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SATA_SX4: data corruption with simultaneous writes

DISCUSSION Johny A 1 participant 3 messages Dec 30, 2004 – Feb 6, 2005

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Johny A

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#0 lore raw

Jeff et al,

I found this one on the mailing-list;
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ide&m=109749133709795&w=2

and have the same issues as described there, and also in the previous mails in this thread.

The difference is, I can reproduce this with the simplest possible setup;

I have an older Asus Mobo with an AMD1.33GHz CPU,
1 Promise SX4 SATA controller (0000:00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 6622 (rev 01)) 2 Seagate ST380817AS, Rev: 3.42 (80 GB SATA) disks

Disks each have 1 large partition with ext2 on them.

1. I boot off a Gentoo LiveCD running 2.6.9
2. I scp over some 180 MB simultaneously to the two disks across the network, one shell copying to 1 disk only
3. Unzip the .bz2 and .gz files just copied the files, again 1 shell working on each disk (no cross disk stuff going on at all).

Typically, within a few minutes at most of the unzipping starting I get CRC errors on the files. No errors in dmesg necessarily. Sometimes I get errors unzipping - unmount the drive and run fsck which reports no errors - very insidious!

I'd like the card to work - hey, I got one! and am willing to use my setup for testing of new driver versions. I'm useful with C, but not a kernel hacker, give me pointers to what needs done and I'll get it done, no worries...

Let me know if I can help getting this thing fixed!

Thanks,

Johny A

author
#1 lore raw

Guys,

Sorry to be a pain, wee bump for this note. In particular, if there is no time to fix this issue now could a wee note be added to the driver (in the docs, or possibly in the kernel log) stating that it is potentially dangerous to use this card with the current crop of kernels?

I'm still happy to help with testing and debugging, but as stated before, a couple of hints and pointers would be required :)

Thanks for listening!

:)Johny

Quoted 29 lines · Johny A

Jeff et al,

I found this one on the mailing-list;
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ide&m=109749133709795&w=2

and have the same issues as described there, and also in the previous mails in this thread.

The difference is, I can reproduce this with the simplest possible setup;

I have an older Asus Mobo with an AMD1.33GHz CPU,
1 Promise SX4 SATA controller (0000:00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 6622 (rev 01)) 2 Seagate ST380817AS, Rev: 3.42 (80 GB SATA) disks

Disks each have 1 large partition with ext2 on them.

1. I boot off a Gentoo LiveCD running 2.6.9
2. I scp over some 180 MB simultaneously to the two disks across the network, one shell copying to 1 disk only
3. Unzip the .bz2 and .gz files just copied the files, again 1 shell working on each disk (no cross disk stuff going on at all).

Typically, within a few minutes at most of the unzipping starting I get CRC errors on the files. No errors in dmesg necessarily. Sometimes I get errors unzipping - unmount the drive and run fsck which reports no errors - very insidious!

I'd like the card to work - hey, I got one! and am willing to use my setup for testing of new driver versions. I'm useful with C, but not a kernel hacker, give me pointers to what needs done and I'll get it done, no worries...

Let me know if I can help getting this thing fixed!

Thanks,

Johny A

author
#2 lore raw

Jeff et al,

I'd appreciate if you'd apply the attached patch to the Kconfig file as it may well save people with an SX4 rather a lot of time. It'd be fantastic if it made the patchset for 2.6.11 which I see you're busy preparing.

Thanks!

:)Johny

Quoted 37 lines · Johny A

Guys,

Sorry to be a pain, wee bump for this note. In particular, if there is no time to fix this issue now could a wee note be added to the driver (in the docs, or possibly in the kernel log) stating that it is potentially dangerous to use this card with the current crop of kernels?

I'm still happy to help with testing and debugging, but as stated before, a couple of hints and pointers would be required :)

Thanks for listening!

:)Johny

Quoted 25 lines · Johny A

Jeff et al,

I found this one on the mailing-list;
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ide&m=109749133709795&w=2

and have the same issues as described there, and also in the previous mails in this thread.

The difference is, I can reproduce this with the simplest possible setup;

I have an older Asus Mobo with an AMD1.33GHz CPU,
1 Promise SX4 SATA controller (0000:00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 6622 (rev 01)) 2 Seagate ST380817AS, Rev: 3.42 (80 GB SATA) disks

Disks each have 1 large partition with ext2 on them.

1. I boot off a Gentoo LiveCD running 2.6.9
2. I scp over some 180 MB simultaneously to the two disks across the network, one shell copying to 1 disk only
3. Unzip the .bz2 and .gz files just copied the files, again 1 shell working on each disk (no cross disk stuff going on at all).

Typically, within a few minutes at most of the unzipping starting I get CRC errors on the files. No errors in dmesg necessarily. Sometimes I get errors unzipping - unmount the drive and run fsck which reports no errors - very insidious!

I'd like the card to work - hey, I got one! and am willing to use my setup for testing of new driver versions. I'm useful with C, but not a kernel hacker, give me pointers to what needs done and I'll get it done, no worries...

Let me know if I can help getting this thing fixed!

Quoted 9 lines
Quoted 4 lines

Thanks,

Johny A

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drivers/scsi/Kconfig +4 -0
@@ -455,6 +455,10 @@
 	help
 	  This option enables support for Promise Serial ATA SX4.
 
+	  This driver is experimental and issues have been raised on linux-ide
+	  stating that data corruption may occur when running with multiple
+	  disks on this controller.
+
 	  If unsure, say N.
 
 config SCSI_SATA_SIL