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#11
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
On Jun 1, 1:43 pm, "Folkert Rienstra" wrote:
of a drive controller issue. I tried holding the drive in my hand as it powered up, and I could not feel the characteristic hum of the motor! And why should you? You set it up to "power-on in standby mode". So it does. Indeed. However, I would expect it to come out of standby mode when addressed by the host :-) For example, under Linux I can put a drive temporarily into standby with "hdparm -y /dev/sda". However, the Linux IDE/SATA drivers will bring it out of standby as soon as I try to access it. In my experience, drives in standby mode are still capable of communicating with the host, And it probably does. Problem is likely that host doesn't understand why it is in standby mode, so it fails it. Okay. I would believe this if it was only the laptop BIOS that didn't know what to do. But not only the laptop BIOS can't initialize it, also the BIOS on my desktop can't initialize it, and the Linux kernel can't initialize it when booting from an external disk. I certainly think a recent Linux 2.6.20 kernel must know how to deal with this situation... I've never met another hard drive feature that the Linux kernel couldn't handle with ease. Of course, now that I dig around a little more, I find this patch on the linux-ide mailing list: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-id.../msg04323.html Maybe with this patch my kernel will figure out what to do? I'll try it tonight... Anyone have any advice/anecdotes/explanation? Most likely your host isn't compatible with power-on in standby mode. Set the drive back to normal. That may be easier said then done, apparently. Indeed. Is there any utility to do this?? Dan Lenski |
#12
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
"Dan Lenski" wrote in message ups.com
On Jun 1, 1:43 pm, "Folkert Rienstra" wrote: of a drive controller issue. I tried holding the drive in my hand as it powered up, and I could not feel the characteristic hum of the motor! And why should you? You set it up to "power-on in standby mode". So it does. Indeed. However, I would expect it to come out of standby mode when addressed by the host :-) Nope. It wants/needs to be specifically told. Else any access would wake it up. For example, under Linux I can put a drive temporarily into standby with "hdparm -y /dev/sda". However, the Linux IDE/SATA drivers will bring it out of standby as soon as I try to access it. Power-on in standby mode is an altogether different feature. It's similar to the start unit command of SCSI that is required if a SCSI drive has been jumpered for autospin disabled. The difference here is that the jumper has been executed in software so you have a jumper command and a spinup command. Svend has mentioned them both already. In my experience, drives in standby mode are still capable of communicating with the host, And it probably does. Problem is likely that host doesn't understand why it is in standby mode, so it fails it. Okay. I would believe this if it was only the laptop BIOS that didn't know what to do. But not only the laptop BIOS can't initialize it, also the BIOS on my desktop can't initialize it, and the Linux kernel can't initialize it when booting from an external disk. That's not so surprising at all. Even IBM/Hitachi who are normally well equiped (either their Drive Fitness Test or Feature Tool) don't have it in their toolkits. I certainly think a recent Linux 2.6.20 kernel must know how to deal with this situation... I've never met another hard drive feature that the Linux kernel couldn't handle with ease. Of course, now that I dig around a little more, I find this patch on the linux-ide mailing list: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-id.../msg04323.html Maybe with this patch my kernel will figure out what to do? I'll try it tonight... Anyone have any advice/anecdotes/explanation? Most likely your host isn't compatible with power-on in standby mode. Set the drive back to normal. That may be easier said then done, apparently. Indeed. Is there any utility to do this?? Now that you mention it, Svend was experimenting with it. http://www.partitionsupport.com/advancednotes.htm Dan Lenski |
#14
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
The whole thing is kind of amazing: toggling the "power up in standby"
feature caused the BIOS of *three* desktop computers to pronounce the drive dead, and to freeze when booting. A clear sign of bad industry support of this (S)ATA feature, especially for laptop drives. For SCSI drives, their SCSI BIOSes can send START STOP UNIT (the similar SCSI command) at boot for very long times, and the drive can be mechanically jumpered to "no spin at powerup". This is because spinning up a SCSI drive imposes significant load to the PSU, so, it is a good idea to delay its spinup until after the BIOS self-tests, while the (S)ATA drives will be spinned up and power up. This reduces the PSU power load. But this is relevant for "heavy" SCSI drives only, not relevant for a laptop drive. That's why - IMHO - the industry support for a feature is bad on (S)ATA. * why isn't this feature marked as DANGEROUS in the hdparm manual :-) ? Hey, it's open source, mark yourself and tell the maintainer :-) * is there a way to issue raw commands to a drive from Linux (maybe via /sys) without recompiling the kernel? Try FreeBSD and "camcontrol". -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com |
#15
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:
