[KLUG Members] RAID problems.

[Adam Williams]

>Okay, I've got a problem.

Don't worry,  "they" have been saying the same things about me since I
can remember.
 
>I've inherited a RAID.  Well, that's what it's supposed to do.
>The RAID card is a DPT I20 SCSI card, 40 MBytes a second, etc.
>The SCSI drives are IBMs and Seagate Barracudas.

Don't know jack about DPT cards.  Is this a hardware RAID card or are
you using MD?

>Okay:  The drives (9 of them) are arranged in a RAID 5 format, and make up
>about a 70 GB RAID.  The problem is, when data goes on, it becomes corruped.
>Any ZIP file that is put on it is corrupted.  this is a problem.  The main
>hard drive, an IDE, will let data be stored in uncorrupted format.  Once
>it's put on the RAID:  corruption.  It's like putting things into the
>government.  It goes in clean...

>Anyway, the hardware/software doesn't show any errors at all.  No buzzers,
>no errors in the logs, etc.  The only thing that I can think of is this:
>a.  some of the drives were very, very hot. They are cool now, but before,
>three of them were too hot for their own good.

Watch the barracudas.  They'll get hot enough to stink (literally).

>b.  Five of the drives aren't in the actual case:  4 SCSI drives are in the
>"host" computer, while 5 are in another case.  So, 4 are internal, then 5
>are connected via the external SCSI port, which is then changed back into 68

? Your SCSI (external) port isn't 68 pin?  Media converters are a BAD
idea.

>pin SCSI again, and connected to the rest of the drves.  The total cable
>length is maybe, oh, 4 feet total from tip to tip of the SCSI cable.  Maybe
>a little more...

4ft for 9 drives including an external cabinet?  This is ***VERY*** hard
to believe.
 
Are all these on the same "logical" bus?  (is the DPT scsi card a single
or dual interface adapter).

>Has anyone else had this problem?  This is like, our MAIN storage area, and
>at first, it was suspected that a program was causing the corruption.
>However, now that I've checked things out, I'm worried...

What is your termination?  Are you using "on-the-drive" termination or a
good active terminator on the cables themselves.