From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 25 22:58:13 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B0D5516A417 for ; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:58:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dnewman@networktest.com) Received: from mail.networktest.com (mail.networktest.com [207.181.8.134]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 93A9F13C458 for ; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:58:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dnewman@networktest.com) Received: by mail.networktest.com (Postfix, from userid 1002) id EA2CE78C51; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:58:12 -0800 (PST) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on mail.networktest.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_PBL, RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL,RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.2.3 Received: from mose.local (cpe-75-82-195-55.socal.res.rr.com [75.82.195.55]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.networktest.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3EBD478C4D; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:58:06 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4749FDFD.8010002@networktest.com> Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:58:05 -0800 From: David Newman Organization: Network Test Inc. User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Macintosh/20071031) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ted Mittelstaedt References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dealing with a failing drive X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:58:13 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/24/07 12:39 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > The output of idacontrol show will show if one of the > hard disks in the SmartArray has failed. Your choice with > a hardware array is to either run it with redundancy or not. > (ie: raid5 or mirroring or striping) You have to choose > which is more important for you. > > IMHO it is very foolish to stripe an array that you have > critical data on and assume that you can predict a failure > of a disk using smart or other monitoring, and replace it > in advance of a failure. If your concern is redundancy, then > add more disks to the array and create a raid 5 or a mirror. > Then ignore all the predictive junk and let the array card > concern itself with detecting if a drive has failed. Run > idacontrol periodically out of a script that checks for a > failure of a disk and e-mails you if there is one. Thanks, this is good advice, but it doesn't answer the specific questions I had: 1. How to diagnose the health of a *physical* disk that's part of a RAID array (RAID1, in this case) in an old Compaq Proliant server? 2. Is it normal for idacontrol to generate soft write errors? Backstory here is that Proliant server #1 generated beaucoup hard and soft read and write errors and eventually locked up. I thought it was one of the disks but replacing one at a time didn't help. So I took both disks and put them in identical Proliant server #2. Ergo, I would conclude server #1's RAID controller flaked out. idacontrol is useful for telling the health of the logical disk. What it doesn't tell me (or maybe I just don't see it) is whether the physical disks are ok, and those "soft write errors" concern me. I had a failure situation, and need to figure out whether just the controller was bad or whether I need to replace at least one disk too. Thanks again! dn -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (Darwin) iD8DBQFHSf39yPxGVjntI4IRAp1yAJ4vMV9FkeaBsHRr/Z5WpCL27wJ3tACfS+pT 3UVlscnQUZhe8ulHksKDWsY= =Om7/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----