linux-kernel - Re: SATA exceptions with 2.6.20-rc5

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Date:	Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:41:36 -0600
From:	Robert Hancock <hancockr@...w.ca>
To:	Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@....ed.ac.uk>
Cc:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>,
	Björn Steinbrink <B.Steinbrink@....de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, htejun@...il.com,
	jens.axboe@...cle.com, lwalton@...l.com
Subject: Re: SATA exceptions with 2.6.20-rc5

Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 January 2007 01:53, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>> Robert Hancock wrote:
>>> I'll try your stress test when I get a chance, but I doubt I'll run into
>>> the same problem and I haven't seen any similar reports. Perhaps it's
>>> some kind of wierd timing issue or incompatibility between the
>>> controller and that drive when running in ADMA mode? I seem to remember
>>> various reports of issues with certain Maxtor drives and some nForce
>>> SATA controllers under Windows at least..
>> Just to eliminate things, has disabling ADMA been attempted?
>>
>> It can be disabled using the sata_nv.adma module parameter.
> 
> Setting this option fixes the problem for me. I suggest that ADMA defaults off 
> in 2.6.20, if there's still time to do that.
> 

Can you guys that are having this problem try the attached debug patch? 
It's possible it will fix the problem, as I'm trying a private 
exec_command implementation that flushes the write by reading a 
controller register instead of reading altstatus from the drive like the 
libata core code does.

If the problem still happens, I also added some more debugging in to 
help figure out what is going on, so please post full dmesg.

By the way, I assume that you guys are using reiserfs or xfs, as it 
appears no other file systems issue flush commands automatically. I had 
to test this by "echo 1 > delete" on the SCSI disk in sysfs, as I am 
using ext3.

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@...pamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

View attachment "sata_nv-debug-flushes.patch" of type "text/plain" (3165 bytes)