Hi folks,
I'm searching experience on AdvFS robustness when
harware is failing. We have had the following cases:
1) DECserver 3000/800 running OSF/1 vers. 2.0 connected
with HSZ40 RAID controller, configured with 6 RAID5
volumes each with 6 RZ28 disks. Alle RAID sets added to
one large domain devided into 4 filesets. AdvFS
log-files were located in a RAID5 volume on the same
controller, the OSF system is a in a mirrored LSM-volume
outside the RAID controller. Due to a hardware failure
in the RAID controller, the system crashed and when
rebooting we got a "panic" due to AdvFS inconsitency. We
finally got the system up when mounting one of the file
systems for read only. We upgraded to OSF ver. 3.0
(recommended from egeneering) and were able to copy the
corrupted fileset to a new, but when removing the
corrupted set, the whole domain collapsed. Finally DEC
support gave up and recommended to delete the whole
domain an rely on the Networker Restore. We did not feel
to well the next 40 hours waiting for 38GB of data to be
restored.
DEC Engeneering now strongly recommended to move the
AdvFS log files away from the RAID volumes and place
them in mirrored LSM volumes. This is done today.
2) DECserver 2100 running OSF/1 vers. 2.0 with a array
controller 210 running RAID5, using 8 RZ28 disks all in
one domain. The system disk and AdvFS log files are all
located in the RAID volume. Just after having the
previous case fixed, this RAID controller crashed too!
One fileset was completely garbled du to an overwritten
meta-file, another fileset had 4 files which could
neither be read nor removed. Since this server was not
in full productionm yet, only 1 GB had to be restored.
We have not yet added extra disks to get the log-files
out of the RAID-system.
It does not help much to secure the disks using RAID5
when the whole file system logic get corrupted in stead?
Anyone else having such experiences?
Regards
Halvor Royset
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Company: Norsk Hydro a.s Contact: Halvor Royset
Phone: +47 5599 6876 Fax: +47 5599 6342
Address: N-5020 Bergen, Norway Email:
halvor.royset_at_nho.hydro.com
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Received on Mon Feb 06 1995 - 10:34:47 NZDT