The truly sad thing is that you are correct in that most people won't buy Michael's argument but that Michael is correct when he tries to communicate how much work goes into disk drive qualification and how painful the problems can be if you try and put in joe-random-disk drive, even the same model from the same vendor, and get unlucky.
Heck, *I* didn't buy the argument until I spent a few years at another company where I exposed to some of what happens in drive qualification and saw what could go wrong in the lab and in the field.
To be safe, you really need the same vendor, same drive, and exact same firmware and that's typically very hard to get unless you buy from the system vendor instead of the drive vendor. Even then, that's not a guarantee that you won't get bit, your odds are just better.
Ray
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Davis [mailto:jdavis@CS.Arizona.EDU] Sent: Thursday, March 11, 1999 10:16 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: FW: Shelves, disks, et al
On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Alvarado, Michael wrote:
- Extensive screening and thorough integration is the difference.
- Special driver software.
- Must meet exacting specifications.
I think you're going to have a tough time convincing everyone that slapping a Netapp label on the front of a Seagate drive somehow makes it worth the Netapp markup, burnin or no.
In fact when we bought our first filer we transferred a bunch of existing 4gb Seagates bought from Another Vendor to it, *with* the blessing of tech support. Is it the right model? they said. Is it one of the following firmware revisions? they said. Then go for it, they said. And the drives worked just fine. *Technical* restrictions for support, like model numbers and firmware revisions, sound perfectly reasonable to me.
Our then salesguy even put them on our support contract. Our current salesguy won't, but I have a hard time believing that reflects anything other than profit maximization.
And that's not something I begrude Netapp per se. They have a great product that I've generally been delighted with, and I wish them all the financial success the free market can drop in their laps. But let's be realistic about what's driving buy-only-our-drives support mandates.
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
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.
They get logged under /logs now:
webcache3> rdfile /logs/messages Sun Mar 7 00:00:03 EST [asup_main]: System Notification mail sent Sun Mar 7 01:00:01 EST [statd]: 1:00am up 12 days, 16:39 60012695 URL's serviced Sun Mar 7 02:00:01 EST [statd]: 2:00am up 12 days, 17:39 60054150 URL's serviced [...]
- Ed Schwab Senior Systems / Network Administrator Tripod, Inc.
They get logged under /logs now:
webcache3> rdfile /logs/messages Sun Mar 7 00:00:03 EST [asup_main]: System Notification mail sent Sun Mar 7 01:00:01 EST [statd]: 1:00am up 12 days, 16:39 60012695 URL's serviced Sun Mar 7 02:00:01 EST [statd]: 2:00am up 12 days, 17:39 60054150 URL's serviced [...]
disk errors are not logged in the /logs/messages file with 3.2* NetApp cache code and 3.3 NetApp cache code.
Colin Johnston SA PSINET UK
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
On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Chen, Ray wrote:
|The truly sad thing is that you are correct in that |most people won't buy Michael's argument but that |Michael is correct when he tries to communicate |how much work goes into disk drive qualification |and how painful the problems can be if you try |and put in joe-random-disk drive, even the same |model from the same vendor, and get unlucky. | |Heck, *I* didn't buy the argument until I spent |a few years at another company where I exposed to |some of what happens in drive qualification and |saw what could go wrong in the lab and in the field. | |To be safe, you really need the same vendor, same |drive, and exact same firmware and that's typically |very hard to get unless you buy from the system vendor |instead of the drive vendor. Even then, that's not |a guarantee that you won't get bit, your odds are |just better.
Ray,
If that's the case, then why does one of our F630s (9gig SCSI drives in it) having 2 *different* model numbers of drives in it? All drives came directly from Netapp.
Jonah
Jonah Barron Yokubaitis http://www.texas.net <--- The ISP http://www.giganews.com <--- News Outsourcing
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Jonah Yokubaitis