been having an interesting time!

I initially tried to use raid1 on  my asus A8v motherboard 
using  a mixture of SATA controllers - 
the built in motherboard SATA controller (via vt8237) 
as well as a  Promise PCI card SATAII 150, 
but had problems with the kernel. My drives gave me all sorts of errors while 
trying to build the  raids and while running mkfs.ext3
and i couldn't  get it to work reliably with the any of the current kernels I 
tried, including 2.6.15.1 the current stable kernel. 
I get countless kernel errors as I mentioned in an earlier post.

Now I have switched to only using the PCI card controllers ( Well, I can put 
multiple controllers into the motherboard). So I use only sata_promise and 
get rid of sata_via, which conflicts (according to my experience). 

Now however, when a drive gives me errors - how can I identify which drive on 
which device is failing? 

The kernel seems to name things randomly.

This is important when a drive 'fails'. Which drive failed? If I am dealing 
with /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdd1  on the two ide channels
then  I 'know' which is which.

Even crazier (from an accounting point of view) is  the following.

if I have 2 of these cards, then the sata_promise driver does not appear to 
distinguish "where" (ie: which physical controller port on ___which___ card) 
the drives are. 

The letters don't skip to show you are on a second controller -even if you 
leave blank slots to try to see...
The kernel  randomly  calls the drives sda sdb sdc sdd sde and they seem to be 
anywhere on the physical controllers.  It seems to be completely random. 
HELP!

I since I run a bunch of raid1's, if I get errors I have a major chore. So I 
must stop and reboot countless times doing a binary search using mdadm 
-E /dev/sd[ab]1 |grep UU to find the UUID's of the misbehaving drives.   Then 
look closely at mdadm -E of the 2 final candidates to see which one gave me 
these errors. 

For instance a new drive failed while I was installing the raid, and testing.
To find the erroring drive I had to reproduce the errors each time by  
creating the raids, and running mkfs.ext3 which seems to cause the errors. 
What if the errors were more occult????

Each card had 4 controllers - however when I have more than 1 card it can be 
even more difficult to identify where we are.

Any experience out there to help me?

Thanks,

Mitchell Laks

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[PFC]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:36:54 +0100, Mitchell Laks <mlaks@verizon.net>  
wrote:

> Dear Experts,
>
> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives and
> controllers here under linux.
>

	Well, here's mine :

	Maxtor SATA drives series 6V (those with 16 MB cache) are incompatible  
with nforce 3-4 SATA controllers. Maxtor acknowledges this. Symptom is a  
slow death of the drive, ending with command timeouts. When reverting the  
drive to SATA 1.5Gbps with the jumper, it works perfectly again (for a few  
days...). nvidia doesn't care. This is on windows and linux. In windows,  
you have to use fucking PIO mode or you get corruptions. nforce4 sata also  
has problems with plextor sata burners, and possibly others.

	The Maxtor 6L series (with 8 MB cache) work flawlessly.

	I currently have these SATA drives, on a nforce3 MSI mobo :

# hdparm -I /dev/sd? |grep "Model Numb"

         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L200M0
         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L250S0
         Model Number:       ST3250823AS
         Model Number:       ST3250823AS

	All work. I RMA'd the 6V250 drive and exchanged it against a good, old,  
IDE drive, which works perfect.

	It took me a month, 3 maxtor drives, and nights of googling to figure  
this out...

	My gut feeling is that SATA isn't that ready for prime-time after all...

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[John Hendrikx]

>
>> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives 
>> and
>> controllers here under linux.
>>
>     Maxtor SATA drives series 6V (those with 16 MB cache) are 
> incompatible with nforce 3-4 SATA controllers. Maxtor acknowledges 
> this. Symptom is a slow death of the drive, ending with command 
> timeouts. When reverting the drive to SATA 1.5Gbps with the jumper, it 
> works perfectly again (for a few days...). nvidia doesn't care. This 
> is on windows and linux. In windows, you have to use fucking PIO mode 
> or you get corruptions. nforce4 sata also has problems with plextor 
> sata burners, and possibly others.
I don't have much SATA experience, although a Western Digital 
WD2500JD-75F seems to work fine with the nforce 4 ultra chipset.
>     The Maxtor 6L series (with 8 MB cache) work flawlessly.
>
>     I currently have these SATA drives, on a nforce3 MSI mobo :
>
> # hdparm -I /dev/sd? |grep "Model Numb"
>
>         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L200M0
>         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L250S0
>         Model Number:       ST3250823AS
>         Model Number:       ST3250823AS
>
>     All work. I RMA'd the 6V250 drive and exchanged it against a good, 
> old, IDE drive, which works perfect.
>
>     It took me a month, 3 maxtor drives, and nights of googling to 
> figure this out...
>
>     My gut feeling is that SATA isn't that ready for prime-time after 
> all...
Does SMART work for your SATA drives?  Without SMART support I don't 
really want to get any more SATA drives.  Mine reports this:

