3Ware Escalade Issues

[Nathan Vidican]

Charles Swiger wrote:
> On Feb 22, 2006, at 12:31 PM, Don O'Neil wrote:
> 
>>>> 3) Is there some way I can do a faster FSCK, or perhaps 'fool'  the 
>>>> system
>>>> into thinking the file system is clean?
>>
>>
>>> If you update to 5.x or later, you can use background FSCK rather  than
>>
>> having to
>>
>>> wait for the FSCK to complete the way it does under 4.x.
>>
>>
>> I wasn't aware 5.x could do this. My next question is how are my  
>> existing
>> apps going to be affected by upgrading to 5.x?
> 
> 
> If you install the 4.x compatibility libraries, your old 4.x binaries  
> should continue to work just fine.  However, you will want to rebuild  
> as much of your existing software under 5.x as possible.
> 
>>> Also, if you update to 5.x, you can run the smartmon tools, which  
>>> will let
>>
>> you
>>
>>> do a drive self-test using SMART, this will give much better  
>>> information
>>
>> about
>>
>>> what is going on with the drive, and also give an estimate of its  
>>> remaining
>>> lifespan.
>>
>>
>> Yes, this would help a lot!!!
> 
> 
> Well, once you're running 5.x, install smartmon and run: "smartctl -t  
> long /dev/ad0", or whatever the right device is.
> 
>>> How old are the drives, if you know?
>>
>>
>> They're less than 2 years old, and still under warranty. This is  the 
>> second
>> drive to fail and it's driving me nuts.
>>
>> They're Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y250P0 250 GB PATA drives...  Never 
>> had a
>> problem with that particular drive until this batch.
>>
>> Can anyone suggest some good 250GB PATA drives for me to use? I  might as
>> well swap them all out since I'm starting over. The 6000 series  Escalade
>> card I'm using doesn't support anything more than 250 GB.
> 
> 
> I've had somewhat better luck with the so-called "special edition"  
> variants of the drives, such as the WD1200JB, which have more cache  RAM 
> and a longer warranty period than the generic versions....
> 

According to Western Digital, ONLY their 'SD' or (RAID-Edition) drives should be 
attempted in an array; WDC utilizes proprietary error correction mechanisms 
which mangle the error-handling done by an array controller. In short, while the 
drive is doing it's internal error-correction, the raid controller sees it as a 
drive failure and a whole new mess develops.

We've run into this several times now, both with our own in-house systems, and 
with those we've procured for others... trust me on this, if going with Western 
Digital drives... DO NOT use anything other than their 'SD' or RAID-Edition 
drives. Maxtor drives have no such issue AFAIK, nor Seagate... but only speaking 
from experience here not factual data. - WDC has a good explanation int he 
knowledge base on their website/support section.

-- 
Nathan Vidican
nvidican at wmptl.com
Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd.
http://www.wmptl.com/