> I power cycled the server after my users went home, checked the cables, > and after about a hour's worth of hair-pulling nvram/disk configuration > mismatches I finally got the system back up with sd0 in degraded mode > and the other two optimal.
yay > > Brought the system up to the most recent snapshot and did a bioctl -H > 1:0 sd0 and the rebuild kicked off immediately. double yay > So it looks like 0:9 is still a bad disk--I'll try to check that out > tomorrow in the new server. You can rebuild 2 drives at the same time. > > The cables were all tight connections but I wonder about the quality. > They are both loose bundled round cables with 5 connectors but I'm only > using one for the safte. They were what I had at the time, but I'd > sure take an suggestions for a good vendor and to get some really good > cables. Oh man these cables can be real bad. Since I am not familiar with this enclosure I'll give you some general ideas. If it is an external enclosure, never EVER use these cables. In fact if that cable isn't inside a box directly connected to ONLY disks then you are using it wrong. You can only have a point to point connection to an expander and I'll assume that your enclosure has one (if not send it back because that means that there is too much distance between the computer and the drives cable+trace wise!) For the EE folks, these connectors are counted as an electrical load and must be at least 10cm apart. Any obstruction will cause reflections that'll have all kinds of cute issues. This said if this cable connects the motherboard to an internal backplane you want a cable with 2 connectors only! Although it speaks for the quality if they use a cable instead of routing the traces to the backplane through some sort of riser. Go spend a good amount of cash on an Amphenol U320 round cable with adequate shielding and metal connectors. No plastic or shrunk plastic connectors since those tend to get deformed and get cocked upon insertion. Also the shrunk plastic cables do not have the correct bend radius and they tend to be flat where the cable meets the connector this causes first of all signal integrity issues and secondly they break. You want a cable that curves very evenly and naturally. Here is an example: http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-FJ114-PowerVault-220S-221S-Ultra320-SCSI-Cable_W0QQitemZ370108029532QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCA_Cables_Adapters?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116 Note: I am in no way shape of form endorsing buying SCSI cables of ebay! It is an example only! Pins can be easily bent and who knows what might have happened to it in the past. Your SCSI rig is only as good as your cables. Always remember that. It isn't uncommon to spend a couple hundred on a good cable.