~$ smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.32 Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Device: ATA      WDC WD2500JD-75F Version: 02.0
Serial number: WD-WMAEH1585485
Device type: disk
Local Time is: Mon Jan 23 21:14:56 2006 CET
Device does not support SMART
Request Sense failed, [Input/output error]

Device does not support Error Counter logging

[GLTSD (Global Logging Target Save Disable) set. Enable Save with '-S on']
Device does not support Self Test logging

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Shawn Usry]

The drives physically support SMART, but apparently the roadblock is lacking support in the libata drivers.  If you can force "legacy" mode from your Bios and drive your SATA disks with drivers/ide you can get full SMART support.

The details:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/#testinghelp



----- Original Message -----
From: John Hendrikx
[mailto:hjohn@xs4all.nl]
To: PFC [mailto:lists@peufeu.com]
Cc: Mitchell Laks
[mailto:mlaks@verizon.net], linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Sent: Mon, 23 Jan
2006 14:22:04 -0600
Subject: Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4  - how to
tell which drive is which? headaches galore!


> >
> >> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives 
> >> and
> >> controllers here under linux.
> >>
> >     Maxtor SATA drives series 6V (those with 16 MB cache) are 
> > incompatible with nforce 3-4 SATA controllers. Maxtor acknowledges 
> > this. Symptom is a slow death of the drive, ending with command 
> > timeouts. When reverting the drive to SATA 1.5Gbps with the jumper, it 
> > works perfectly again (for a few days...). nvidia doesn't care. This 
> > is on windows and linux. In windows, you have to use fucking PIO mode 
> > or you get corruptions. nforce4 sata also has problems with plextor 
> > sata burners, and possibly others.
> I don't have much SATA experience, although a Western Digital 
> WD2500JD-75F seems to work fine with the nforce 4 ultra chipset.
> >     The Maxtor 6L series (with 8 MB cache) work flawlessly.
> >
> >     I currently have these SATA drives, on a nforce3 MSI mobo :
> >
> > # hdparm -I /dev/sd? |grep "Model Numb"
> >
> >         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L200M0
> >         Model Number:       Maxtor 6L250S0
> >         Model Number:       ST3250823AS
> >         Model Number:       ST3250823AS
> >
> >     All work. I RMA'd the 6V250 drive and exchanged it against a good, 
> > old, IDE drive, which works perfect.
> >
> >     It took me a month, 3 maxtor drives, and nights of googling to 
> > figure this out...
> >
> >     My gut feeling is that SATA isn't that ready for prime-time after 
> > all...
> Does SMART work for your SATA drives?  Without SMART support I don't 
> really want to get any more SATA drives.  Mine reports this:
> 
> ~$ smartctl -a /dev/sda
> smartctl version 5.32 Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
> Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
> 
> Device: ATA      WDC WD2500JD-75F Version: 02.0
> Serial number: WD-WMAEH1585485
> Device type: disk
> Local Time is: Mon Jan 23 21:14:56 2006 CET
> Device does not support SMART
> Request Sense failed, [Input/output error]
> 
> Device does not support Error Counter logging
> 
> [GLTSD (Global Logging Target Save Disable) set. Enable Save with '-S on']
> Device does not support Self Test logging
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Jeff Garzik]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2006 at 02:44:04PM -0600, Shawn Usry wrote:
> The drives physically support SMART, but apparently the roadblock
> is lacking support in the libata drivers.

Support is now present in libata.  Most likely the user has forgotten to
add "-d ata" to smartd and smartctl.

