Problem with SATA/SAS 5iR

[Kevin Smith]

2009/2/12 Richard Tector <richardtector at thekeelecentre.com>

> Kevin Smith wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a problem with a Dell Poweredge SC440 computer.
>> It's equipped with a "Dell SATA/SAS 5iR" controller, it's from LSI
>> actually
>> (maybe megaraid).
>>
>> I'm using FreeBSD 7.1 Release
>>
>> I have 2x 500 GB SATA in a synchronised(status optimal) RAID-1 logical
>> volume.
>>
>> The machine is brand new, first problem arised early after the installer
>> started to install the files, the install was very slow, (I know it is
>> because write cache is not enabled, that can be done with a management
>> program, and I will enable it later) and sysinstall could not install the
>> ports collection, the error it gave was
>> "write error on transfer to cpio process, try of 1024 bytes"   after OK,
>> write error popped up.
>>
>> I found this error too, but I found no clue what could have happened.
>>
>> Installing the system without the ports collection (installed it later
>> with
>> cvsup)in another run gave no error at all, and in dmesg is see the logical
>> volume:
>>
>> mpt0:vol0(mpt0:0:0): Settings ( Hot-Plug-Spares High-Priority-ReSync )
>> mpt0:vol0(mpt0:0:0): Using Spare Pool: 0
>> mpt0:vol0(mpt0:0:0): 2 Members:
>>      (mpt0:1:32:0): Primary Online
>>      (mpt0:1:1:0): Secondary Online
>> mpt0:vol0(mpt0:0:0): RAID-1 - Optimal
>> mpt0:vol0(mpt0:0:0): Status ( Enabled )
>> (mpt0:vol0:1): Physical (mpt0:0:1:0), Pass-thru (mpt0:1:0:0)
>> (mpt0:vol0:1): Online
>> (mpt0:vol0:0): Physical (mpt0:0:32:0), Pass-thru (mpt0:1:1:0)
>> (mpt0:vol0:0): Online
>> da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
>> da0: <Dell VIRTUAL DISK 1028> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
>> da0: 300.000MB/s transfers
>> da0: 476837MB (976562176 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 60788C)
>>
>> It looks OK, but then I found this after typing "df -h", and it gives me
>> the
>> creeps:
>>
>> Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
>> /dev/da0s1a    496M    138M    318M    30%    /
>> devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
>> /dev/da0s1e    3.9G     14K    3.6G     0%    /tmp
>> /dev/da0s1f    440G    537M    404G     0%    /usr
>> /dev/da0s1d    2.9G    1.3M    2.7G     0%    /var
>>
>> I'm reading the freebsd-current list, and I found another buffer related
>> problem there, but they say nothing about these.
>>
>> If you have any explanation/solution for these problems pls share them!
>>
>>
>>
> What's wrong with the dmesg? The used/available inconsistencies are due to
> space being reserved.
>
> Regarding disk performance, you need to put hw.mpt.enable_sata_wc=1 in
> /boot/loader.conf to reenable the write cache (it's disabled by default for
> consistency reasons when using SATA disks leading to poor write
> performance).
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard
>

Thanks for your advice, this was unusual for me, because even on a 4iR I
couldnt see this space reservation.

What about sysinstalls write error when extracting the ports collection?

Regards,
B.