zfs parition probing causing long delay at BTX loader

[Steven Hartland]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Maloney" <peter.maloney at brockmann-consult.de>
To: <freebsd-stable at freebsd.org>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: zfs parition probing causing long delay at BTX loader


> On 10/20/2011 07:23 PM, Steven Hartland wrote:
>> Installing a new machine here which has 10+ disks
>> we're seeing BTX loader take 50+ seconds to enumerate
>> the disks.
> I am running 8-STABLE. On my system with 22 disks, it took much longer
> than a minute (maybe 5 minutes... not sure, but overall boot was about 7
> minutes). While this time is passing, I can watch the leds on the disks
> blink in order, many times in a loop.
> 
> My IO card is a LSI SATA/SAS 9211-8i 6Gb/s.

We are indeed using that 3 x 9211-8i's per chassis. 

> After I upgraded the firmware to version 11, it seems to take much less
> time, but I didn't time it. And watching the LEDs last time I rebooted,
> I don't notice them all blinking the same way. Instead, all were solid
> for a second or two after the long wait, and then only the root disks.

We are already running fw v11.00.00.00 but thanks for the heads up.

> So if you have the same card, I suggest you update the firmware. (I
> updated for stability rather than boot speed, and it seemed stable until
> it froze today, after 2 weeks)

Do you have any information about the hang?

    Regards
    Steve

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