	Jeff

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[John Hendrikx]

Shawn Usry wrote:
> The drives physically support SMART, but apparently the roadblock is lacking support in the libata drivers.  If you can force "legacy" mode from your Bios and drive your SATA disks with drivers/ide you can get full SMART support.
>
> The details:
> http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/#testinghelp
>   
Thanks -- I didn't have to change anything in the bios, just adding "-d 
ata" to smartctl worked for me.  Apparently I have a recent enough kernel.

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[PFC]

> Does SMART work for your SATA drives?  Without SMART support I don't  
> really want to get any more SATA drives.  Mine reports this:

	The feature should come some day. This is quite vital for RAID arrays...
	Meanwhile, get the same error as you :

--------------------

SATA disks accessed via libata are not currently supported by
smartmontools. When libata is given an ATA pass-thru ioctl() then an
additional '-d libata' device type will be added to smartmontools.


smartmontools release 5.33 dated 2004/09/10 at 04:11:35 UTC
smartmontools build host: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
smartmontools build configured: 2005/12/11 13:39:15 UTC
smartctl compile dated Dec 11 2005 at 14:39:26

2.6.15-gentoo

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Jeff Garzik]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 10:54:19AM +0100, PFC wrote:
> SATA disks accessed via libata are not currently supported by
> smartmontools. When libata is given an ATA pass-thru ioctl() then an
> additional '-d libata' device type will be added to smartmontools.

It already has support.  Pass "-d ata" to existing smartmontools.

	Jeff

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Shawn Usry]

Mitchell:

----- Original Message -----
From: Mitchell Laks
[mailto:mlaks@verizon.net]
To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Sent: Mon, 23 Jan
2006 02:36:54 -0600
Subject: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4  - how to tell
which drive is which? headaches galore!


> Dear Experts,
> 
> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives and 
> controllers here under linux.
> 
> I have been having an interesting time!
> 
> I initially tried to use raid1 on  my asus A8v motherboard 
> using  a mixture of SATA controllers - 
> the built in motherboard SATA controller (via vt8237) 
> as well as a  Promise PCI card SATAII 150, 
> but had problems with the kernel. My drives gave me all sorts of errors
> while 
> trying to build the  raids and while running mkfs.ext3
> and i couldn't  get it to work reliably with the any of the current kernels
> I 
> tried, including 2.6.15.1 the current stable kernel. 
> I get countless kernel errors as I mentioned in an earlier post.
> 
> Now I have switched to only using the PCI card controllers ( Well, I can put
> 
> multiple controllers into the motherboard). So I use only sata_promise and 
> get rid of sata_via, which conflicts (according to my experience). 
> 
> Now however, when a drive gives me errors - how can I identify which drive
> on 
> which device is failing? 
> 
> The kernel seems to name things randomly.
> 
> This is important when a drive 'fails'. Which drive failed? If I am dealing 
> with /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdd1  on the two ide channels
> then  I 'know' which is which.
> 
> Even crazier (from an accounting point of view) is  the following.
> 
> if I have 2 of these cards, then the sata_promise driver does not appear to 
> distinguish "where" (ie: which physical controller port on ___which___ card)
> 
> the drives are. 
> 
> The letters don't skip to show you are on a second controller -even if you 
> leave blank slots to try to see...
> The kernel  randomly  calls the drives sda sdb sdc sdd sde and they seem to
> be 
> anywhere on the physical controllers.  It seems to be completely random. 
> HELP!
> 
> I since I run a bunch of raid1's, if I get errors I have a major chore. So I
> 
> must stop and reboot countless times doing a binary search using mdadm 
> -E /dev/sd[ab]1 |grep UU to find the UUID's of the misbehaving drives.  
> Then 
> look closely at mdadm -E of the 2 final candidates to see which one gave me 
> these errors. 
> 
> For instance a new drive failed while I was installing the raid, and
> testing.
> To find the erroring drive I had to reproduce the errors each time by  
> creating the raids, and running mkfs.ext3 which seems to cause the errors. 
> What if the errors were more occult????
> 
> Each card had 4 controllers - however when I have more than 1 card it can be
> 
> even more difficult to identify where we are.
> 
> Any experience out there to help me?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mitchell Laks
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!

