If I use an ext3 filesystem with noatime I never see problems, but if I use XFS with barriers and atime enabled, I keep getting this: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen ata1.00: cmd ea/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout) ata1.00: status: { DRDY } ata1: hard resetting link ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 13851948 The errors always happen in the XFS log which then causes filesystem shutdown. The drive reports itself as: ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) ata1.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG HD160JJ/P, ZM100-34, max UDMA7 ata1.00: 312500000 sectors, multi 8: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32) ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 Kernel is 2.6.27.12, using the ahci driver on this hardware: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html