Very Interestink

I've been fiddling with my old Linux box (Yuri) today, and splutted it twice. Or splutted once and nearly-splutted once; the second time I managed to get it to do a controlled reboot rather than having to switch it off.

This tends to happen whenever I do a very large amount of disk activity on my main RAID array - which is a degraded RAID-5, which is the main reason I'm doing all this messing about with the new computer and copying files back and forth and running checksums and so on.

What's interestink is that there are no disk errors in the log files. None. I do have the dreaded "screaming interrupt" message - rather a lot of those - but no disk errors. Which suggests that the disks are fine but I might need a new SATA controller.

Oh good, I think; a SATA controller will be cheaper and easier to install than a new hard disk. Then I looked at the prices. It would be cheaper for me to buy a whole new motherboard with four SATA ports than to buy an add-on four-port SATA controller. Except that it wouldn't be a Socket A motherboard, so I'd have to buy a new CPU as well.

Hey, look! Adaptec are selling a 16-port SATA RAID controller. Not that I need one, or anything...

Update: I just kicked off a run of badblocks, a Linux utility that checks your hard disk for bad blocks.* All happy happy, then screaming interrupt, then lots of bad blocks, and then splut. (Which makes three spluts, and I'm out.)

Update: A new kernel might fix the problem. Unfortunately, right now I'm at work, and the box is home and splutted, so I can't try it out. Mmm, remote kernel upgrades...

Update: Ooh, shiny! Albeit expensive. PCI-Express x8, 16 SATA-II channels, up to 2GB of cache, RAID 0/1/3/5/6/10 support, optional battery backup...

* The developer originally called it ϖ∂.†
† Well, that looked interesting on my screen at work, but it turned out that this was largely due to my fonts being screwed up. I didn't think that particular letter of the Greek alphabet looked familiar. Rather making a hash of a throwaway joke in the process...‡
‡ In case I've now confused you, I replaced the turned-out-to-be-boring-and-ruined-the-joke symbols with something else.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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