[Shawn Usry]

Apologies for the previous uncompleted post.

Anyhoo - Mitchell, I've recently been experimenting with the the same board (TX4) in FC4.  Currently, I've got 2 boards installed.  

I've noticed, that when using the stock libata / sata_promise drivers that are in FC4, the discovery order on each board is:

3-2-4-1

Where each number represents the physical port label number imprinted on the TX4 board.

In other words:

/dev/sda = port 3
/dev/sdb = port 2

etc...

However, just last night I compiled and insmod'd the Promise-provided linux driver (I forget the module name), and noticed that the discovery order changes, to be exactly the same as the order that the TX4 bios discovers the drives.  I have not had a chance yet to figure out what this translates to in terms of the physical port labeling - I'll try to get that hammered out tonite and repost.

I also noticed, that with EITHER driver, the discovery order does stay within the bounds of one card, before moving on to the next TX4 board you might have installed.  In other words, you won't end up with /dev/sda being a drive in board A, and /dev/sdb being a drive in board B.  It will discover sequentially, at least with respect to the boards.

Hope this helps a bit.





----- Original Message -----
From: Mitchell Laks
[mailto:mlaks@verizon.net]
To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Sent: Mon, 23 Jan
2006 02:36:54 -0600
Subject: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4  - how to tell
which drive is which? headaches galore!


> Dear Experts,
> 
> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives and 
> controllers here under linux.
> 
> I have been having an interesting time!
> 
> I initially tried to use raid1 on  my asus A8v motherboard 
> using  a mixture of SATA controllers - 
> the built in motherboard SATA controller (via vt8237) 
> as well as a  Promise PCI card SATAII 150, 
> but had problems with the kernel. My drives gave me all sorts of errors
> while 
> trying to build the  raids and while running mkfs.ext3
> and i couldn't  get it to work reliably with the any of the current kernels
> I 
> tried, including 2.6.15.1 the current stable kernel. 
> I get countless kernel errors as I mentioned in an earlier post.
> 
> Now I have switched to only using the PCI card controllers ( Well, I can put
> 
> multiple controllers into the motherboard). So I use only sata_promise and 
> get rid of sata_via, which conflicts (according to my experience). 
> 
> Now however, when a drive gives me errors - how can I identify which drive
> on 
> which device is failing? 
> 
> The kernel seems to name things randomly.
> 
> This is important when a drive 'fails'. Which drive failed? If I am dealing 
> with /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdd1  on the two ide channels
> then  I 'know' which is which.
> 
> Even crazier (from an accounting point of view) is  the following.
> 
> if I have 2 of these cards, then the sata_promise driver does not appear to 
> distinguish "where" (ie: which physical controller port on ___which___ card)
> 
> the drives are. 
> 
> The letters don't skip to show you are on a second controller -even if you 
> leave blank slots to try to see...
> The kernel  randomly  calls the drives sda sdb sdc sdd sde and they seem to
> be 
> anywhere on the physical controllers.  It seems to be completely random. 
> HELP!
> 
> I since I run a bunch of raid1's, if I get errors I have a major chore. So I
> 
> must stop and reboot countless times doing a binary search using mdadm 
> -E /dev/sd[ab]1 |grep UU to find the UUID's of the misbehaving drives.  
> Then 
> look closely at mdadm -E of the 2 final candidates to see which one gave me 
> these errors. 
> 
> For instance a new drive failed while I was installing the raid, and
> testing.
> To find the erroring drive I had to reproduce the errors each time by  
> creating the raids, and running mkfs.ext3 which seems to cause the errors. 
> What if the errors were more occult????
> 
> Each card had 4 controllers - however when I have more than 1 card it can be
> 
> even more difficult to identify where we are.
> 
> Any experience out there to help me?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mitchell Laks
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

RE: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Shawn Usry]

Confirmed.  Using the promise OEM driver, (ulsata2.ko) module the FC4 discovery order comes in exactly as printed on the board's themselves, ports 1-4.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Shawn Usry
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 11:41 AM
To: Mitchell Laks; linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

Apologies for the previous uncompleted post.

Anyhoo - Mitchell, I've recently been experimenting with the the same board (TX4) in FC4.  Currently, I've got 2 boards installed.  

