Lockup problems on FreeBSD disks

[Roland Smith]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 06:39:15PM -0500, David Jackson wrote:
> I have a USB hard drive.  Whenever I open two programs which utilise the 
> USB hard drive simultaneously, these programs, i assume when they 
> attempt to write to the hard drive lock up due to what i suspect must be 
<snip>

This particular problem is one I haven't seen. But I've had problems with USB
harddisks freezing when trying to write large files. It seems that not
USB<->ATA chipsets are created equal, and the 7.x USB stack seems to have
problems with that. 

> It seems most likely that this is a USB level problem involving the USB 
> drivers. I am using FreeBSD 7.1. It is annoying behaviour to say the 
> least and I wonder what can be done about it,

Try 8.0-PRERELEASE. The USB stack has been rewritten for 8.x, and my limited
testing so far indicates it to work better with quirky hardware. The problem
of a panic when unplugging a mounted USB drive should also be fixed.

And even if you still have problems with the 8.x USB stack, I suspect the USB
stack in 8.x is more likely to receive TLC than the one in 7.x, so it would be
best to check that out.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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