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IBM Raid 5 Stripping check program

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jcascino

Technical User
Apr 15, 2004
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Is there a raid 5 stripping check program that would make sure your stripping/parity checking is working?

Also what is the fail rate on stripping? Is it two years, five, what?

Thanks

Jeff
 
raid manager software.as to the second questions,I have no idea what you are asking for, Failure of what the hardware? the software? what?
 
The Raid stripping is going bad and we are getting I/O errors on systems. We have had 14 in the last year. We do have a lot of servers in the field (hundreds). Once you stripping goes bad basically your raid will fail. We are not getting defunc drives, but our Seq. databases are getting corrupt. I thought there might be a software program to check your parity on the drives for something.
Maybe stripping goes bad over time? but I would think there should be a way to check that.
Jeff
 
On the adapters I use, Consistancy check, verifies the array data, including the parity info.

If an array is properly setup, with a hot spare, an array loss is rare. With over 20 raid5 arrays at different clients, in five over years, no losses.
With a few Dell servers, a bad firmware release caused repeated false drive failures. One array was destroyed due to a drive firmware update using Seagate's Enterprise drive utility.

In all the years I been using raid setups I have never had I/O errors unless.....

firmware on the array adapter is buggy

Firmware on drives is causing errors
Drives on the array do not match as far as firmware revision; Drives of different firmware revisions often work quite well together,other times they don't.
If your drives have a firmware revision of version 1 and the manufacturer is up to version 5, more than a few bugs were fixed

Scsi setup, termination or cable problems

Heat can cause a drive to have I/O errors.

Though rare.....
Firmware on the array adpter is easily upgradeable (and downgradeable in case of a problem). Still, upgrading firware on a raid can cause serious problems.
 
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