I've noticed, that when using the stock libata / sata_promise drivers that are in FC4, the discovery order on each board is:

3-2-4-1

Where each number represents the physical port label number imprinted on the TX4 board.

In other words:

/dev/sda = port 3
/dev/sdb = port 2

etc...

However, just last night I compiled and insmod'd the Promise-provided linux driver (I forget the module name), and noticed that the discovery order changes, to be exactly the same as the order that the TX4 bios discovers the drives.  I have not had a chance yet to figure out what this translates to in terms of the physical port labeling - I'll try to get that hammered out tonite and repost.

I also noticed, that with EITHER driver, the discovery order does stay within the bounds of one card, before moving on to the next TX4 board you might have installed.  In other words, you won't end up with /dev/sda being a drive in board A, and /dev/sdb being a drive in board B.  It will discover sequentially, at least with respect to the boards.

Hope this helps a bit.





----- Original Message -----
From: Mitchell Laks
[mailto:mlaks@verizon.net]
To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Sent: Mon, 23 Jan
2006 02:36:54 -0600
Subject: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4  - how to tell which drive is which? headaches galore!


> Dear Experts,
> 
> I wanted to ask for any experience with running raid with SATA drives 
> and controllers here under linux.
> 
> I have been having an interesting time!
> 
> I initially tried to use raid1 on  my asus A8v motherboard using  a 
> mixture of SATA controllers - the built in motherboard SATA controller 
> (via vt8237) as well as a  Promise PCI card SATAII 150, but had 
> problems with the kernel. My drives gave me all sorts of errors while 
> trying to build the  raids and while running mkfs.ext3 and i couldn't  
> get it to work reliably with the any of the current kernels I tried, 
> including 2.6.15.1 the current stable kernel.
> I get countless kernel errors as I mentioned in an earlier post.
> 
> Now I have switched to only using the PCI card controllers ( Well, I 
> can put
> 
> multiple controllers into the motherboard). So I use only sata_promise 
> and get rid of sata_via, which conflicts (according to my experience).
> 
> Now however, when a drive gives me errors - how can I identify which 
> drive on which device is failing?
> 
> The kernel seems to name things randomly.
> 
> This is important when a drive 'fails'. Which drive failed? If I am 
> dealing with /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdd1  on the two ide 
> channels then  I 'know' which is which.
> 
> Even crazier (from an accounting point of view) is  the following.
> 
> if I have 2 of these cards, then the sata_promise driver does not 
> appear to distinguish "where" (ie: which physical controller port on 
> ___which___ card)
> 
> the drives are. 
> 
> The letters don't skip to show you are on a second controller -even if 
> you leave blank slots to try to see...
> The kernel  randomly  calls the drives sda sdb sdc sdd sde and they 
> seem to be anywhere on the physical controllers.  It seems to be 
> completely random.
> HELP!
> 
> I since I run a bunch of raid1's, if I get errors I have a major 
> chore. So I
> 
> must stop and reboot countless times doing a binary search using mdadm 
> -E /dev/sd[ab]1 |grep UU to find the UUID's of the misbehaving drives.
> Then
> look closely at mdadm -E of the 2 final candidates to see which one 
> gave me these errors.
> 
> For instance a new drive failed while I was installing the raid, and 
> testing.
> To find the erroring drive I had to reproduce the errors each time by 
> creating the raids, and running mkfs.ext3 which seems to cause the errors.
> What if the errors were more occult????
> 
> Each card had 4 controllers - however when I have more than 1 card it 
> can be
> 
> even more difficult to identify where we are.
> 
> Any experience out there to help me?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mitchell Laks
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" 
> in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo 
> info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Mitchell Laks]

On Monday 23 January 2006 09:46 pm, Shawn wrote:
> Confirmed.  Using the promise OEM driver, (ulsata2.ko) module the FC4
> discovery order comes in exactly as printed on the board's themselves,
> ports 1-4.

Dear Shawn,

Thank you so much for so much excellent legwork. 

I had looked and seen a "disconnect" between the printed documentation ports 1 
2 3 4, and the actual 3-2-4-1 that you noticed, and decided it was "random". 
Really it was not random it was just "bizarre" :). But I am glad to see it is 
consistently bizarre, across drives (and I hope across PCI slots :) ).

