Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:38:51 -0800 (PST) From: Tom Glover <tomg@egg.net> To: Doug White <dwhite@gumbysoft.com> Cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Promise controller and 5.2 Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.58.0401161637300.63061@enema.egg.net> In-Reply-To: <20040116155912.H93165@carver.gumbysoft.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.58.0401160732440.63061@enema.egg.net> <20040116155912.H93165@carver.gumbysoft.com>
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On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Doug White wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Tom Glover wrote: > > > > > I am running 5.2-RELEASE with a Promise S150 TX4 Serial ATA RAID > > controller and a couple of WDC SATA drives at RAID 1. I am noticing some > > behavior that does not seem right to me. > > > > Systems boots fine on the two mirrored drives. If I disconnect the drive > > on channel 2 then the system continues to run. However if I disconnect the > > drive on channel 1 it dies. > > Can you explain "dies"? No response on console. > > > If I reboot after the drive on channel 1 fails I can recover and boot off > > the drive on channel 2. However, the Promise S150 BIOS throws up an error > > message about the drive failure that requires manual intervention before > > boot can proceed. > > This is normal for Promise and most ATA RAID, since thats likely to be the > only warning you'll get about a missing disk. Also, some operating systems > are not good about bumping the generation numbers AT ALL, and you can end > up with unsynchronized mirrors if you continue. With the mirror, you > won't lose your data, but its not designed to be fault-tolerant in a > runtime sense. I don't know why you get differing failure modes between > disks, though -- perhaps you aren't using the right disk device? You > should be using ar0. > > > There does not appear to be any way around that. This, IMIHO, is brain > > dead and makes the controller useless for any remote operation. If this > > is SOP for Promise then can someone suggest a SATA RAID controller that > > behaves in a more sane manner? > > You've discovered that ATA RAID is software RAID with hardware assist. > > If you want more transparent ATA RAID, you want 3ware. > > -- > Doug White | FreeBSD: The Power to Serve > dwhite@gumbysoft.com | www.FreeBSD.org > -- Tom Glover
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