Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 20:39:30 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael Abbott <michael@araneidae.co.uk> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Hard disk woes Message-ID: <20050905202954.Q18151@saturn.araneidae.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <CDE59A17-D3DF-4788-81DC-A0403DDCDD08@HiWAAY.net> References: <20050905151332.P16924@saturn.araneidae.co.uk> <20050905171912.GF67960@sentinelchicken.net> <20050905172827.U17621@saturn.araneidae.co.uk> <CDE59A17-D3DF-4788-81DC-A0403DDCDD08@HiWAAY.net>
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On Mon, 5 Sep 2005, David Kelly wrote: >>> I had a very similar problem a while back. After replacing the drive in >>> question, then replacing the motherboard, I discovered it was a power >>> issue. The power supply was freaking out at medium to high loads, which >>> was causing the device to continually reset. >> > On Sep 5, 2005, at 1:56 PM, Michael Abbott wrote: >> Well, I hope that's not it. I'm encouraged to think not: > Yeah But... Power supplies wear out. Particularly the capacitors. > > I have seen every single component replaced in denial that the problem could > be related to the power supply. Then the PS was finally replaced because it > was the only thing which had not. And the problem was the PS all along. Well, I do have another reason for thinking that it's nothing to do with the power supply: a bit of history I didn't mention (because it's long and not particularly interesting). When I first installed this machine (a bit over three years ago) I used the offending disk together with another disk of the same model. I first used the motherboard hardware RAID (using striping for speed, more fool me) on the motherboard and installed FreeBSD. It broke, really quite quickly (within a week or so). I blamed the RAID controller and tried again, this time using vinum. The system survived quite a bit longer (can't remember how long, a month or so maybe), but suddenly failed quite horribly: I lost all data. I retired the two disks and started again, and the resulting system has run sweetly for three years. Recently I brought the two disks out of retirement, and one of them seems most unhappy (as described). I'm strongly persuaded (convinced, even) that that one disk is dodgy. I think I'm going to have to bin it, unless somebody can come up with a way to reliably molycoddle it. I still think the question: "why does FreeBSD hang?" is interesting.
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