I will check with my two card system to see what happens when I boot them all, 
or partial sets up.  I am curious - I take it from you that it goes

3241
then
3241
on the next machine.

I see from anothe post that I can check what is happening with the drive
serial numbers and  hdparm.

I also will have to take the time to compile my own kernel to check out
 2.6.15 which will give me the smartctl. Thanks to all who let me know about
 that!

I just discovered that I need a second power supply because
a 450W antec smartpower 2.0 is not enough power for 9 active drives and fans
on my system :(.

I must look for a better power supply. What do you recommend for big
multidrive systems?

Thank you very much.

Mitchell Laks

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[David Greaves]

Mitchell Laks wrote:

>I just discovered that I need a second power supply because
>a 450W antec smartpower 2.0 is not enough power for 9 active drives and fans
>on my system :(.
>
>I must look for a better power supply. What do you recommend for big
>multidrive systems?
>
>  
>
FYI... http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=1014

David
PS Mitchell, replies direct to you bounce. Verizon are apparently still
blocking us 'dangerous' european spammers! Maybe consider switching to
an ISP that's less antisocial ? :)

-- 

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Shawn Usry]

Hmm..that brings up an interesting question -

Could/would/should a lack of sufficient power to the system, cause disk errors to show up, especially under high I/O?

Anyone with experience in this?


----- Original Message -----
From: David Greaves
[mailto:david@dgreaves.com]
To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Sent: Tue, 24 Jan
2006 06:53:52 -0600
Subject: Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4  - how to
tell which drive is which?headaches galore!


> Mitchell Laks wrote:
> 
> >I just discovered that I need a second power supply because
> >a 450W antec smartpower 2.0 is not enough power for 9 active drives and
> fans
> >on my system :(.
> >
> >I must look for a better power supply. What do you recommend for big
> >multidrive systems?
> >
> >  
> >
> FYI... http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=1014
> 
> David
> PS Mitchell, replies direct to you bounce. Verizon are apparently still
> blocking us 'dangerous' european spammers! Maybe consider switching to
> an ISP that's less antisocial ? :)
> 
> -- 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[David Greaves]

Well, I just ordered this:
  http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=64&page=2281

Akasa PaxPower 460W PSU (4hdd + gfx card + Athlon3000 so this should be
fine) on next day delivery - so if my disk problems go away I'll be sure
to tell ...

...and if they don't then I'll want some answers!!!!   ;)

David


Shawn Usry wrote:

>Hmm..that brings up an interesting question -
>
>Could/would/should a lack of sufficient power to the system, cause disk errors to show up, especially under high I/O?
>
>Anyone with experience in this?
>  
>

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Francois Barre]

2006/1/24, Shawn Usry <shawn@joebacardi.com>:
> Hmm..that brings up an interesting question -
>
> Could/would/should a lack of sufficient power to the system, cause disk errors to show up, especially under high I/O?
>
> Anyone with experience in this?
>

Of course boy, and I've seen some.
Working on a proto based on a Via Epia 10k (Nehemiah), with a
home-brew power supply and a couple of pelletier modules, I had
problems with 2 IDE drives that were difficult to identify :
- spining was quite a long process, but went always ok (drives had
trouble to get to full speed, took 10secs for them to warm up).
- at heavy load, random crash (and you know how ide crashes). After a
long study, it came that the PSU voltage drop down for 12V (at 10.8V,
box crashes, net log says).

So my (real) question would be :
- how much a drive consumes ? how long can it be on diet ?
and, on top of this :

Is it possible to make the drives turn slower ? To make the heads move slower ?
That would be my dream. No more heat, a 10mA consumption, no more noise...

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Gordon Henderson]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Francois Barre wrote:

> Is it possible to make the drives turn slower ? To make the heads move slower ?
> That would be my dream. No more heat, a 10mA consumption, no more noise...

Some drives do support quiet vs. performance modes.

hdparm will set this for you, however, from the hdparm manual page:

       -M     Get/set Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) setting. Most modern
              harddisk drives have the ability to speed down  the  head  move-
              ments  to  reduce  their  noise output.  The possible values are
              between 0 and 254. 128 is the most quiet (and therefore slowest)
              setting and 254 the fastest (and loudest). Some drives have only
              two levels (quiet / fast), while others may have different  lev-
              els  between  128 and 254.  THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT
              WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Good luck!

