[Novalug] Strange Disk Problem

Greg F gregfaust@gmail.com
Mon Sep 13 13:59:13 EDT 2010


For what it's worth, I resolved this issue by using DD to zero out all disks
and re-installing ubuntu.  I assume something left behind by ZFS when I was
running Opensolaris was interfering with the kernel probing the disks.

On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 12:29 AM, James Ewing Cottrell 3rd <
JECottrell3@comcast.net> wrote:

>  On 9/10/2010 3:16 PM, Greg F wrote:
> > Guys,
> > I'm stumped on this one and google doesn't seem to be helping.
> >
> > I'm using Ubuntu Server 10.04.1 on a Dell PowerEdge 2950 III with a
> > Sun StorageTek PCI Express card and a Sun j4200 disk array with 12x
> > 1TB disks.
> >
> > After performing a clean install the system shows 13 1TB disks
> > attached.  How can this be?
>
> Baker's Dozen :)
>
> >   Only 12 are connected???  I'm going to be setting up mdadm and LVM
> > but was planning RAID 1 which requires an even number of disks.
>
> Nope. You can have a 3-way mirror. Or More.
>
> Now if you are using RAID 10, you DO need, an even number of "disks". So
> chop each disk into two equal partitions.
> Mirror A1 with B2, B1 with C2, C1 with A2. When adding two more simply
> mirror D1 and D2 with E1 and E2.
>
> Not quite as robust as a mirror, but sort of.
>
> If it is truly 13 disks, use one as a hot spare.
> >
> > Fdisk -l shows 13 disks (/dev/sdb through /dev/sdn)
> > cat /var/log/messages shows 13 disks (/dev/sdb through /dev/sdn)
> > fstab file looks fine
> No sda?
> >
> > If i look in the BIOS for the StorageTek card it shows 12 disks and 1
> > storage enclosure connected.
> >
> > This box used to have Windows on it which showed 12 disks, also used
> > to have OpenSolaris which showed 12 disks so I'm inclined to think
> > it's not a hardware problem.
> >
> > Has anyone ever seen this behavior before?  Seems like it might be a bug.
> In addition to the hdparm -I strategy, what happens when you disconnect
> the array?
>
> JIM
>
> P.S. But speaking of 13, what do you get when you multiply 6 by 9?
>
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