[plug] server failing with bizarre disk errors

[Jon Miller]

One thing that can cause drives to behave erratically is not enough power, what size PSU is in the machine? I'm assuming there are good fans cooling off the drives.
Another issue to look at is using drives with small cache, they are not designed for servers but for workstations.  When I did my training with Compaq the one thing they stressed to us was the proper use of HDD in servers.  They stressed in a production environment NEVER under any circumstances use an IDE drive.  The data will create a bottleneck effect.  This is due to a server "serves" multiple requests and a workstation only does "requests" and that is done one-at-a-time.  For this reason a SCSI system should always be used in a server. You may want to consider this.  Yes, I know most would argue that the EIDE drives are closing in on the EIDE drives, but it's not the speed that is the issue, it's the number of instructions that the processor is precessing to the drives that is causing the issue.  Workstations IDE drives can only do so many per cycle.  Whereas the server has to do a whole lot more in the same time.
I'm not going to get into the depth of this on the list.  But I suggest since this is a production server that it be setup as a production server.


Jon L. Miller, MCNE, CNS
Director/Sr Systems Consultant
MMT Networks Pty Ltd
http://www.mmtnetworks.com.au

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure
 is trying to please everybody." -Bill Cosby



>>> craig at postnewspapers.com.au 5:23:20 PM 9/04/2003 >>>
> If you find out what it is, please let me know, all I can tell you is that
> unplugging and replugging the cables, and replacing them doesn't work. (for
> me anyway) Maybe moving to another IDE controller will help. I've been
> having these insurmountable opportunities for close to 2 years - goes away
> for a while, and then strikes at full strength.

Already tried a cable change.

Out of interest, what chipset and hdds do /you/ use? Mine are all 
western digital JBs, an 80g and a 120g in this machine.

This honestly doesn't look like anything as simple as "bad drive". I've 
had 3 servers do this in 6 months ( a succession in fact ) and have 
replaced drives, RAM, motherboards, CPUs, cables, PSUs  - everything.

This is only the latest machine to do it. What's worse - my home machine 
is showing signs of going the same way, but in its case there are 
clearly identifiable drive issues (two unreadable files that cause DMA 
timeouts and CRC errors. When overwritten with zeros, problem goes away).

I've heard of laptops doing stuff like this with dodgy PM, which is why 
I've disabled power management - no change.

Craig