Hi Everyone, I'd like to decrease the amount of time for a parity sync/disc rebuild by increasing my parity sync speeds.  My current speed is 18 Mbps.  I changed my CPU from an E4300 to Q6600 and no change in speed. Something else is limiting my speed.  I'm hoping to get some direction please. Diagnostics attached.

 

Mobo: intel DP965LT

Ram: 4 GB DDR2

CPU: Q6600

Sata Card: 2 x PCI 4 port

 

 

mediaserver1-diagnostics-20200307-1931.zip

Looks like this drive 

ata12.00: ATA-9: WDC WD80EZZX-11CSGA0, VK0J335Y, 83.H0A03, max UDMA/133

is continually resetting

Mar  7 19:20:06 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
Mar  7 19:20:06 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12.00: cmd 60/40:40:20:e8:0c/00:00:05:00:00/40 tag 8 ncq dma 32768 in
Mar  7 19:20:06 MEDIASERVER1 kernel:         res 40/00:00:20:e8:0c/00:00:05:00:00/40 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
Mar  7 19:20:06 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12.00: status: { DRDY }
Mar  7 19:20:06 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: hard resetting link
Mar  7 19:20:12 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Mar  7 19:20:16 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Mar  7 19:20:16 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: hard resetting link
Mar  7 19:20:17 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Mar  7 19:20:17 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12.00: configured for UDMA/133
Mar  7 19:20:17 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: EH complete

Odds on caused by bad / loose sata cabling to the drive or the p/s connector to the drive.  Reseat everything.

 

Just be aware that SATA cables by their very design are garbage, and it is quite possible that when you reseat or change this one that you will disturb another and cause the same issue on a different drive.  Be careful 

Just quick check, you use two PCI SATA controller Sil3114 with 5 disks, as PCI bandwidth only got ~100MB/s ( total / share ). So it will be the bottleneck.

 

Your MB have PCIe x16 and PCIe x1 slot, suggest buy a HBA sit at x16 slot and GPU at x1 slot ( or none ).

 

Or simple buy a PCIe x1 5 port SATA controller ( JMB585 ), it should got ~500MB/s bandwidth with your MB. It isn't PCIe x1.

Edited March 8, 20206 yr by Benson

Thanks Squid, I can hear clicking on that drive at times. I'll replace the sata cable entirely. What part of the log tells you the drive is continuously resetting is it the below?

 

"Mar 7 19:20:12 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)

Mar 7 19:20:16 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)

Mar 7 19:20:16 MEDIASERVER1 kernel: ata12: hard resetting link"

 

Thanks Benson, I'm itching to try a PCIe sata card. How much does this impact parity sync speed though? I'm barely pushing 18 Mbps.  I may stream upto 3 4k video files simultaneously at ~ 60 Mbps so a better Sata card is in my future.

20 minutes ago, Ezryel said:

I can hear clicking on that drive at times.

That, in conjunction with the resets, points to insufficient clean power to the drive. Do you have splitters? Loose connections or too many drives on one lead set can do that.

1 hour ago, Ezryel said:

How much does this impact parity sync speed though?

You have different disk size from 3TB to 8TB disks, parity sync should completed ~18 hrs. ( if no bottleneck on disk controller )

 

Pls don't buy those Marvel controller i.e. 9215 9230 9218 ..... LSI or JMB585 will be good choice.

 

3 hours ago, Benson said:

two PCI SATA controller Sil3114 with 5 disks

Actually 7 disks to two controller and 2 disks onboard.

Edited March 8, 20206 yr by Benson

On 3/8/2020 at 3:24 PM, jonathanm said:

That, in conjunction with the resets, points to insufficient clean power to the drive. Do you have splitters? Loose connections or too many drives on one lead set can do that.

I am using a few power cable splitters.  I reseated the power and replaced the sata to my WB 8 TB Parity, no more clicking and no evidence or the link resetting multiple times when observing the boot up.

 

I pulled and properly labelled all drives. Both 8 TB Parity drives and two 4 TB drives to be rebuilt are plugged directly to the mobo.  I now get ~ 23 Mbps peaking at 35 Mbps at the end of rebuilding the first 4 TB.

 

Will begin the rebuild of the second 4 TB and provide diagnostics.

 

I'm shopping around for a PCIe x4 Sata card but not sure it'll make the difference I'm looking for yet.

 

After Disk 6 and 7 have been rebuilt I'm getting read errors.  Diagnostics attached if anyone can share thoughts.

mediaserver1-diagnostics-20200314-0825.zip

Edited March 14, 20206 yr by Ezryel