Re: problem with SATA disk, difference between standard kernel and Debian kernel

[lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de>]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:11:59PM +0000, Aneurin Price wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 6:58 AM, lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de> wrote:
> > Anyway, if it's a software problem, it's probably not the module for
> > the particular controller but something else. That people with all
> > kinds of different hardware have this problem supports this theory.
> >
> > Hm, and I haven't seen anyone using Debian reporting it ... Is there
> > anybody here who has seen it?
> >
> >
> 
> This sounds more-or-less like my problem (I'm not using RAID though):
> http://marc.info/?l=linux-ide&m=121475606225101&w=2

Yeah, the disk just goes offline, and there doesn't seem to be a
solution for it. --- Unlike you, I can't fix it with rebooting only; I
have to turn off the power to get the disk back.

What about the suggestion that the disk should have a ground
connection to the chassis? That would be something new, and I find it
hard to believe that it should be needed (other than for transfering
heat).

> That's not using vanilla or Debian kernels; it's an Ubuntu machine.

> I'm including my uptimes list for it if anyone is interested in the
> length of time it usually takes to manifest.

It's the same here --- I don't have a list, but it could take a day, a
few days, a week, a few weeks, or a month or two before the disk got
lost. However, with my old board, it used to be longer intervals than
your list shows, i. e. more often weeks or a month than days. I can't
tell for the new board yet.

> It *seems* to me to be linked with heavy usage, particularly writes,
> but I'm not convinced this isn't coincidence since I haven't any
> record of how heavily the disk is in use.

It seems to happen to my disk when there's not much or no activity.

> I may well be able to get it to manifest very quickly by going back
> to using NFS, but I haven't tried.

Hm, the last time I tried NFS, it didn't work at all: The server would
freeze up once I tried to transfer larger amounts of data, and afair
it had all sorts of other problems (like not actually copying), so I
gave up on NFS.