According to james <at>:
> DoN. Nichols wrote:
> <snip>
> > I've been trying to remember. IIRC, someone posted to this
> > newsgroup within the last year a fairly simple C program which reads that
> > information. And, I think that it may also report the temperature at
> > which it decides to shut down as well. I compiled it, and it worked
> > nicely, but I now forget its name. (One of the hazards of having
> > programs without man pages. :-)
> >
> > One thing which is a major superset of that is:
> >
> > smartmontools-5.33
> >
> > which might be a good idea while running striped disks anyway.
>
> thanks. i'll check that out. it's even in FreeBSD's ports. i didn't
> realize that SCSI drives also supported SMART. thought it was an IDE
> only thing, but i see now that's not the case.
Of course, only some drives recognize it. It depends on just
how old your drives are.
> <snip>
> > Note that there is another multipack which looks just like what
> > you have, except that it has more LEDs on the front, and it can accept
> > twelve of the 1" high drives, instead of six of the 1.6" high drives.
>
> now /that/ would be nice 
With one tradeoff. Only some of the 6-pack ones are Ultra
speed. They are so marked on the bottom front left corner, IIRC, and
*sometimes* also on the drive access door. Other 6-pack ones are
slower, and *all* of the 12-pack ones are slower, for whatever reason.
Note that while the 6-pack has a switch on the back to switch
between IP blocks, the 12-pack has has an interesting fixed pattern of
SCSI IDs:
0 & 1 are skipped, because they are in the ULTRA-1 and ULTRA-2 CPU
boxes.
3, 3, 4 & 5 are in the Multipack.
6 is in the CPU box (the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive)
7 is, of course the host adaptor's ID.
8, and 9 are the remainder of the back column of drives.
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 are the front column of drives.
> > I think that the drive should have a matching height spud, to
> > make the cooling better.
>
> i'm not sure if the spud would have much to do with heat problems. they
> /are/ in the 1" spuds though, so who knows..
Exactly -- who knows.
Note that the D1000 and A1000 StorEdge boxes expect special
plates to be screwed to the bottom of the drives, with louvers which
direct cooling airflow to the components on the bottom of each drive.
Those are made with the assumption that the airflow is from front to
back (as it is in those enclosures), not from side to side, as it is in
the MultiPack enclosures.
Also -- be very careful not to put drives so equipped into the
bottom slots on a MultiPack housing, as it will catch on the RFI
flashing on the bottom of the doorway, and you will have great
difficulty getting the drive back out.
My A1000/D1000 (depends on which module is in the back) has the
twelve slots for the 1" drives, though some have six slots for the 1.6"
drives. That one rack mounts, and all the drives are front accessible.
> > But -- it *may* translate to all six drives being run at full
> > speed, if the data transfer path (and the CPU) are fast enough to accept
> > all six drives worth of maximum throughput. In that case, there would
> > be more heat generated than with a single drive being run at maximum
> > throughput at a time.
>
> that's a good point. by "heavy load", i mean transfering files from
> those drives to my file server and running multiple instances of IO
> intensive apps (dvdauthor, avidemux, etc) that don't require much cpu.
So -- if the SCSI bus is fast enough, it could mean running all
six drives at full tilt, and at least all that head seeking will
increase the power dissipation somewhat. I'm not sure whether the write
circuits represent enough additional power.
> i've started doing most of that on my Alpha in another room to cut down
> on the load on my workstation because of the problems with these drives.
>
> > I would be tempted to find six of the 1" 18GB drives to replace
> > your 1.6" ones. Start by replacing the one which overheats, as it may
> > simply have a lower overtemperature threshold. If necessary, replace
> > them all. The 1" disks typically run cooler than the 1.6" ones of
> > similar capacity.
>
> in noticing more over the weekend i see that it tends to be id 1,2,and 3
> that seem to fail most often (the ones in the back) but occasionaly
> it'll be id 4 or 6 (i never saw it happen on 5). judging by the lights
> on the front at least.. the ones that go out, i assume, are the ones
> that have the issue at the moment...
The back drives failing more often makes sense, since the
cooling air which reaches them has already passed over the front drives.
(BTW -- when you blew out the dust -- did you include the grilles in the
front of the housing? That is where the air flows in.
BTW -- what is the power rating on the drives you have in there?
Looking at the 1.6" Fujitsu 9GB drives which came in my 6-slot Multipack
I only see a listing of the voltages needed (+5V and +12V) with no clue
as to the current needed, so I can't tell you how much power they
consume for comparison. (Well ... maybe it is in the FEH, but it is too
late for me to dig that out tonight.
> new drives aren't exactly in my budget right now. i may end up taking
> the ones out of the monsterous DEC enclosure and putting them in here
> (PITA and silly design i might add having them totally enclosed in their
> own individual drive bays). i really like this little Sun box because
> of the small footprint, but if this doesn't work then i'll need to come
> up with room for the big DEC..
Will the DEC housing hold the other drives which you will be
pulling from the Multipack? If so, this might be a good way to go, as
the DEC housing may well have better cooling airflow.
> thanks again for the advice. i appreciate it.
I hope that you get it all straightened out.
Good Luck,
DoN.
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