Colin,
I posted a very similar message some weeks ago concerning the disappearance of these messages when we upgraded to 5.1.2R3 on our filers. We have had three disks fail within the last month and a half without warning. The response from this group was encouraging. There were a significant number of people that also felt these messages were helpful and significant.
The response from NetApp has been quite poor in my opinion. We discovered the disappearance of these messages about two months ago when we upgraded and had a very hard time even getting an acknowledgment that they had been removed. When it was confirmed that they were removed we asked if NetApp would reconsider replacing them and were told no. They were out to stay.
On February 11, we filed an RFE #12820 asking for these messages to be restored. I have posted three comments to the open problem asking for the status of the RFE and when I might expect an answer to the request. The first question was posted in NOW and the only response was that an RFE has been filed. Two subsequent questions have not even been posted or responded to.
I tend to be a bit impatient but feel that it is not too much to ask for something as simple as a time frame for a response. It has been one month since the RFE was filed.
By the way, we have even gotten some expressions of support from within the company concerning the helpfulness of these messages.
One final note, we also requested a detailed list of error messages produced by the drivers and their meaning. I don't believe that such a document exists and can be quite helpful when trying to determine the severity of a message or how to deal with it.
Greg Kitch UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science
Colin Johnston wrote:
on this topic of disk quality, I did not have any feedback on my comments made to the mailing listing about the fact that once 3.3 NetAppCache code was introduced disk errors in messages logs seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke. Maybe the NetApp Disks(dont know what vendor) are not that good after all because at the present moment I dont know if a disk is slowly failing.
A failing disk is worse really that a completely failed disk because most likely that not you will scsi reset errors and slow response time from the disks.
Is anyone at NetApp listening ?? Where do these logs now go ??
Colin Johnston SA PSINET UK