Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:36:19 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: Matt Juszczak <matt@atopia.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Issue with freebsd 6.2 and disk drives Message-ID: <467E2D03.60506@infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <20070623194759.X41426@saturn.atopia.net> References: <20070623194759.X41426@saturn.atopia.net>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Matt Juszczak wrote: > Hi all, > > My dedicated server company is deploying me a new FreeBSD 6.2 server. > The box uses SATA drives, and is an AMD Athlon box. > > I was getting the following error flooding my dmesg: > > ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=********* > > so they replaced all the hardware in the box. Still, with entirely > different hardware, I am getting the same error: > > ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=106848207 > > The hard drive in the new box is: > > ad4: 76319MB <Seagate ST3808110AS 3.AAD> at ata2-master SATA150 I recommend installing smartmontools and running the 'long' self test a few times on your drives -- as the SMART stuff is handled within the drive firmware the test results won't be confused by problems with other parts of the system. Running smartd and scheduling regular disk self-tests is something I strongly recommend as good system management practice. > Before I start telling them that this new hardware is also bad, I > figured I would see if there are any known problems/bugs with 6.2, or > possibly a known compatibility issue with SATA (and maybe if I should > ask them to switch to IDE). There's no such generic problem with SATA, either with AMD64 or I386. What you can run into are: (a) problems with particular motherboard chipsets and (b) cabling troubles. (a) For instance the chipset on this motherboard: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron1000/HT1000/H8SSL-i2.cfm (which uses a ServerWorks HT1000 chipset) always generates complaints that the disks are connected with 'non ATA133 cables' (of course they are -- it's a SATA II system...) and that it is limiting the speed to UDMA66. Whereas this board: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron1000/MCP55/H8SMi-2.cfm uses the nVidia MCP55 Pro Chipset which just works, although you'll need the nfe driver from 7.0 in order to use the on-board ethernet. You can usually pick out the motherboard and/or chipsets used on your hardware from /var/run/dmesg.boot, or failing that try installing dmidecode from ports. (b) Cabling troubles are purely down to the build quality achieved by your supplier. Generally with SATA cables what seems to work best is to use cables that are as short as possible given that the cables should have at least an inch of slack in them, and also the cables should neither be strained, sharply kinked nor twisted. Look out for the practice of gathering a large bight of excess cable into a loop and securing it with cable ties -- while not intrinsically bad, this needs to be gone with care, as simply tightening the cable ties too much can crush the SATA cables and interfere with signal propagation. Also double check that the cables are securely plugged in at each end -- SATA cables should have a positive click-into-place action. Cheers, Matthew - -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate Kent, CT11 9PW -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGfi0C8Mjk52CukIwRCCi6AKCVK6q5RZAg0XhfY4toL7Qa9rSp5ACePXTV KzonsGmq7kLFPzB44rWoamo= =h6sN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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