zfs discuss - Jun 2008 - ZFS Hardware Check, OS X Compatibility, NEWBIE!!

This is my first post here, and i hope it is ok that i posted in this thread.

I have been doing a bit of reading on the solaris platforms, and seem to be
inclined to try out the open solaris os or solaris 10. My only worry is that my
lack of knowledge with the command line may make this difficult regarding
trouble shooting. It seems fairly straighforward creating zpools etc, but maybe
nexenta is better suited for me (i read about some memory limitation with
nexenta?).

My end goal is to use this box, to store my media files. Connect it to my
airport extreme router via gigabit ether, and depending on situation access data
via wifi (smb share) or ether via router (iscsi), both on a Mac. Is it possible
to do iscsi over wifi, aside from speed limitations of the wireless, i wanted to
format the drive in hfs format.

My proposed build thus far... 

CPU (39.99)
AMD Athlon 64 LE-1600 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Single-Core Processor -
Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16819103199
MB $134.99
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16813131013

PSU $54.99
Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply 115/230 V CSA,UL,TUV, FCC -
Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16817182017

Sata power converter $1.89
Nippon Labs 4-Pin PC power to 2 x SATA Converter Cables Model POW-SATA-2 -
Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16812816015

Ram $84.99
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16820231122

Video Card $19.99
ASUS EN6200LE/TC256/TD/64 GeForce 6200LE 256MB(64MB on Board) 32-bit DDR PCI
Express x16 Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tem=N82E16814121019R

DVD Player $17.99
Sony NEC Optiarc Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model
DDU1615/B2s - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16827101131

80gig sata drive for the OS, and 4 500gig seagate 7200.10 drives.

While planning this out, it seemed that all of the parts i chose are supported
by solaris, please correct me if im wrong. Do you see any issues with this
setup? I''m looking to build this box as cheaply as possible, BUT as
reliable as possible as well. (any other suggestions for places that may have
parts cheaper? )

Thank you all for your patience, this is quite a steep learning curve!
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 8:25 AM, Darryl <ddooniejunk at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is my first post here, and i hope it is ok that i posted in this
> thread.
>
> I have been doing a bit of reading on the solaris platforms, and seem to be
> inclined to try out the open solaris os or solaris 10. My only worry is
that
> my lack of knowledge with the command line may make this difficult
regarding
> trouble shooting. It seems fairly straighforward creating zpools etc, but
> maybe nexenta is better suited for me (i read about some memory limitation
> with nexenta?).
>
> My end goal is to use this box, to store my media files. Connect it to my
> airport extreme router via gigabit ether, and depending on situation access
> data via wifi (smb share) or ether via router (iscsi), both on a Mac. Is it
> possible to do iscsi over wifi, aside from speed limitations of the
> wireless, i wanted to format the drive in hfs format.
>
> My proposed build thus far...
>
> CPU (39.99)
> AMD Athlon 64 LE-1600 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Single-Core
> Processor - Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16819103199
> MB $134.99
> ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard -
> Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16813131013
>
> PSU $54.99
> Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply 115/230 V CSA,UL,TUV, FCC -
> Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16817182017
>
> Sata power converter $1.89
> Nippon Labs 4-Pin PC power to 2 x SATA Converter Cables Model POW-SATA-2 -
> Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16812816015
>
> Ram $84.99
> G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
> Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16820231122
>
> Video Card $19.99
> ASUS EN6200LE/TC256/TD/64 GeForce 6200LE 256MB(64MB on Board) 32-bit DDR
> PCI Express x16 Video Card
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tem=N82E16814121019R
>
> DVD Player $17.99
> Sony NEC Optiarc Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model
> DDU1615/B2s - OEM
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16827101131
>
> 80gig sata drive for the OS, and 4 500gig seagate 7200.10 drives.
>
> While planning this out, it seemed that all of the parts i chose are
> supported by solaris, please correct me if im wrong. Do you see any issues
> with this setup? I''m looking to build this box as cheaply as
possible, BUT
> as reliable as possible as well. (any other suggestions for places that may
> have parts cheaper? )
>
> Thank you all for your patience, this is quite a steep learning curve!
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss



