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 -- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
