[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference ssag::ask_ssag

Title:	Ask the Storage Architecture Group
Notice:	Check out our web page at http://www-starch.shr.dec.com
Moderator:	SSAG::TERZAN

Created:	Wed Oct 15 1986
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	6756
Total number of notes:	25276

6715.0. "detecting disk spun down on HSJ ?" by FIREBL::LEEDS (From VAXinated to Alphaholic) Thu May 22 1997 12:59

Is there any method (now or in the future) to tell if a disk drive connected 
to an HSJ is "spun-up" ??  A customer experienced some downtime recently
because an RZ29 had spun itself down, and they had no way to detect this.

Will SWCC, or the new StorageWorks packaging provide this if it is not 
available today ???

Thanks

Arlan

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
6715.1		SUBSYS::VIDIOT::PATENAUDE	Ask your boss for ARRAY's...	`Thu May 22 1997 13:24`	14
	RZ29B drives do NOT spin down by themselves! Period. Unless that are braindead or crashed. Period. ALL RZ products will spin down if TOLD to, but we have no PC GREEN power saver features that make them spin down on their own. This is an "urban legend" started because the RZ29B "had" (in it's original firmware now 3 times removed) a mode page setting refered to as "Power Management". This feature when enabled would ONLY turn off read/write logic after 500ms of inactivity and IMMEDIATLY (IE: Milliseconds) turn it back on if it had work to do. It never spun the drive down. It never took the drive off the bus. roger.
6715.2	Yup we don't do that the drive must be broken look at errror logs	SSDEVO::RMCLEAN		`Thu May 22 1997 14:30`	3
	Right we do NOT spindown while it is ONLINE. MSCP and Failedset drives may be spundown but they should show up in an obvious state and they will NOT be ONLINE to the host.
6715.3		netbk2.shr.dec.com::Peters		`Thu May 22 1997 15:32`	6
	SWCC will detect a drive spun down or any other state change ( broken ... ). Steve P.
6715.4	only know what I was told....	FIREBL::LEEDS	From VAXinated to Alphaholic	`Wed May 28 1997 14:30`	20
	>RZ29B drives do NOT spin down by themselves! Period. >Unless that are braindead or crashed. Period. Well - it may have been braindead or crashed, but it WAS spun down, and it took the customer with Mission Critical MCS support 6 hours to figure this out !!! The "fix" was to replace the drive, but their complaint was not from the fact that the drive "died", but that there was NO indication in the error log, opcom, HSJ messages, etc. that there was any problem with the drive. OpenVMS just could not get to certain data, and they finally tracked the problem down to this drive by "touching" each drive to feel vibration. I was not there, I didn't see any of this, but the customer was insistent that this was the way things happened. Thus the question about how to detect "spun down" disks ... looks like SWCC may do this, if in fact there was any kind of error issued by the disk when it went away - but since the OpenVMS errorlog had no entry, I'm not sure SWCC would either... Arlan
6715.5		AMCFAC::RABAHY	dtn 471-5160, outside 1-810-347-5160	`Wed May 28 1997 15:18`	5
	If it were a member of a host-based volume shadow set then it would have had error reports a plenty. POLYCENTER System Watchdog can poll for just about anything and generate an error report when something is amiss.
6715.6		SUBSYS::VIDIOT::PATENAUDE	Ask your boss for ARRAY's...	`Wed May 28 1997 21:32`	9
	re-.2 John, don't take offense. My point was that the drive had to be broken and not just spun down. The big problem is no errors. At a minimum you should have gotten a E0 and B0 error for the command timeout and lost PTL and a FAULT lamp if the drive fell from the face of the earth. Roger.