I''d strongly consider a second 80gb drive and raid-1 your operating
system
drive.  While you won''t lose any ZFS data if it goes down, rebuilding a
server, especially after custom configuration, can be a pain.  Restoring
from backup even more so :D
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On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Darryl <ddooniejunk at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Is it possible to do iscsi over wifi, aside from speed limitations of the
wireless, i wanted to format the drive in hfs format.
It should be, it''s just IP.  But why not use CIFS to share it instead?
 It''d be more portable across OSes and just as fast.
> PSU $54.99
> Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply 115/230 V CSA,UL,TUV, FCC -
Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16817182017
I''d buy something else, honestly.   The Corsair 650TX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 is
only $100, has more power, eliminates the need for the power adapters
you''ve got listed, would leave more room for future expansion, and
it''s probably more efficient too.

Will

On Mon, 2 Jun 2008, Darryl wrote:
> My end goal is to use this box, to store my media files. Connect it 
> to my airport extreme router via gigabit ether, and depending on 
> situation access data via wifi (smb share) or ether via router 
> (iscsi), both on a Mac. Is it possible to do iscsi over wifi, aside 
> from speed limitations of the wireless, i wanted to format the drive 
> in hfs format.
You should consider using SMB or NFS and storing the files in native 
ZFS filesystem format.  I think that this would work better for ZFS 
snapshots than the single large file used by iSCSI.  The files could 
be shared by more than one host, including being visible to your 
server for administrative purposes.  ZFS snapshots of iSCSI disks are 
not assured to be coherent from the perspective of the remote host 
which uses it and will be more similar to what you get when you 
abruply unplug the power from your remote host unless you take care to 
shut down the remote host prior to snapshotting.  Certainly Apple''s 
journalling will help here, but journalling works by losing some data.

Bob
=====================================Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

Use froogle for price checking.

I don''t know what chipsets are supported by opensolaris, but if I were
you I''d be looking hard at motherboards with as much integrated as
possible.  For instance, for less than $100 you can get a mini-atx motherboard
with 6 SATA ports and onboard video.  I found this out just by clicking the
appropriate categories on the left side of newegg.  Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200022+107192530&name=NVIDIA+GeForce+8000

Pair a motherboard like that with the cheapest processor possible, a case that
comes with a power supply, and a hard drive bay for the 5.25" case bays,
and you''re off like a bride''s pajamas!  I''d get
wd6400aaks or wd7500aacs drives.  the aacs (GP) drives are 5400rpm and vibrate
less, which will cause less noise problems in most cases, if you know what I
mean.

As a bonus, some of the consumer AMD chipsets are compatible with unbuffered ECC
memory, so you can use this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146525 .  The memory
you chose is not what you need.  DDR2 667mhz * 2 is 1333mhz, which is a faster
bus speed than the processor you chose.  So you won''t even use all the
speed of 667 memory, not to mention the 800 memory you chose.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 6:25 AM, Darryl <ddooniejunk at gmail.com>
wrote:
> MB $134.99
> ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16813131013
[..]
> Video Card $19.99
> ASUS EN6200LE/TC256/TD/64 GeForce 6200LE 256MB(64MB on Board) 32-bit DDR
PCI Express x16 Video Card
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tem=N82E16814121019R
Consider a motherboard based on the R690G/SB600 chipset or the nVidia 7050.

The ASUS M2A-VM (690) is $70 and has on board video. I think only the
sound is not supported. Likewise the nVidia ASUS M2N-VM (7050) is $70.
I believe both have only 4 SATA ports, but that should be ok for your
build.

-B

-- 
Brandon High bhigh at freaks.com
"The good is the enemy of the best." - Nietzsche

AGHH thank you all for your responses!  Took me a while to figure out this
forum, as i was getting email responses and wasn''t sure if i needed to
reply here, so i apologize to those i emailed personally!!

As advised by Brandon, the miniatx boards would have a lower power consumption,
so i think i may have to go that route.  So with this in mind, going to have to
look for a supported board with all of my requirements.

I have read that PSU''s that come with cases are far from reliable?  Is
this truly the case?

