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

[Lou Picciano]

Roy - Though it doesn't offer much by way of solution to the Western Digital Dilemma, I can reinforce your assertions re Hitachi: We've got a very nicely-running ZFS array comprised of 2TB Hitachi Desktars; built partly with your help, as you recall. 

Great performance - and it's been rock solid so far. I've never been much of a fan of WD anyway - you are only helping me in my position... 

Lou Picciano 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk" <roy at karlsbakk.net> 
To: "Discussion list for OpenIndiana" <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org> 
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 5:23:56 PM 
Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] BAD WD drives - defective by design? 

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 
> _______________________________________________ 
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-- 
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. 

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