Hi,
On the weekend, I moved my 8-STABLE installation (csup'd late Dec 2009)
onto a new drive, a Seagate ST31000528AS CC3; and while the transfer was
successful, I've noticed that the drive light is solidly on all the time,
even if it boots into single-user.
# uname -a
FreeBSD osiris.chen.org.nz 8.0-STABLE FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #1: Sat Jan 16 08:32:54
NZDT 2010 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/OSIRIS amd64
Is this something I should be worried about? There doesn't appear to
be any disk I/O (I can't hear the disk grinding), but I may be wrong.
The drive from which I transferred from did not exhibit this strange
behaviour.
Any advice would be welcome.
Cheers.
--
Jonathan Chen <jonc@chen.org.nz>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"The things we know best are the things we haven't been
taught."
- Marquis de Vauvenargues
Jonathan Chen wrote:> On the weekend, I moved my 8-STABLE installation (csup'd late Dec 2009) > onto a new drive, a Seagate ST31000528AS CC3; and while the transfer was > successful, I've noticed that the drive light is solidly on all the time, > even if it boots into single-user. > > # uname -a > FreeBSD osiris.chen.org.nz 8.0-STABLE FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #1: Sat Jan 16 08:32:54 NZDT 2010 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/OSIRIS amd64 > > Is this something I should be worried about? There doesn't appear to > be any disk I/O (I can't hear the disk grinding), but I may be wrong. > The drive from which I transferred from did not exhibit this strange > behaviour. > > Any advice would be welcome.What disk controller and driver do you use? -- Alexander Motin
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 08:03:02PM +1100, Ian Smith wrote:> Jonathan, > > On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, Jonathan Chen wrote: > > On the weekend, I moved my 8-STABLE installation (csup'd late Dec 2009) > > onto a new drive, a Seagate ST31000528AS CC3; and while the transfer was > > successful, I've noticed that the drive light is solidly on all the time, > > even if it boots into single-user. > > I guess this is the red/amber case LED, rather than on the drive itself?Yes.> > # uname -a > > FreeBSD osiris.chen.org.nz 8.0-STABLE FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #1: Sat Jan 16 08:32:54 NZDT 2010 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/OSIRIS amd64 > > > > Is this something I should be worried about? There doesn't appear to > > be any disk I/O (I can't hear the disk grinding), but I may be wrong. > > gstat should be definitive about activity. Even constant low level > activity should usually show some flickering.gstat doesn't show much activity on the drive at all. Most of the time the drive and it's associated slices read green on 0.0.> > The drive from which I transferred from did not exhibit this strange > > behaviour. > > > > Any advice would be welcome. > > If it were IDE I'd suspect its cable - and the drive if it wasn't that > - but I guess the SATA controller would be driving the LED.Yup. I've booted it into Windows, and the behaviour is what I'd expect - ie LED is off when no disk activity is happening. Thanks anyway. -- Jonathan Chen <jonc@chen.org.nz> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 07:47:33PM +1300, Jonathan Chen wrote:> Hi, > > On the weekend, I moved my 8-STABLE installation (csup'd late Dec 2009) > onto a new drive, a Seagate ST31000528AS CC3; and while the transfer was > successful, I've noticed that the drive light is solidly on all the time, > even if it boots into single-user. > > # uname -a > FreeBSD osiris.chen.org.nz 8.0-STABLE FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #1: Sat Jan 16 08:32:54 NZDT 2010 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/OSIRIS amd64 > > Is this something I should be worried about? There doesn't appear to > be any disk I/O (I can't hear the disk grinding), but I may be wrong. > The drive from which I transferred from did not exhibit this strange > behaviour.Is it possible for you to swap the drive out with another brand (e.g. Western Digital), or possibly a different model of Seagate? The reason I ask: I've seen what you describe, though it was many years ago -- but the similarity is that the disk was Seagate. I replaced the drive with one from WD and the behaviour disappeared. Footnote: I'm not slamming/insulting Seagate here, I'm just saying that in the past I've seen something similar. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |