We were having horrible SCSI bus reset problems with our Red Hat box and
Adaptec SCSI cards. I was literally rebooting that silly storage node
every day because when the problem would occur, the picker, and/or at
least one drive in the attached libraries, would simply disappear.
Nothing would bring them back except a reboot. you can only imagine the
frustration and utter chaos this was wreaking on our backups and tapes!
We tried everything, and nothing worked. I don't think we ever tried
increasing the st buffers, though. Anyway, we finally gave up and just
bought some LSI Logic cards. The cards we purchased were the LSI
22320-R. This is an ultra 320 MB (160 per channel) dual SCSI SE/LVD
card. Presto! No more problems. In fact, the machine has been so stable,
it's unbelievable!
The funny though is that we've had good success with Adaptec as far as
RAID, but very poor results with tape. I would be hesitant to ever use
Adaptec products for tape ever again, never mind the fact that Adaptec,
for whatever reasons, seems to have become the ubiquitous, omnipresent
SCSI card that comes defacto with just about anything you buy these
days. We just could never make it work. If it's that hard, why bother?
George
Dylan Vanderhoof wrote:
>
> Something else you might try, linux's st buffers are abysmally small by
> default and caused me no end of issues with my Scalar 1000 until I set them
> to something larger.
>
> The file that'll do this is /etc/modules.conf. Mine looks like the follwing:
>
> [dylanv@backup /etc]$ cat modules.conf
> alias scsi_hostadapter aic7xxx
> options st buffer_kbs=128
>
> 90% of the issues I was having were eliminated by adding the buffer_kbs line.
>
> -Dylan Vanderhoof
> Semaphore Corporation
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Antonio Ettorre [mailto:vot4anto AT GMAIL DOT COM]
> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 12:00 AM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: [Networker] R: [Networker] Red Hat Adaptec driver
>
> About this issue maybe can help you the following:
>
> With 2.4.29 being the latest (and most stable) stable kernel, we have to
> wonder why so many major distros are still shipping with 2.4.21 or 2.4.22
> kernels.
>
> At this point, all we can offer is this: if you are using SCSI tape drives
> under Linux with a 2.4 kernel, the use of a kernel prior to 2.4.24 will
> result in SCSI errors and failed tape I/O operations. This has been tested
> with tar, cpio, dd, and afio with the same results - 2.4.23 and earlier
> kernels still have serious SCSI tape I/O flaws that will affect your backups
> (and more importantly, your restores).
>
> For a quick step-by-step guide in Linux Kernel building, visit: Adding a
> secondary kernel to your Linux system
>
> Additionally, folks using Adaptec controllers should be aware that the
> aic7xxx_old driver is actually more stable for use with tape drives than the
> default aic7xxx driver. If you are receiving SCSI errors under 2.4.24+,
> please try using the aic7xxx_old driver. Other options include replacing the
> Adaptec controller with an Advansys if you only require Ultra Wide
> connectivity, or an ATTO Technologies UL3S for Ultra 160 performance. For
> most single tape drive scenarios, the Advansys or similar Symbios-based card
> will work fine, but for multiple tape drive configurations, configurations
> that include LTO-2, LTO-3, AIT-4, SAIT, or SDLT drives, the Ultra 160 ATTO
> UL3S is the better solution.
>
> That you can find at follow: http://www.linuxtapecert.org/
>
> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da: Legato NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU]
> Per
> conto di Carl Bergmann
> Inviato: giovedì 7 aprile 2005 8.59
> A: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Oggetto: Re: [Networker] Red Hat Adaptec driver
>
> I'v used the 6.3.9 driver from adaptec for 3 months now. Most scsi-bus
> reset and errors (that I hav with 6.2.36) has gone. Another thing to do
> is to disable CDI on the jukebox-devices.
> You can download the source-code for the 6.3.9 driver from adaptec and
> the make the driver to the latest kernel (I.m running RHEL Es. V3u4
> kernel 2.4.21-27.Elsmp). Remember to make a new initrd image otherwise
> you will get the old driver at boot.
> P.s. You can also ger the source-code for 2.6 kernel so you are able to
> run on RHEL ESv4
> Carl Bergmann
> Risoe Nat. Lab
> DK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Mussulman [mailto:mussulma AT CS.UIUC DOT EDU]
> Sent: 6. april 2005 18:43
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: [Networker] Red Hat Adaptec driver
>
> On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 09:05:06AM -0600, Librado Pamintuan wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > The new driver for the Adapter 39160 (v6.3.9) is now available on
> > Adaptec website. There are several rpm package available for various
> > release of Red Hat.
> >
> > Question is:
> > Did someone already used and applied this driver? are there any
> > improvement or does it poses new problems/errors?
> >
> > In particular, I'm running Red Hat ES 3 on Linux O/S (Intel server),
> > Legato NetWorker v7.1.2
>
> There were some recent posts (maybe January 2005?) about this driver.
> I'm running it in the same environment and versions as you, and am not
> having any problems. The latest kernel it supports is 2.4.21-4, which
> is not the latest available, but it works.
>
> I was having problems with the adaptec driver that ships with RHEL AS 3
> -- timeouts and bus errors. When I upgraded to the 6.3.9 version, my
> problems went away.
>
> Dave
>
> --
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