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Disk expansion faillure + config files not written


cooledspirit

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Hello,

 

running DSM 6.1 (jun's loader) on Asus A88X-Plus/USB 3.1 with AMD A series A10-7860K CPU, 8 Gb RAM and expanded from 8 disks to 10, system is configured as RAID 6. As the motherboard natively only supports 8 disks I added a PCI-E sata controller Highpoint Rocket 640L.  I added the 2 disks to the external sata controller.

 

The system appears to have succesfully switched from 8 to 10 disks, but never fully worked,as  the system partition appears to be faulty of the 2 added disks.

Re-installing DSM did not work either, everything ok until I get a timeout when writing the config files (using network cable, not wireless).

 

The 2 new disks are kicked out for some reason and my system falls down from 10 disk to 8 (RAID 6, so this is critical). After a reboot they are visible again, I can add them and parity check runs but ultimately fails (data ok/system partition fails). 

 

Yet the drives don't contain any errors, from extended disk checks from both synology as well as other disk checking software.

 

At this moment the x-th parity check is running after adding the disks again but I fear that this will be yet a futile attempt. 

 

What could be wrong ?  Is the external sata controller not supported ?   Other ideas ?

Any tricks I can do to "force" a correct and full system partition re-installation ?

 

Many thanks !

 

Kind regards,

 

Cooled Spirit.

 

 

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If the controller was not supported (ie no drivers/modules loading) then the disks would not show up so I think thats ok.

Some things to check;

BIOS settings on the mobo to see if the raid card is sharing resources with other devices, maybe disable unnecessary devices, audio/parallel etc

The raid settings on the rocketraid - make sure set to jbod

Try moving the drives to the 'other' sata channels and see how DSM reports them as slots - make sure that the drives are on the 'lowest' 2 channels

Try the 'sataportmap' setting in the grub config - 84?

Check a dmesg output and look for the raid build logs - see if there are timeouts on the drives on the rocket raid assembling in the array

Disable drive hibernation in DSM as a test.

Check the power supply can support 10 drives + rest of system (startup current as well as operating)

 

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3 hours ago, sbv3000 said:

If the controller was not supported (ie no drivers/modules loading) then the disks would not show up so I think thats ok.

Some things to check;

BIOS settings on the mobo to see if the raid card is sharing resources with other devices, maybe disable unnecessary devices, audio/parallel etc

==> will do after current attempt

The raid settings on the rocketraid - make sure set to jbod

==> will do after current attempt

Try moving the drives to the 'other' sata channels and see how DSM reports them as slots - make sure that the drives are on the 'lowest' 2 channels

==> If I move the disks to lowest 2 channels, would it be ok to launch jun's loader for "re-install" and see how that goes (in order to get the system partition correctly installed) ?  Or is that a bad idea ?

Try the 'sataportmap' setting in the grub config - 84?

==> is there any harm in doing so ?  I'll put the value 84 inthere.

Check a dmesg output and look for the raid build logs - see if there are timeouts on the drives on the rocket raid assembling in the array

==> I'll send a log after the next reboot.

PS: I see mentions of UDMA/133, not exactly the speed I had in mind.

I see it kicking out the "non fresh" drives.

Disable drive hibernation in DSM as a test.

==> done !

Check the power supply can support 10 drives + rest of system (startup current as well as operating)

 

 

Thank you very much for the suggestions.

Currently another attempt is running, so I have to wait a few more hours before I can check what you suggested.

 

 

 

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Please find the log (dmesg) file in attachment.

Please also take a look at my questions in my prior reply regarding running re-install on the disks in the lowest 2 channels ?

dmesg-log.txt

I disabled the serial port (the USB with JUN's boot loader complained that 3F8 was disabled afterwards)

I disabled "powernow" from AMD as well

 

Perhaps running an fsck might help ?  But how ?  If I run syno_poweroff_task -d, my session gets closed.

 

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This is what happens...   last adding of the 2 disks worked (consistency check passed successfully) on 6.1.4 update 1, however as soon as I dare to install 6.1.4 update 5, the system partition appears to fail and the disks are rejected. 

 

That or simply rebooting is a problem....

 

Any ideas ?

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I disabled write cache again (as re-installing DSM overwrote the setting, I forgot to disable it after reinstalling).  

I can't find any way in the Rocketraid bios to modify what you indicated.  I ordered the following non-RAID sata controller (Syba sd-pex40099 4 Port SATA III PCI-EXPRESS 2.0 x) in the hope this will solve everything. By now, I assume it has something to do with the controller or its driver. I read on another place in this forum that the controller above appears to work.

 

What I notice is: parity check with DSM 6.1, update 1 completes succesfully.   The same with update 5 results in failed parity check.  Why ?  No idea....

 

DMESG in attachment, maybe it reveals something to the experts.  From what I understand, it seems that at some point the driver or hardware freezes up. But since it works for update 1 and not for update 5, something must be different.   Can you take a look to the log please ?

 

So for now, I reverted back to update 1 and go for yet another 48 hour parity check, by the time that parity check is done, I will hopefully have the new SATA controller in my possession.

dmesg3.log

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18 hours ago, cooledspirit said:

I replaced the RocketRaid sata controller can report that all seems to be working fine now. I managed to upgrade to update 5 without any problem. 

 

Would it be ok to enable "write cache" again ?  Or is that a bad idea ?

Should be OK to enable again, DSM will probably warn you if it finds a drive where the write caching is problematic (does with some older toshiba drives I have )

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On 1/16/2018 at 10:36 PM, cooledspirit said:

I replaced the RocketRaid sata controller can report that all seems to be working fine now

 

if you want to use the rocketraid 640L you can flash a non raid bios to it

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr600-download.htm

ans as there is source availible it might be possible to build a driver and use it with dsm, that way the controller might work after all

 

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