Once i set my mind on one thing i get new points of view :)  I''m
starting to purchase parts that i know will be universal (ie ram), so that i
spread out the cost :)

Can anyone comment on OS X compatibility with opensolaris for time machine, and
regular shares?

THANK YOU to all of you for your time and continued patience.  This will be my
first build if you haven''t noticed...

Darryl
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Darryl <ddooniejunk at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I have read that PSU''s that come with cases are far from reliable?
Is this truly the case?
Inexpensive cases have inexpensive power supplies.

Most of the Antec cases come with good power supplies. I have a
Thermaltake Matrix case that came with a PSU and it''s been reliable
for 2 years. I believe the case and PSU was about $100.

For my most recent build I looked at Silent PC Review and went with a
Corsair 520W PSU based on their testing.

-B

-- 
Brandon High bhigh at freaks.com
"The good is the enemy of the best." - Nietzsche

Brandon High wrote:
> Inexpensive cases have inexpensive power supplies.
>
> Most of the Antec cases come with good power supplies. I have a
> Thermaltake Matrix case that came with a PSU and it''s been
reliable
> for 2 years. I believe the case and PSU was about $100.
>   
I just picked up an Antec Earthwatts EA-650 power supply from NewEgg.  
It doesn''t come in a case as far as I know, but it''s very
quiet and runs
my AMD AM2 dual-core CPU very nicely.  I''m now a fan.  I''ve
thinking
about replacing a perfectly-useful Asus power supply that I have in 
another case with one of the Earthwatts series power supplies, due to 
the noise.

Most of the weirdnesses that I associate with the power supply problems 
are hard to truly pin on the power supply.  But a sub-par power-supply 
really can affect the stability of the system.  Historically AMD CPUs 
have historically worked, but been unstable when paired with a sub-par 
power supply (I was able to pin one of these 100% on the power supply).  
This goes back as far as the original Athlons.  Intel CPUs started being 
finicky around the time the Prescott was released.  There are a lot of 
crappy power supplies out there for sale...

I''d advise against skimping on the power supply.  I''ve ordered
new cases
and/or power supplies for the last three of my home-builds -- and 
putting a good power supply in there really does correlate (but 
correlation != causation) with having a stable system.

-Luke

P.S. Anyone in Southwest Virginia want an Inwin Micro-ATX half-height 
case with a questionable 350-watt power supply?

> Consider a motherboard based on the R690G/SB600 chipset or the nVidia 7050.
> 
> The ASUS M2A-VM (690) is $70 and has on board video. I think only the
> sound is not supported. Likewise the nVidia ASUS M2N-VM (7050) is $70.
> I believe both have only 4 SATA ports, but that should be ok for your
> build.
I have an M2A-VM.  It runs 2008.05 just fine.  I have not checked
out sound support yet, but a driver is listed by the driver detection
tool.  It is correct that the board has 4 SATA ports.


Regards -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab at bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgr??e: 45
Gesch?ftsf?hrer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

Sata Controller (26.99)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008

Asus M2A-VM (79.99)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131174

CPU $39.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103199

Case $49.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154071

PSU $30.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338008

Sata power converter $1.89

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816015

DVD Player $17.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827101131

Ram $84.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

Complete redesign with the aid of the very helpful people on this site!  Again i
truly appreciate it.

Could this PSU fit in a micro atx case?
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052)  I searched
for dimensions etc, but i am assuming i need a microatx psu for a microatx case,
unfortunately there arent any high power ones, to run 6 sata drives.

I went through the HSL and for the most part everything ive listed is
compatible, i hope..

Thanks again!
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:21 PM, Darryl <ddooniejunk at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Sata Controller (26.99)
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008
You may need to flash the BIOS on this card to disable the RAID
features. I think you can get the correct image from the Silicon Image
website.
> Could this PSU fit in a micro atx case?
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052)  I searched
for dimensions etc, but i am assuming i need a microatx psu for a microatx case,
unfortunately there arent any high power ones, to run 6 sata drives.
It would depend on the case.

