On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Michael McLagan wrote:
> The PC is a 233MMX, 64M RAM, AMI Bios, EtherExpress Pro/100+, Buslogic
> Flashpoint BT930, 1 Microp 4221, 1 Microp 1991NT (restamped 3391NS), 3 Microp
> 3391NS, 1 Exabyte 8505XL, 1 Toshiba 3401B CDRom.
>
> The code is 2.2.0-pre8, raid0145-990108-2.2.0-pre5 (which doesn't quite
> patch clean, but 2 simple edits resolve the problem), raidtools-981214.
In my experience, these Micropolis drives are complete shit. I've got a
stack of 1991, 1991NT/3391, and 3243NT that all work, but don't work
reliably under load. I had a 1991-1991NT-1991 raid0 stripe set that was a
news spool for a few weeks. Every few days, sometimes daily, sometimes
just weekly, the system would lock up.
I found, and I'll bet you'll find, that if you beat the crap out of the
drives individually (not as a raid set) by running multiple simultaneous
bonnies or similar stress tests, the drives will cause SCSI errors or the
system will just lock up...often with one of the drive access LEDs solid
on.
My news server originally had all its drives split across 2 NCR-810's and
I tried swapping in a BT-946 and BT-948, but it was even less stable with
the Buslogic cards.
The odd thing is I have a 1991 of the same vintage in one of my own
systems where it's the only device on a BT-946, and it has no problems.
I've even run several hours of multiple bonnies on it, and it didn't
complain. This makes me wonder if the 1991's at the office would work if
they didn't have to co-exist with anything else on the SCSI bus. I plan
to test this when I have the time.
My advice...if this is a serious system, get some new UW-SCSI disks. I
got a 6gb Seagate UW-SCSI drive a month ago for just a hair over $300.
Put those Micrapalots to use as door stops and paper-weights.
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