Re: RAID 6 Failure follow up

[Vincent Schut <schut@sarvision.nl>]

Andrew Dunn wrote:
> I am able to reproduce this smart error now. I have done it twice, so
> maybe other things are causing this also.
> 
> When I scanned the devices this morning with smartctl via webmin I lost
> 8 of the 9 drives. They are howerver still in my /dev folder.
> 
> Now I sent out my logs from the first failure last night, smartctl was
> on the system... I dont know if ubuntu server's default smartd
> configuration makes it do periodic scans because I didnt change anything.
> 
> I would hate to move back to 9.10 and see this problem again.
> 
> Should I just not install smartmontools? This seems like a bad solution
> because now I wont be able to check the drives in advance for failures.
> 
> Have you installed LSI's linux drivers? Some people say this solves
> their issue.
> 
> From the logs sent out last night do you think it could be something else?
> 
> Thanks a ton,

FWIW, I encountered the same issue, and seem to have found a viable 
workaround by accessing the SATA disks on that LSI backplane as scsi 
devices, e.g. by adding '-d scsi' to my smartctl/smartd.conf lines. No 
more errors in the logs, no more drives being kicked out.
Though not as much info is available that way as when using de sata 
driver ('-d sat', or automatically), like temperature is unavailable, it 
does allow me to initiate the selftests and get their result, and to 
monitor generic smart status of the drives. Quite enough for me.

YMMV, though.

Vincent.
> 
> Gabor Gombas wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 05:08:23AM -0500, Andrew Dunn wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> does it momentarily offline the disks? like they re-appear in /dev
>>> within moments? That would be similar behavior to what I am
>>> experiencing, the disks drop from the array, but they are in /dev by the
>>> time I get a chance to see them.
>>>     
>> No, either the disks need to be physically removed and re-inserted, or
>> the machine needs to be rebooted.
>>
>> Gabor
>>
>>   
>