Strange HDD order

[Matt]

On Feb 3, 2008 6:13 AM, Christian Baer <christian.baer at uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
> Greetings programs!
>
> I have a computer here with 10 HDDs. Four of them are connected to the
> southbridge of the mainboard. The other 6 are connected to two Promise
> SATAII 300 TX4. Four of the drives are connected to the first controller
> (making it 'full') the other two connected to the second.
>
> To make the device names predictable I was very careful how I connected
> them. The four drives connected to the southbridge are in the right order
> (this also means they have the device names ad0 to ad3). The drives
> connected to the other controllers are a different story.
>
> The two controllers cooperate well and identify themselves as one
> controller only. So I get only one message showing all the drives. The
> drives are in this order in the BIOS message:
>
> D 0 WDC WD3200SD-01KNB0 08.05J08 (ad4)
> D 1 WDC WD3200SD-01KNB0 08.05J08 (ad6)
> D 2 SAMSUNG HD501LJ CR100-11     (ad8)
> D 3 SAMSUNG HD501LJ CR100-11     (ad10)
> D 4 Seagate ST3500320AS SD04     (ad12)
> D 5 Seagate ST3500320AS SD04     (ad14)
>
> The device in brackets is the one I'd expect to get. Instead, I get this:
>
> ad4: 476940MB <SAMSUNG HD501LJ CR100-11> at ata2-master SATA300
> ad6: 305245MB <WDC WD3200SD-01KNB0 08.05J08> at ata3-master SATA150
> ad8: 476940MB <SAMSUNG HD501LJ CR100-11> at ata4-master SATA300
> ad10: 305245MB <WDC WD3200SD-01KNB0 08.05J08> at ata5-master SATA150
> ad14: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500320AS SD04> at ata7-master SATA150
> ad18: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500320AS SD04> at ata9-master SATA150
>
> Where did I go wrong?
>
> Regards,
> Chris

Is the concern with the apparent out-of-order numbering based on how
you want to access these devices in areas like fstab?  If so, I
suggest using glabel(8) to label the drives and then address them by
their labels elsewhere in the system.  I think there may be cases
where glabel won't be able to help, but it should work for many usage
scenarios.

Matt