Slow harddrivers with HP Server

nomicon · 06-21-2005, 05:39 PM

Hello forum members!

Today I received a HP DL380 G4 server with Compaq Smart Array 6i scsi controller, running RAID 5 from a customer. At the moment Ubuntu Linux was installed and running fine. After I got the server I installed it into the rack and booted up. Everything seemed normal until Ubuntu was about to boot.

The boot was extremly slow, I'd say about 2 minutes to get into the Login prompt. After typing 'root' as login it took additional 5-10 secs to present
the Password: prompt, and after I typed the root pw and hit enter nothing happened for about 2 minutes. I rebooted and tried again, same scenario.

Anyhow, I was going to reinstall this server with Slackware, I didnt care much about it, so I rebooted with a Slackware 10.0 CD and started to partition /dev/cciss/<device>, and entered the Slackware setup system.

First I formated my 200MB /boot partition which took a couple of seconds.
Then when I tried to format / (20GB) it just stood there formatting it for many minutes. (ReiserFS, Quickformat).

A ps aux showed the makereiserfs process still running, and was doing so for about 15-20 minutes.

I rebooted and did the same thing again, without any other result :(

A thing I noticed after a few reboots was a message from the Smart Array 6i bios, I dont have the exact rows avaible, but it was something about
"Smart Array Accelerator battery low."
"Posted-write cached temporary disabled"

AFAIK Array Accelerator is used to store data in case of power failure, so it gets written back on power restore.

Anyone know where and what to start the troubleshooting at, I've no idea here...

With best regards,
Martin Östlund

dai · 06-23-2005, 09:59 AM

http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90001/ch02s01.html
there is something on batteries if you scroll down

06-21-2005, 05:39 PM	#1 (permalink)
nomicon Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 1 OS: XP	Slow harddrivers with HP Server Hello forum members! Today I received a HP DL380 G4 server with Compaq Smart Array 6i scsi controller, running RAID 5 from a customer. At the moment Ubuntu Linux was installed and running fine. After I got the server I installed it into the rack and booted up. Everything seemed normal until Ubuntu was about to boot. The boot was extremly slow, I'd say about 2 minutes to get into the Login prompt. After typing 'root' as login it took additional 5-10 secs to present the Password: prompt, and after I typed the root pw and hit enter nothing happened for about 2 minutes. I rebooted and tried again, same scenario. Anyhow, I was going to reinstall this server with Slackware, I didnt care much about it, so I rebooted with a Slackware 10.0 CD and started to partition /dev/cciss/<device>, and entered the Slackware setup system. First I formated my 200MB /boot partition which took a couple of seconds. Then when I tried to format / (20GB) it just stood there formatting it for many minutes. (ReiserFS, Quickformat). A ps aux showed the makereiserfs process still running, and was doing so for about 15-20 minutes. I rebooted and did the same thing again, without any other result :( A thing I noticed after a few reboots was a message from the Smart Array 6i bios, I dont have the exact rows avaible, but it was something about "Smart Array Accelerator battery low." "Posted-write cached temporary disabled" AFAIK Array Accelerator is used to store data in case of power failure, so it gets written back on power restore. Anyone know where and what to start the troubleshooting at, I've no idea here... With best regards, Martin Östlund

06-23-2005, 09:59 AM	#2 (permalink)
dai Manager, Hardware Forums Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: west australia Posts: 56,546 OS: win 7 32x 64x rtm	http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90001/ch02s01.html there is something on batteries if you scroll down __________________