[OpenIndiana-discuss] BAD WD drives - defective by design?

[Rennie Allen]

Oh I see, I thought you were misusing the term sector and so I went along
with your terminology.

I realize this is a hardware/driver thing, but by increasing the blocksize,
it may change the number of interrupts per operation (or otherwise change
the temporal characteristics with which the driver interacts with the
hardware) and may help to mask a hardware defect.  I thought that this is
what you were suggesting.

I don't have an investment in these drives, so I'll happily not use them.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk <roy at karlsbakk.net>wrote:

> file systems don't have sectors, they have blocks. and zfs normally uses
> 512b-128k blocks, which is fine. this issue won't be fixed by reducing the
> recordsize in zfs, it's a hardware/driver thing
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > I think Rich was suggesting using 4k sectors on the file system, not
> > asking
> > what the drives sector size was.
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:15 PM, Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
> > <roy at karlsbakk.net>wrote:
> >
> > > All drives have 512b sector sizes, WD FASS (blacks) and WD EADS
> > > (greens)
> > > both use plain old 512 sectors.....
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > The drives are attached to a backplane?
> > > >
> > > > Try using 4k sector sizes and see if that improves it - I've seen
> > > > and
> > > > been part of a number of discussions which involved this - and
> > > > you, I
> > > > think, actually.
> > > >
> > > > - Rich
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
> > > > <roy at karlsbakk.net> wrote:
> > > > > Hi all
> > > > >
> > > > > It seems recent WD drives that aren't "Raid edition" can cause
> > > > > rather a lot of problems on RAID systems. We have a few machines
> > > > > with LSI controllers (6801/6081/9201) and we're seeing massive
> > > > > errors occuring. The usual pattern is a drive failing or even a
> > > > > resilver/scrub starting and then, suddenly, most drives on the
> > > > > whole
> > > > > backplane report errors. These are usually No Device (as
> > > > > reported by
> > > > > iostat -En), but the result is that we may see data corruption
> > > > > at
> > > > > the end. We also have a system setup with Hitachi Deskstars,
> > > > > which
> > > > > has been running for almost a year without issues. One system
> > > > > with a
> > > > > mixture of WD Blacks and greens showed the same errors as
> > > > > described,
> > > > > but has been working well after the WD drives were replaced by
> > > > > deskstars.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now, it seems WD has changed their firmware to inhibit people
> > > > > from
> > > > > using them for other things than toys (read: PCs etc). Since
> > > > > we've
> > > > > seen this issue on different controllers and different drives,
> > > > > and
> > > > > can't reproduce it with Hitachi Deskstars, I would guess the
> > > > > firmware "upgrade" from WD is the issue.
> > > > >
> > > > > Would it be possible to fix this in ZFS somehow? The drives seem
> > > > > to
> > > > > work well except for those "No Device" errors....
> > > > >
> > > > > Vennlige hilsener / Best regards
> > > > >
> > > > > roy
> > > > > --
> > > > > Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
> > > > > (+47) 97542685
> > > > > roy at karlsbakk.net
> > > > > http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/
> > > > > --
> > > > > I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres
> > > > > intelligibelt. Det er et elementært imperativ for alle pedagoger
> > > > > å
> > > > > unngå eksessiv anvendelse av idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I
> > > > > de
> > > > > fleste tilfeller eksisterer adekvate og relevante synonymer på
> > > > > norsk.
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> > > > > OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > > > > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> > > > OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > > > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> > >
> > > --
> > > Vennlige hilsener / Best regards
> > >
> > > roy
> > > --
> > > Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
> > > (+47) 97542685
> > > roy at karlsbakk.net
> > > http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/
> > > --
> > > I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres
> > > intelligibelt. Det
> > > er et elementært imperativ for alle pedagoger å unngå eksessiv
> > > anvendelse av
> > > idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I de fleste tilfeller eksisterer
> > > adekvate
> > > og relevante synonymer på norsk.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> > > OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in
> > my
> > brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but
> > it's just
> > eggs hatching" - Jack Handy
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> > OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>
> --
> Vennlige hilsener / Best regards
>
> roy
> --
> Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
> (+47) 97542685
> roy at karlsbakk.net
> http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/
> --
> I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres intelligibelt. Det
> er et elementært imperativ for alle pedagoger å unngå eksessiv anvendelse av
> idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I de fleste tilfeller eksisterer adekvate
> og relevante synonymer på norsk.
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>



-- 
"I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my
brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but it's just
eggs hatching" - Jack Handy