Gordon

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Francois Barre]

> Some drives do support quiet vs. performance modes.
>
> hdparm will set this for you, however, from the hdparm manual page:
>
>       -M     Get/set Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) setting. Most modern
>              harddisk drives have the ability to speed down  the  head  move-
>              ments  to  reduce  their  noise output.  The possible values are
>              between 0 and 254. 128 is the most quiet (and therefore slowest)
>              setting and 254 the fastest (and loudest). Some drives have only
>              two levels (quiet / fast), while others may have different  lev-
>              els  between  128 and 254.  THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT
>              WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Gordon
>

Did it ever work for you ?
I may be unlucky, but I never seen this work for any of my drives.
Or maybe my ears are always polluted, and I hear the heads move even
in my dreams :-p....

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Gordon Henderson]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Francois Barre wrote:

> > Some drives do support quiet vs. performance modes.
> >
> > hdparm will set this for you, however, from the hdparm manual page:
> >
> >       -M     Get/set Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) setting. Most modern
> >              harddisk drives have the ability to speed down  the  head  move-
> >              ments  to  reduce  their  noise output.  The possible values are
> >              between 0 and 254. 128 is the most quiet (and therefore slowest)
> >              setting and 254 the fastest (and loudest). Some drives have only
> >              two levels (quiet / fast), while others may have different  lev-
> >              els  between  128 and 254.  THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT
> >              WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Gordon
> >
>
> Did it ever work for you ?

Not on any of the servers with IDE drives I've just tried it with.

> I may be unlucky, but I never seen this work for any of my drives.
> Or maybe my ears are always polluted, and I hear the heads move even
> in my dreams :-p....

I think only certian drives support it though.

Gordon

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[John Hendrikx]

> Is it possible to make the drives turn slower ? To make the heads move slower ?
> That would be my dream. No more heat, a 10mA consumption, no more noise...
>   
If only... for a lot of the things I do, all I need is massive storage 
capacity, not massive speed (I run crypto on the entire raid array, 
which reduces its speed to about 15 MB/sec maximum, which is far more 
than I need for my purposes).  I find it a shame 5400 rpm drives are 
being phased out.  In my opinion, 7200 rpm drives will make more noise, 
produce more heat and live shorter than their 5400 rpm counterparts.  
Some diversity in the hard drive market towards maximum 
storage/reliability and maximum speed would be a good thing in my opinion.

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Mattias Wadenstein]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Francois Barre wrote:

> So my (real) question would be :
> - how much a drive consumes ? how long can it be on diet ?
> and, on top of this :
>
> Is it possible to make the drives turn slower ? To make the heads move 
> slower ? That would be my dream. No more heat, a 10mA consumption, no 
> more noise...

Some manufacturers do produce documentation regarding this:

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/products/Deskstar_7K250

It is the "Specification - OEM" document[s] that are interesting, in my 
case lately: "Deskstar 7K250 Specification v1.6 (Serial ATA)"

On page 27 you have "Table 21: Power supply of current models" where you 
can read the power consumption of a drive during various kinds of load 
(startup, idle, random r/w, sleep).

Here you also can see that the "Silent" mode makes the drive use 8.5W 
instead of 10.6W under "Random R/W Average" load. Not that I know how to 
activate "Silent" mode from Linux, but I expect the document to tell you 
what bits you should send over the cable.

I suspect other manufacturers have similar documents, but I don't know if 
they are public or how to find them. Some pointing and clicking on 
websites will probably tell you what you need for your drives.

/Mattias Wadenstein

Re: multiple Sata SATAII 150, TX4 - how to tell which drive is which?headaches galore!

[Hans Kristian Rosbach]

On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 18:12 +0100, Francois Barre wrote:
> Is it possible to make the drives turn slower ? To make the heads move slower ?
> That would be my dream. No more heat, a 10mA consumption, no more noise...

It is not possible to make the disk platters spin slower, since the
speed of the platters is what makes sure the heads don't touch the
platters.

It is possible to slow down head movement, either by hdparm or you can
set it permanently (until you change it again) with tools often
provided by the manufacturer.

-HK