-B

-- 
Brandon High bhigh at freaks.com
"The good is the enemy of the best." - Nietzsche

I dont know what hapenned to the thread, i can only read up to the 6th post... 
But i have narrowed down my hardware for my build, and will commence purchasing
it all slowly.  Thank you to all that have assisted me!  I am apologizing in
advance, as i know when i have my equipment, i''ll be bothering you once
again, sorry!  I am quite excited to get this started.  I wish i could practice
some zfs commands to learn, but i will continue reading meanwhile

Darryl
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

This thread really messed me up, posts dont follow a chronological order...  so
sorry for all the extra posts!
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

This looks like a great config, but I''m trying to avoid having to run a
separate SATA Controller along with any BIOS issues it may have.

Does anyone have experience with some of the gforce 8200 boards mentioned
earlier in this thread, such as the ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI?  At @$90 with 6 SATA
ports and decent onboard video, it would provide a good option... assuming that
is is supported.

Thanks!
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Darryl wrote:
> This thread really messed me up, posts dont follow a chronological order...
so sorry for all the extra posts!
That''s what you get when you don''t use working tools like
usenet news.
nntp for ever!!!

> Darryl wrote:
> > This thread really messed me up, posts dont follow
> a chronological order...  so sorry for all the extra
> posts!
> 
> That''s what you get when you don''t use working tools
> like usenet news.
> nntp for ever!!!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discu
> ss
This is very true haha, and the page count on the forum page confuses me too,
when i click second page i still enter the first page, haha..

I would prefer not to run a sata controller either, but i figure i would run my
boot drives off them, as i will not be read/writing much from them, the speed
should not be much of an issue (please correct me if i am wrong).

VAB: Did you have any  issues with this board, or was everything detected, i
believe reading in the HCL that the sound card was not detected...

Brandon: I like this board as you advised (GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H), but it only
has 5 Sata ports, so i would still need a controller (if i wanted to run my boot
disk in raid 1).  I got all excited too! I do believe the less hardware the
better, this one looked good
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131273), but
wasn''t on the supported list.  Being that i''m new to all this,
i''m weary of taking chances on my troubleshooting abilities, or my (bug
you guys) and direction following.

Thanks to everyone again.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Hi Darryl!

> VAB: Did you have any  issues with this board, or was everything detected,
i
> believe reading in the HCL that the sound card was not detected...
I did not have any issues.  Here''s what prtconf says about the sound:

<caiman:/home/volker,378> prtconf -vpc /dev/sound/0
pci1043,8249, instance #0
    System software properties:
        name=''play-interrupts'' type=int items=1
            value=000000af
        name=''record-interrupts'' type=int items=1
            value=000000af
        name=''interrupt-priorities'' type=int items=1
            value=00000009
    Hardware properties:
        name=''acpi-namespace'' type=string items=1
            value=''\_SB_.PCI0.AZAL''
        name=''assigned-addresses'' type=int items=5
            value=8300a210.00000000.fe020000.00000000.00004000
        name=''reg'' type=int items=10
           
value=0000a200.00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000.0300a210.00000000.00000000.00000000.00004000
        name=''compatible'' type=string items=7
            value=''pci1002,4383.1043.8249.0'' +
''pci1002,4383.1043.8249'' + ''pci1043,8249'' +
''pci1002,4383.0'' + ''pci1002,4383'' +
''pciclass,040300'' + ''pciclass,0403''
        name=''model'' type=string items=1
            value=''Mixed Mode device''
        name=''power-cons


The Device Driver Utility says that audiohd is attached.  The audioplay
tool works out of the box with some ancient .au files I have.

However, I have not been able to convince either Rhythmbox or
Totem to play anything at all... they complain about missing codecs
etc.  Since in typical Gnome fashion they don''t say anywhere how to
get codecs, I''ve given up on them.  :-(

For completeness, here''s prtdiag:

System Configuration: System manufacturer System Product Name
BIOS Configuration: Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS M2A-VM ACPI BIOS Revision
1705 03/28/2008

==== Processor Sockets ===================================
Version                          Location Tag
-------------------------------- --------------------------
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ Socket AM2

==== Memory Device Sockets ===============================
Type    Status Set Device Locator      Bank Locator
------- ------ --- ------------------- --------------------
DDR2    in use 0   A0                  Bank0/1
DDR2    in use 0   A1                  Bank2/3
DDR2    in use 0   A2                  Bank4/5
DDR2    in use 0   A3                  Bank6/7

