Problem on installation with more than 6 sata drives

[ukagwx243]

The system is running great in fedora 7 or 12 with 6 sata drives installed.
I tried to install 2 more sata drives(total 8 drives), tested some combinations:
6 drives in sata ports and 2 in sas ports, or 2 in sata ports and 6 in sas ports...
the BIOS can detect all 8 drives, but the fedora 7 and 12 just detect 6 sata drives.
It could be problem of sata/sas drivers of Linus.

The chip set: Intel ESB2(6 ports) + LSI 1068E SAS controller(8 sas/sata ports)
Linux: Fedora 7 and Fedora 12

Any one does have experience with system installed more then 6 sata drives?

Thanks for the advising.

[Rubberman]

Well, I am running CentOS 5 (RHEL 5) with 10 sata drives and have no problems with that. I have 2 controllers - the internal (mobo) controller which handles 6, and a PCI-X esata controller that handles 4. All 10 ports are used w/ about 10TB of total disc space (5x1.5TB, 4x500GB, 1x320GB). I don't know why Fedora won't handle more than 6, sorry. Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that one of your controllers is a SAS device, or the SAS controller itself has a Linux driver problem. That is the make/model of the SAS/SATA controller?

[ukagwx243]

I think sas controller(maybe driver too) is Ok. Currently 4 sata drives are connected
in sas ports and 2 in sata ports. Intel ESB2(6 ports) and LSI 1068E all on board
controller. I remember that 3 years ago I installed 8 drives in RHEL 3 with a additional sata controller card(4 sata ports on board and 4 ports on card). I don't
understand why both on-board-controllers do not work for more than 6 sata drives,
both on-board-controllers are working if not more 6 drives installed, this means 6 sata drives can be connected in sas ports or sata ports, but not more than 6.

[Rubberman]

Did you have to install a driver for the SAS/Sata board, or was it supported "out-of-the-box" by your kernel?

[ukagwx243]

No, I din't install any driver for the SAS/Sata board and I guess the fedora support
Intel ESB2 and LSI 1068 sasa/sas(the kernel has the drivers), but maybe need to install RAID driver/program if the disks to be used as raid. After rebooting, I used
"fdisk -l" and dmesg to check system info. and found the fedora just detecting
only 6 sata drives, not 8 drives...

[ukagwx243]

forgotten to say, I tested 2 different motherbaord, but both with same on-board-chipsets(Intel ESB2 and LSI 106 and for fedora 7 and fedora 12.

[Rubberman]

Perhaps there is an I/O address or IRQ conflict between the controllers. I'd check into the add-in board to see if you can make some configuration changes that might address that.

[ukagwx243]

strange is the drivers look good. look at following as listed:

the os detect correct drivers for Intel ESB2 and LSI 1068, no conflict.


dmesg

scsi0 : ata_piix
scsi1 : ata_piix
ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x000101f0 ctl 0x000103f6 bmdma 0x00011880 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x00010170 ctl 0x00010376 bmdma 0x00011888 irq 15
ata1.01: ATA-8: WDC WD5000AAKB-00YSA0, 12.01C02, max UDMA/100
ata1.01: 976773168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
ata1.01: configured for UDMA/100
ata2: port disabled. ignoring.
scsi 0:0:1:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD5000AAKB-0 12.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 sda9 sda10 >
sd 0:0:1:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: version 2.3
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 6 ports 3 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq pm led pmp slum part
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
scsi2 : ahci
scsi3 : ahci
scsi4 : ahci
scsi5 : ahci
scsi6 : ahci
scsi7 : ahci
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844500 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844580 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844600 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844680 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata7: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844700 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata8: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf8844780 ctl 0x00000000 bmdma 0x00000000 irq 19
ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
ata3.00: ATA-8: Hitachi HDP725050GLA360, GM4OA50E, max UDMA/133
ata3.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
ata5.00: Host Protected Area detected:
current size: 488395055 sectors
native size: 488397168 sectors
ata5.00: ATA-7: ST3250620AS, 3.AAC, max UDMA/133
ata5.00: 488395055 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata5.00: Host Protected Area detected:
current size: 488395055 sectors
native size: 488397168 sectors
ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata7: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA Hitachi HDP72505 GM4O PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 < sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 sdb10 sdb11 sdb12 sdb13 sdb14 sdb15 >
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3250620AS 3.AA PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 488395055 512-byte hardware sectors (250058 MB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 488395055 512-byte hardware sectors (250058 MB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3 sdc4 < sdc5 sdc6 sdc7 sdc8 >
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk



ioc0: LSISAS1068E B1: Capabilities={Initiator}
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:0c:00.0 to 64
scsi8 : ioc0: LSISAS1068E B1, FwRev=010a0500h, Ports=1, MaxQ=511, IRQ=16
scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3250620AS C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdd: sdd1 sdd2 sdd3 sdd4 < sdd5 sdd6 sdd7 sdd8 >
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
scsi 8:0:1:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3250620AS C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sde: sde1 sde2 sde3 sde4 < sde5 sde6 sde7 sde8 >
sd 8:0:1:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
sd 8:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
scsi 8:0:2:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3250620AS C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdf: sdf1 sdf2 sdf3 sdf4 < sdf5 sdf6 sdf7 sdf8 >
sd 8:0:2:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk
sd 8:0:2:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
scsi 8:0:3:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3250620AS C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors (250059 MB)
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 67 00 00 08
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdg: sdg1 sdg2 sdg3 sdg4 < sdg5 sdg6 sdg7 sdg8 >
sd 8:0:3:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk
sd 8:0:3:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0