I’ve found diverging instructions on the ’net about this.

To recap: SATA with the 4-pin Molex (white) power plug is not hot-pluggable, but either the wide connector or the separate (15-pin power and 7-pin data) connectors are.

However, in which order do I plug the cables in? Asrock says to connect first the data cable to the mainboard, then to connect, in this order, the power cable, then the data cable, to the drive. Another hardware guide says to connect the data cable first.

It’s surprising that a definitive answer on this is so hard to find.

I'm unsure about the differences in these storage interfaces. My Dell servers all have SAS RAID controllers in them and they seem to be cross-compatible to an extent.

The Ultra-320 SCSI RAID controllers in my old servers were simple enough: One type of interface (SCA) with special drives with special controllers, humming at 10-15K RPM. But these SAS/SATA drives seem like the drives I have in my desktop, only more expensive. Also my old SCSI controllers have their own battery backup and DDR buffer - neither of these things are present on the SAS controllers. What's up with that?

"Enterprise" SATA drives are compatible with my SAS RAID controller, but I'd like to know what advantage SAS drives have over SATA drives as they seem to have similar specs (but one is a lot cheaper).

Also, how do SSDs fit into this? I remember when RAID controllers required HDDs to spin at the same rate (as if the controller card supplanted the controller in the drive) - so how does that work out now?

And what's the deal with Near-line SATA?

I apologise about the rambling tone in this message, it's 5am and I haven't slept much.

Prelude:

I'm a code-monkey that's increasingly taken on SysAdmin duties for my small company. My code is our product, and increasingly we provide the same app as SaaS.

About 18 months ago I moved our servers from a premium hosting centric vendor to a barebones rack pusher in a tier IV data center. (Literally across the street.) This ment doing much more ourselves--things like networking, storage and monitoring.

As part the big move, to replace our leased direct attached storage from the hosting company, I built a 9TB two-node NAS based on SuperMicro chassises, 3ware RAID cards, Ubuntu 10.04, two dozen SATA disks, DRBD and . It's all lovingly documented in three blog posts: Building up & testing a new 9TB SATA RAID10 NFSv4 NAS: Part I, Part II and Part III.

We also setup a Cacti monitoring system. Recently we've been adding more and more data points, like SMART values.

I could not have done all this without the awesome boffins at ServerFault. It's been a fun and educational experience. My boss is happy (we saved bucket loads of $$$), our customers are happy (storage costs are down), I'm happy (fun, fun, fun).

Until yesterday.

Outage & Recovery:

Some time after lunch we started getting reports of sluggish performance from our application, an on-demand streaming media CMS. About the same time our Cacti monitoring system sent a blizzard of emails. One of the more telling alerts was a graph of iostat await.

Performance became so degraded that Pingdom began sending "server down" notifications. The overall load was moderate, there was not traffic spike.

After logging onto the application servers, NFS clients of the NAS, I confirmed that just about everything was experiencing highly intermittent and insanely long IO wait times. And once I hopped onto the primary NAS node itself, the same delays were evident when trying to navigate the problem array's file system.

Time to fail over, that went well. Within 20 minuts everything was confirmed to be back up and running perfectly.

Post-Mortem:

After any and all system failures I perform a post-mortem to determine the cause of the failure. First thing I did was ssh back into the box and start reviewing logs. It was offline, completely. Time for a trip to the data center. Hardware reset, backup an and running.

In /var/syslog I found this scary looking entry:

Nov 15 06:49:44 umbilo smartd[2827]: Device: /dev/twa0 [3ware_disk_00], 6 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
Nov 15 06:49:44 umbilo smartd[2827]: Device: /dev/twa0 [3ware_disk_07], SMART Prefailure Attribute: 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate changed from 171 to 170
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: Device: /dev/twa0 [3ware_disk_10], 16 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: Device: /dev/twa0 [3ware_disk_10], 4 Offline uncorrectable sectors
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: # 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      6576         3421766910
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: # 2  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      6087         3421766910
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: # 3  Short offline       Completed: read failure       10%      5901         656821791
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]: # 4  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%      5818         651637856
Nov 15 06:49:45 umbilo smartd[2827]:

So I went to check the Cacti graphs for the disks in the array. Here we see that, yes, disk 7 is slipping away just like syslog says it is. But we also see that disk 8's SMART Read Erros are fluctuating.

There are no messages about disk 8 in syslog. More interesting is that the fluctuating values for disk 8 directly correlate to the high IO wait times! My interpretation is that:

• Disk 8 is experiencing an odd hardware fault that results in intermittent long operation times.
• Somehow this fault condition on the disk is locking up the entire array

Maybe there is a more accurate or correct description, but the net result has been that the one disk is impacting the performance of the whole array.

The Question(s)

• How can a single disk in a hardware SATA RAID-10 array bring the entire array to a screeching halt?
• Am I being naïve to think that the RAID card should have dealt with this?
• How can I prevent a single misbehaving disk from impacting the entire array?
• Am I missing something?

I hear lots about SATA being slower than SAS but I've only found 1 decent benchmark. http://blog.whitesites.com/SAS-RAID-0-VS-SCSI-RAID-0-VS-SATA-Benchmarks__633689244191943184_blog.htm

In this, SAS comes out on top until you read that the SAS drives are 10K and the SATA drives are 7200 RPM.

Has anyone seen any good benchmarks/comparisons with equivalent speed disks? Has anyone seen any real-world loads (DB loads/searches, media streaming, etc?

Hot swapping out a failed SATA /dev/sda drive worked fine, but when I went to swap in a new drive, it wasn't recognized:

[root@fs-2 ~]# tail -18 /var/log/messages
May 5 16:54:35 fs-2 kernel: ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x50000 action 0xe frozen
May 5 16:54:35 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg CommWake }
May 5 16:54:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:54:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
May 5 16:54:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:54:50 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:54:55 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:54:55 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:00 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:55:05 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:05 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:10 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: reset failed, giving up
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: EH complete

I tried a couple things to make the server find the new /dev/sda, such as rescan-scsi-bus.sh but they didn't work:

[root@fs-2 ~]# echo "---" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan
-bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument
[root@fs-2 ~]#
[root@fs-2 ~]# /root/rescan-scsi-bus.sh -l
[snip]
0 new device(s) found.
0 device(s) removed.
[root@fs-2 ~]#
[root@fs-2 ~]# ls /dev/sda
ls: /dev/sda: No such file or directory

I ended up rebooting the server. /dev/sda was recognized, I fixed the software RAID, and everything is fine now. But for next time, how can I make Linux recognize a new SATA drive I have hot swapped in without rebooting?

The operating system in question is RHEL5.3:

[root@fs-2 ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Tikanga)

The hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SATA 3.0-Gb/s 500-GB, model ST3500320NS.

Here is the lscpi output:

[root@fs-2 ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus (rev a3)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE (rev a1)
00:05.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.2 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI bridge (rev a2)
00:08.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:09.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0f.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
04:00.1 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)

Update: In perhaps a dozen cases, we've been forced to reboot servers because hot swap hasn't "just worked." Thanks for the answers to look more into the SATA controller. I've included the lspci output for the problematic system above (hostname: fs-2). I could still use some help understanding what exactly isn't supported hardware-wise in terms of hot swap for that system. Please let me know what other output besides lspci might be useful.

The good news is that hot swap "just worked" today on one of our servers (hostname: www-1), which is very rare for us. Here is the lspci output:

[root@www-1 ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus (rev a3)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE (rev a1)
00:05.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.2 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI bridge (rev a2)
00:08.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:09.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0f.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:19.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
04:00.1 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
09:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1064ET PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 04)