==== On-Board Devices ====================================
==== Upgradeable Slots ===================================
ID  Status    Type             Description
--- --------- ---------------- ----------------------------
1   available PCI              PCI1
2   available PCI              PCI2
3   available PCI Express      PCIEX16
4   available PCI Express      PCIEX1_1


HTH -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab at bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgr??e: 45
Gesch?ftsf?hrer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

>From what i can understand (prtconf is gibberish to me :)), the other sys
checks seem to recognize everything else, so seems to be all good with this
board.
Thank you for confirming this!

ps.  Not sure if this ok, but i came across a deal, i though i should pass on.. 
a 1 TB Samsung drive for 169.99 (1/household) ends today.

http://shop1.frys.com/category/Outpost/Hard+Drives+&+Memory/Hard+Drives/Internal+Bare+Drives?accipterAreaString
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Darryl wrote:
> >From what i can understand (prtconf is gibberish to me :)), the other
sys checks seem to recognize everything else, so seems to be all good with this
board.
>
> Thank you for confirming this!
>
> ps.  Not sure if this ok, but i came across a deal, i though i should pass
on..  a 1 TB Samsung drive for 169.99 (1/household) ends today.
>
>
http://shop1.frys.com/category/Outpost/Hard+Drives+&+Memory/Hard+Drives/Internal+Bare+Drives?accipterAreaString>
>   
Last weekend''s Fry''s advertisement said "limit two per
customer" so
you might have better luck at the local store.

NB. This is the Samsung HD103UJ which is a desktop model.  If you
can find a HE103UJ, then you get the enterprise-class model.  AFAICT,
the difference may just be warranty, bin, and firmware... but beware the 
bin!
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?group=72&type=61&subtype=63&model_cd=249&ppmi=1155

 -- richard

Is there a consensus that seagate barracuda drives are worthwhile, stable,
etc...?
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Darryl wrote:
> Is there a consensus that seagate barracuda drives are worthwhile, stable,
etc...?
>   
All drives suck.  Use RAID.  :-)

-Luke

On Jun 4, 2008, at 11:40, Luke Scharf wrote:
> All drives suck.  Use RAID.  :-)
So true.  I''ve been using Seagate Barracudas mostly because of their  
warranty, and they''ve been generally good, but we got one server in  
where 4 of the 8 drives failed in the first two months, at which  
point we called Seagate and they were happy to swap out all 8 drives  
for us.   I suspect a bad lot, and even found some other complaints  
about the lot on Google.  Current Barracudas are nice - some of the  
first ''parallel recording'' ones ran really really (really)
hot.

I recently tried out a batch of Western Digital ''green''
drives, and
1/4 was riddled with bad sectors (ZFS found these for me).  I do  
think I''ll be going with WD''s for a big ZFS server build,
though,
since you can tune down the bad block retries on their "desktop"  
drives, and I don''t know that there''s a way to do that with  
Seagate''s.  The WD Velociraptors look really nice for ZFS cache  
drives, but it looks like that might be a bit not-quite-ready at this  
point (failures appear to hurt quite a bit), so I''ll save two slots  
for a pair down the road.

-Bill

-----
Bill McGonigle, Owner           Work: 603.448.4440
BFC Computing, LLC              Home: 603.448.1668
bill at bfccomputing.com           Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/    Page: 603.442.1833
Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/
VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf

good thing i asked about the seagates...  i always thought they were highly
regarded.  I know that everyone has their own opinions, but this is still quite
informative.  I''ve always been partial to seagate and WD, for not other
reason than, thats all i''ve had :)
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Jun 4, 2008, at 11:59, Darryl wrote:
> good thing i asked about the seagates...  i always thought they  
> were highly regarded.  I know that everyone has their own opinions,  
> but this is still quite informative.  I''ve always been partial to
> seagate and WD, for not other reason than, thats all i''ve had :)
Just to be clear, I don''t think Seagate is doing any worse than any  
other vendor, and (given a small sample size) my WD''s have had a  
higher infant mortality rate so far.

