major pita w/LSI Tyan TA26 combo

[Ken Gunderson]

On Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:43:09 -0800
Freddie Cash <fcash at ocis.net> wrote:

> On Friday 03 March 2006 12:38 pm, Ken Gunderson wrote:
> > Been there and done that w/this before but I'm exasperated and don't
> > know where to go from here.
> 
> > Anyways, system details:
> > FreeBSD 5.4 and 6.0
> > Tyan TA26 <http://www.tyan.com/products/html/ta26b2882.html>
> > 2 x Opteron 252
> > 4 x 1GB DDR400 ECC Registered Ram
> > LSI 320-2x and LSI 320-1
> > Fujitsu U320 SCSI drives, both 10K and 15K rpm
> 
> > Problem:
> > Create an array, subject it to some moderate I/O and the logical drive
> > becomes "degraded" w/a "failed" drive.  The logical drive cannot be
> > rebuilt.  The physical drive is in fact fine, e.g. can format and
> > consistency check. Same problem if swap in a different drive, etc.,
> > e.g.:
> 
> Would this controller happen to be plugged into a riser card?  Or is it 
> plugged directly into the motherboard?
> 

The TA26 uses a riser card.  

> We just returned a whole mess of LSI MegaRAID boards with similar issues 
> (lose a drive on a regular basis, I/O drops down into the KB/s range, CPU 
> spends 75%+ time in iowait state, controller not properly identified 
> during install preventing any OS from being installed).  On Tyan Thunder 
> K8SD-Pro (S2882) motherboards.
> 
> The 2U rackmount systems that used an approved Tyan riser card for the 
> PCI-X slot had all the problems.  The tower systerms that plugged the 
> RAID controller directly into the PCI-X slot onthe motherboard have been 
> working for months without issues.
> 

I have long suspected the Tyan PCI riser!  Tyan swears it's golden
though.  Thanks for the confirmation.

> We tested FreeBSD 6.0, 6.1-beta1, and 6.1-beta2, Debian Linux stable 
> (2.6.8 and 2.6.15 kernels), testing (2.6.11, 2.6.12, 2.6.13, 2.6.14 
> kernels), and unstable (2.6.14 and 2.6.15 kernels).  With the included 
> megaraid drivers and the custom drivers direct from LSI.
> 
> The official word from LSI Support is:  they do not support any RAID 
> controllers connected to riser cards, no matter what the OS.  Go that via 
> e-mail from one of their support techs and one of their RAID engineers.
> 

I'm in contact w/the LSI support manager. Do you mind if I forward his
this?

> > Does anybody have ideas and/or receommend anything that actually
> > works?!?!
> 
> Switch to 3Ware and/or Areca cards.  :)  We replaced all the LSI MegaRAID 
> cards in the 2U rackmounts with 3Ware Escalade 9550SX cards and have been 
> chugging along nicely ever since (FreeBSD 6.1-beta2 i386 and amd64, and 
> Debian Linux stable custom install with 2.6.15 kernel 64-bit).  Besides, 
> the management tools from LSI are pure crud compared to 3DM2.

Thanks bunches.  This has been a big help. 

-- 
Best regards,

Ken Gunderson

Q: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
A: Why is putting a reply at the top of the message frowned upon?