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Date:      Fri, 29 May 1998 04:12:00 -0400
From:      tcobb <tcobb@staff.circle.net>
To:        "'Karl Pielorz'" <kpielorz@tdx.co.uk>
Cc:        "'freebsd-current@freebsd.org'" <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: DPT driver fails and panics with Degraded Array
Message-ID:  <509A2986E5C5D111B7DD0060082F32A402FACD@freya.circle.net>

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karl Pielorz [mailto:kpielorz@tdx.co.uk]
> Sent: Friday, May 29, 1998 4:04 AM
> To: tcobb
> Cc: 'freebsd-current@freebsd.org'
> Subject: Re: DPT driver fails and panics with Degraded Array
> 
> 
> tcobb wrote:
> > 
> > I have a DPT3344UW/2 running an external 24GB array.  OS is FreeBSD
> > CURRENT circa 5/18/98.  I'm running the latest available 
> firmware flash
> > for the card, all on a P5-233MMX with 128MB RAM.
> > 
> > Recently I lost a harddrive in my 24GB RAID5 array.  The array was
> > configured with a HOT SPARE which should have allowed it to rebuild
> > completely online, with no interruption in service (except 
> some minor
> > slowdowns, perhaps).  While the HARDWARE worked well, the DPT DRIVER
> > failed miserably.
> 
> One comment (and it's not a flame!) - honestly... ;-)

No flame taken ;)

> With an array of that size, on a machine that important - did 
> you not test
> to see what would happen with a failed drive?

Actually, we did that when we first implemented this array last
November.  Yanked a drive.  The hardware screamed (beeped like a
banshee), the system kept operating then but wasn't under any real load.


Despite pre-certification testing, something will be different when you
have a failure in production.  The difference in our case, I'm guessing,
was that the array is now 60-75% full, and the OS version is different,
and the system was under heavy access load,  too.  The original driver
was an over-hacked version stuffed into 2.2.2, the newest driver IS
better integrated, and actually faster, but obviously unable to handle
the under-load failure situation in exactly the way we had it happen.


-Troy Cobb
 Circle Net, Inc.
 http://www.circle.net


> The only system we have running with RAID at the moment is an 
> NT box on an
> HP Netserver - but even with that, we pulled a drive to 'see 
> what happened'
> - and a) make sure it works, and b) note down any important steps to
> recovering it...
> 
> We did this before we certified the machines as 24/7 & 
> 'mission critical'
> (It also shows that even with NT & 'expensive' hardware, 
> theres always stuff
> they leave out the manual, or have changed on screen, but not 
> in the manual
> ;-)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Karl Pielorz
> 

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