The only thing making me chose WD for ZFS is TLDR:

   http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org+WDTLER.EXE

since Seagate just came out with a low-power drive.  If somebody can  
show me how to tune a Barracuda like a WD, I''d probably switch back.   
If you can spend the money for an ''enterprise'' Seagate this
isn''t an
issue for you.

Just the idea of what a hard drive is admits a bad idea (spinning  
rust-coated glass at 5000+ RPM with micrometer tolerances); it''s just  
better than the other options right now.

Hard drives fail.  All of them.  We get to bet on when and why, and  
employ things like ZFS to help deal with it.  Even ZFS is helpless  
against small-odds events, though - sooner or later somebody will  
have 3 drives of their raidz2 fail over the same night.

-Bill

-----
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On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 11:52 -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote:
> but we got one server in  
> where 4 of the 8 drives failed in the first two months, at which  
> point we called Seagate and they were happy to swap out all 8 drives  
> for us.   I suspect a bad lot, and even found some other complaints  
> about the lot on Google.
Problems like that seem to pop up with disturbing regularity, and have
done so for decades.  (Anyone else remember the DEC RA81 glue problem in
around 1985-1986?)

I''ve thought for some time that a good way to defend against the
"bad
lot" problem (if you can manage it) is to buy half of your disks from
each of two manufacturers and then set up mirror pairs containing one
disk of each model...

						- Bill

On Jun 4, 2008, at 10:47 AM, Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 11:52 -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote:
>> but we got one server in
>> where 4 of the 8 drives failed in the first two months, at which
>> point we called Seagate and they were happy to swap out all 8 drives
>> for us.   I suspect a bad lot, and even found some other complaints
>> about the lot on Google.
>
> Problems like that seem to pop up with disturbing regularity, and have
> done so for decades.  (Anyone else remember the DEC RA81 glue  
> problem in
> around 1985-1986?)
>
> I''ve thought for some time that a good way to defend against the
"bad
> lot" problem (if you can manage it) is to buy half of your disks from
> each of two manufacturers and then set up mirror pairs containing one
> disk of each model...
>
>

I think it''s a bit more common to arrange to have same vendor parts,  
but different lots. There are still lots of potential correlations,  
shared chassis, shared power, etc. mean shared vibration, shared  
environment, and shared human error sources ;>



-- 
Keith H. Bierman   khbkhb at gmail.com      | AIM kbiermank
5430 Nassau Circle East                  |
Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113           | 303-997-2749
<speaking for myself*> Copyright 2008

You may all have ''shared human errors'', but i dont have that
issue
whatsoever :)  I find it quite interesting the issues that you guys  
bring up with these drives.  All manufactured goods suffer the same  
pitfalls of production.  Would you say that WD and Seagate are the  
front runners or just the best marketed?

> You may all have ''shared human errors'', but i dont
> have that issue  
> whatsoever :)  I find it quite interesting the issues
> that you guys  
> bring up with these drives.  All manufactured goods
> suffer the same  
> pitfalls of production.  Would you say that WD and
> Seagate are the  
> front runners or just the best marketed?
It depends on the model more than the make, so to say.  You''re better
off asking about this on a storage forum... but the short answer is it
doesn''t matter which disk you choose unless you have some specific goal
in mind, in which case you might choose the disk with the best performance in
this benchmark, or the lowest idle power usage, or... etc.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Very true, didnt mean to derail the topic, sorry.  Just trying to  
learn as i go!

Thanks again!


On 4-Jun-08, at 3:05 PM, MC wrote:
>> You may all have ''shared human errors'', but i dont
>> have that issue
>> whatsoever :)  I find it quite interesting the issues
>> that you guys
>> bring up with these drives.  All manufactured goods
>> suffer the same
>> pitfalls of production.  Would you say that WD and
>> Seagate are the
>> front runners or just the best marketed?
>
> It depends on the model more than the make, so to say.  You''re  
> better off asking about this on a storage forum... but the short  
> answer is it doesn''t matter which disk you choose unless you have
> some specific goal in mind, in which case you might choose the disk  
> with the best performance in this benchmark, or the lowest idle  
> power usage, or... etc.
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
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