SCSI crisis

From: Neil (N.J.Wells@soton.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 13 2002 - 08:22:34 PST


Hi,

I am sending this out in the hope that somebody else has experienced the
problems that we are going through and can offer some insights.

We are running an DPX400 spectrometer with a controlling SGI O2
workstation (IRIX version 6.3). We had been running two external SCSI
drives (data and backup respectively) without problems for years.
Recently, we had cause to replace both external drives but the original
manufacturer/model was no longer available. Consequently, we purchased
18GB SCSI drives from LaCie and our problems began.
 
Initially, messages regarding SCSI parity errors began to appear; these
were followed by messages stating that XFS was corrupt and the drives
became unaccessible. The drives could be returned to operating status
only by interrupting the power supply. This situation has carried on for
a few weeks but now has reached a terminal situation in that the SGI
suffered a coredump last night.
 
I have spoken to several sources (including SGI) and it is unclear
whether the problem is the SCSI bus in the O2 or on the drives
themselves. Upon reformatting the drive (and therefore repairing XFS)
the hardware error messages return; it would appear that we have bought
ourselves a little time, but not solved the problem and that the
terminal crashes will return.
 
I would like to know whether anybody else has experienced these
problems, particularly if running drives from LaCie and how they were
resolved.
 
Regards,

 Neil Wells
 University of Southampton
 Southampton
 Hants
 SO17 1BJ
 UK
 



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