Good morning Dee, Brad, On 11/04/2015 07:02 AM, o1bigtenor wrote: > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:31 PM, Brad Campbell >> Here's how I do it. This script is run on every bootup. A few notes here for Dee: Running this script (or something similar) needs to be automatic. In older systems, that means including it in /etc/rc.local. That file is deprecated in some modern systems, and alternates vary by distro. I don't know what you should use in Debian 8. {It still exists and works in Ubuntu Server 14.04.} >> It iterates through all the drives and uses smartctl to try and set erc >> timeouts. If that fails it assumes the drive does not support it and it sets >> the timeout value to 180 seconds. >> >> #!/bin/bash >> for i in /dev/sd? ; do This iterates through all sata drives, whether raid or not. >> if smartctl -l scterc,70,70 $i > /dev/null ; then >> echo -n $i " is good " "Good" clearly means the device has ERC support and the default timeout is OK. >> else >> echo 180 > /sys/block/${i/\/dev\/}/device/timeout >> echo -n $i " is bad " "Bad" means it doesn't support ERC, so the timeout is set to the work-around 180 seconds. That's the best you can do for such drives. >> fi; >> smartctl -i $i | egrep "(Device Model|Product:)" Your output was scrambled a bit at the end because a couple devices didn't report model or product, which Brad relied on for a end-of-line character. >> blockdev --setra 1024 $i >> done >> >> I have a mix of 15k SAS drives, WD green & red and some left over bits and >> pieces. This ensures the timeouts all match the drives capability. Looks pretty good to me. > ran the script > /dev/sda is bad Device Model: ST1000DM003-1ER162 > /dev/sdb is good Device Model: ST31000524AS > /dev/sdc is bad Device Model: ST1000DM003-1ER162 > /dev/sdd is bad Device Model: Corsair Force 3 SSD > /dev/sde is good Device Model: ST31000524AS > /dev/sdf is good Device Model: ST31000524AS > /dev/sdg is bad /dev/sdh is bad > As sdh is supposed to be a NAS drive I'm now confused. The script doesn't care what the drives are used for -- it just picked out all that start with 'sd'. > Is there anything that can be done to the drives already owned? Already done by the script. Not ideal, but not catastrophic. > How does one find applicable hard drives? > Only buy Enterprise class drives? { This was in your reading assignments. You may need to re-read them. I suggest you subscribe to this list -- let the normal flow of questions and answers help teach you the concepts underneath all of this advice. Anyways, } Buy drives that clearly indicate 'raid' or 'enterprise' support, or have OEM datasheets that explicitly show ERC support. My latest purchases have been Western Digital "Red" drives. They are marketed to home & small business NAS applications. I'm sure other brands are now targeting that market, too. Phil -- 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