ATA Drive Issues

[Wil Hatfield]

Beto,

I am currently trying to upgrade one without customers on it to 6.0. But as
was the problem with 5.4 the problems don't show up until the machine is
under high load.  So even under 6 I won't have a clue if the issues are
fixed until I get the customers on it. So it doesn't make alot of
difference.

I checked with the manufacturer or the machine and they assure me that they
installed brand new high quality 80/40 cables. But then again what did I
expect them to say. So do you know of a good high quality 80/40 manufacture
and where I can buy some new cables? What's the best of the best?

At Supermicro's recommendation I already phlashed to the latest bios.

Well it is good to know you think 6 is better than 5.4. But then again you
are running SATA and we all know 6 runs SATA better. Hopefully it runs ATA
better too.

--
Wil Hatfield



-----Original Message-----
From: Norberto Meijome [mailto:freebsd at meijome.net]
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 4:48 PM
To: Wil Hatfield
Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: ATA Drive Issues


On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:43:35 -0800
"Wil Hatfield" <freebsd at hyperconx.com> wrote:

> Ok I am just nervous about going to 6.x and putting these customers
> through this not once more, but twice when I have to go back to 4.x.

Sorry for asking the obvious, but why not try with 6 without any
customers on the servers? putting new hardware/software straight into
production seems to me like looking for troubles.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand, just because they ARE new doesn't
mean the cables/drives are NOT bad. Granted, that many drives in a bad
state would be weird...but not really if they are from the same
manufacturer's batch. smartmon clearing them would suggest that it's
cabling issue. seriously, TRYING new good quality cables from a
different provider can't be that hard/expensive?

alternatively, try different BIOS version. usually a new version of the
bIOS fixes problems. BUT I have a server (dual amd64 TYAN box,
2x SATA-I controllers with 4 SATA-II drives) which would simply not
boot with a newer version of the bios, so I left it at the original
BIOS (yes, keep backups of your BIOS upgrades! :-) .

FWIW, 6 is better than 5.4, at least for me.

good luck,
Beto