The whole thing is kind of amazing: toggling the "power up in standby" feature caused the BIOS of *three* desktop computers to pronounce the drive dead, and to freeze when booting. A clear sign of bad industry support of this (S)ATA feature, especially for laptop drives. For SCSI drives, their SCSI BIOSes can send START STOP UNIT (the similar SCSI command) at boot for very long times, and the drive can be mechanically jumpered to "no spin at powerup". This is because spinning up a SCSI drive imposes significant load to the PSU, so, it is a good idea to delay its spinup until after the BIOS self-tests, while the (S)ATA drives will be spinned up and power up. This reduces the PSU power load. But this is relevant for "heavy" SCSI drives only, not relevant for a laptop drive. That's why - IMHO - the industry support for a feature is bad on (S)ATA. I don't agree on that. Don't forget that SATA drives are also used in big (and very expensive) storage arrays for low performance high capacity disk storage. * why isn't this feature marked as DANGEROUS in the hdparm manual :-) ? Hey, it's open source, mark yourself and tell the maintainer :-) * is there a way to issue raw commands to a drive from Linux (maybe via /sys) without recompiling the kernel? Try FreeBSD and "camcontrol". |
#16
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
On Jun 2, 4:02 am, "Maxim S. Shatskih" wrote:
The whole thing is kind of amazing: toggling the "power up in standby" feature caused the BIOS of *three* desktop computers to pronounce the drive dead, and to freeze when booting. A clear sign of bad industry support of this (S)ATA feature, especially for laptop drives. Right. It's about a 3-line addition to the BIOS code, as can be seen from Mark Lord's libata patch which I linked to. In my opinion, it *is* a feature which would benefit desktop computers and embedded systems, since you could save significant load on the PSU by not spinning up the HD at boot time. For example, my friend has built an automotive PC and he had problems with it crashing at boot, due to excessive drain on the car's 12V supply. Also, I don't think the distinction between 2.5" and 3.5" drives is relevant here, since they all use the same (S)ATA command set. * why isn't this feature marked as DANGEROUS in the hdparm manual :-) ? Hey, it's open source, mark yourself and tell the maintainer :-) Oh, believe me, I plan to :-) In my opinion, it is MUCH more dangerous than the other features marked dangerous. Most of them can simply crash the OS or lock up the drive until the next reboot. This one can make the drive appear dead *and* freeze the BIOS. * is there a way to issue raw commands to a drive from Linux (maybe via /sys) without recompiling the kernel? Try FreeBSD and "camcontrol". Cool. That's a neat utility. I feel like it outta be possible to send some commands via /sys/bus/scsi/devices or something like that... but it's just a hunch. I'm going to email Mark Lord about his patch and maybe he'll have a suggestion for that! I'd also like to poke the freakin' BIOS vendors with a clue stick and tell them to support this feature... but that's probably a lost cause, right? Dan |
#17
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
On Jun 2, 4:22 am, Dirk Munk wrote:
I don't agree on that. Don't forget that SATA drives are also used in big (and very expensive) storage arrays for low performance high capacity disk storage. Right. I assume that's why this drive has the feature. I have heard that some data centers use arrays of 2.5" disks since they consume significantly less power, and I'm assuming that's why this feature is implemented for SATA disks. Dan |
#18
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
Try FreeBSD and "camcontrol".
Cool. That's a neat utility. I feel like it outta be possible to send some commands via /sys/bus/scsi/devices or something like that... but it's just a hunch. "camcontrol" IIRC can do this. But, to send SCSI commands to (S)ATA drive in FreeBSD, you need a properly built kernel - no direct ATA disk driver, but the SCSI-to-ATA bridge driver. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com |
#19
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Dan Lenski wrote:
On Jun 2, 4:22 am, Dirk Munk wrote: I don't agree on that. Don't forget that SATA drives are also used in big (and very expensive) storage arrays for low performance high capacity disk storage. Right. I assume that's why this drive has the feature. I have heard that some data centers use arrays of 2.5" disks since they consume significantly less power, and I'm assuming that's why this feature is implemented for SATA disks. Actually 2.5" SATA drives are used as local disks in blade servers, were space and power are at a premium. There are also high performance 2.5" disks that are unsuitable for laptops, but AFAIK they are not available to ordinary customers, just to OEMs. And yes, I believe you are correct that this is the reason the feature is present. An other one is that 2.5" disks are far better at starting fast than 3.5" disks, since on laptops this is a typical way to save power. Still, basically the BIOS manufacurers or customizers messed up badly here. Arno |
#20
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Failure of brand new drive... possibly due to staggered spinup?
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Dan Lenski wrote:
[...] I'd also like to poke the freakin' BIOS vendors with a clue stick and tell them to support this feature... but that's probably a lost cause, right? Very likely. These people believe they know what they are doing, which is the worst kind of incompetence. Arno |
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