Category: technology

3ware 16 port RAID-5 with 300GB Western Digital

misc technology

I am running a 9505 16 port 3ware card with 12 Western Digital 300 GB drives. In /var/log/messages I found

Nov 4 10:48:53 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x23268EDA.
Nov 4 10:50:19 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x21D88B0F.
Nov 4 10:51:27 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x1E71DB4A.
Nov 4 10:51:33 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x23289645.
Nov 4 11:02:03 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x2111C31E.
Nov 4 11:06:00 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x2219A8F3.
Nov 4 11:08:52 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x1437A499.
Nov 4 11:09:05 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x23455701.
Nov 4 11:09:10 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x23455749.
Nov 4 11:10:02 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x241F28D3.
Nov 4 11:11:54 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x20B6CCC9.
Nov 4 11:12:13 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x22277DFD.
Nov 4 11:12:13 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING (0x04:0x0023): Sector repair completed:port=11, LBA=0x22277D80.
Nov 4 11:12:13 her2 kernel: 3w-9xxx: scsi0: AEN: ERROR (0x04:0x0002): Degraded unit:unit=0, port=11.

in tw_cli the drive on port 11 got reported as failed:

p11 DEVICE-ERROR u0 298.09 GB 625142448 WD-WCAPD3118453

I tried to test the drive via

/usr/sbin/smartctl -t long -d 3ware,11 /dev/twa0
/usr/sbin/smartctl -t offline -d 3ware,11 /dev/twa0
/usr/sbin/smartctl -t conveyance -d 3ware,11 /dev/twa0
/usr/sbin/smartctl -t short -d 3ware,11 /dev/twa0

But

/usr/sbin/smartctl -a -d 3ware,11 /dev/twa0

did not show many good signs:

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 6702 396331771
# 2 Conveyance offline Completed: read failure 90% 6702 396331771
# 3 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 6695 396331771
# 4 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 6695 396331771
# 5 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 6694 396331773
# 6 Extended offline Completed: read failure 70% 6684 99434677

Values like Multi_Zone_Error_Rate and Offline_Uncorrectable as well as Current_Pending_Sector promised nothing good.

In tw_cli I then removed the drive in question from the unit:

maint remove c0 p11

The smarctl tests still failed right away. I rescaned the drives in tw_cli:

maint rescan c0

The failed drive was found, and soon after the 3ware controller grabbed it automatically and started the rebuild.

It did so sucessfully. The Current_Pending_Sector value decreased back to 0, and the drive array seems to be functioning
normal right now.

During one of those pesky spurious rebuilds happening on both 9550SX-16ML controllers that I am aware
of the drive failed again. This time with an ECC-ERROR . Not enough of a failure it seems that the rebuild would have
failed. A

maint rescan c0

in tw_cli after the rebuild had finished cleared this error. It’s noteworthy that the spurious rebuild performance came to a grinding
slowdown after the ECC-ERROR.

When I replaced the failed drive things went back to normal and the system has been fine ever since.

war

art internet politics technology

not your usual link or idea

War really sucks. It happens if people feel they can gain from it.

OS X 10.4.11 and novatel sprint EVDO

Apple technology

Entering the country again I found that my Sprint / EVDO was not working anymore. Of course I had been stupid enough to upgrade to 10.4.11 while I was gone. Overall I am not even sure what actually caused the problem. Sprint was trying to be helpful, but had no clue. I spent fifty minutes on the phone with them. Actually only 5 minutes o those I was on hold. Somehow they changed their account system, their server kicks out a 500 error, their system assumes a cellphone to send a text message with a confirmation to. etc.

I got my EVDO going with the help of this helpful post. These were my steps:

1) System Preferences -> Network
2) Show: Network Port Configurations
3) deleted Novatel Wireless CDMA ( I had 2 !)
4) inserted Novatell U720 Modem and got “A new network port has been detected” message
5) Seleting this in “Show: Network Status” and in PPP tab enter phone number #777
6) in PPP Options … enable “Send PPP echo packets” and “use TCP header compression”
7) under Modem tab select “WWAN Support” as a Modem
8) enable ‘show modem status in menu bar’

This did do the trick. Reads longer and more complicated than it actually is.

not a hosting company to go with

history internet technology

It seems as if the some of the internet is run by amateurs. Of course an article in ‘pcworld’ is not really -ever- a testament of the truth. But, I could imagine that some hosting companies are, let’s say, scary. Problem in general is that you interface with the sales efforts not with the part that does the actual product. So it might have been that “NaviSite” had a brilliant sales team, which brought it and kept it in business. But in the end, it’s always engineering that makes or breaks things. Engineering without any marketing does not work, but also does not cause any harm. No so if there is good marketing and bad engineering. That is a common and painful combo.

apple: you suck ass!

Apple technology

iPhone: check
Apple MacBook pro: check
Over time I ended up with lots and lots of addresses.
Apple’s AddressBook is the Application that all the other iWhatever applications want to use.

Well. Now they are all gone.
The upside is that I have them in my phone. So I connected it,
and, of course, this stupid piece of shit device ‘syncs’ and now the address book of the iPhone
is empty as well.

Apple made their own framework / format for the address book. All in their fucking stupid
fancy Objective C. I hope that ALL of those morons at Apple pushing this crap technology
will loose their address books as well. Completely and without chance to get it back.

Stupid Apple. I hate them.
If hardware dies: fine. But a stupid software glitch that can wipe out 2(!) addresssbooks
is just horrible. It’s really bad.

What makes me furious is that the software just decided to delete data that was ok.
If the number of your contacts goes from 500 to 0 it should have the wits to ask:
“Is this what you want”.
But, no, the software just goes ahead and smug as all the Apple junk is takes away
all my data. Next time some Apploid tells me all cheery how great all those Appleisk
things are I will curse him so that the same will happen to him.

Fuckers.

Life is hard enough. So is coding. No need for Apple to add problems with their
Objective C arrogance and their inability to write software that gives the user
some feedback about what is going on. Look it’s shiny on the outside. But rotten
on the side.

voice to text applications

communication media technology

Since a while I am using Callwave. And I must say that I am very very happy with it. It’s really great to get your voicemails transcribed as an email. I am amazed how far voice to text technology has gotten so far. It’s sometimes humorous. But more importantly, it’s usually possible to ‘get’ the general direction of the voice mail. I know who called, what it was about, and the phone numbers people leave have been without any errors so far. Which is really really helpful.

I also like to have one list of incoming messages. It makes staying on top of things much easier and less stressful. Which is allowing me to spend time with actually doing things instead of reacting to it and managing my message stack and todo lists.

color – owning one

communication history marketing technology

Yes, the T people think they own Magenta

They actually picked when they started the T-stuff so that they could have color in News Paper ads but only pay for one. Since Magenta is part of CMYK they saved millions in the production of newspaper ads.

“Newswhat?” you might ask. Well, it’s that stuff from the last century

ten point five looses data

Apple technology

If you copy a folder in OS X 10.5 from one drive to another and the target goes away during the copy, the folder will be removed from the source regardless. documented here.

The Finder is lame. It’s a horrible hack. It really needs to be replaced with something that manages data. I almost never use it. I can work faster and more predictable with a terminal. Pretty lame Apple.

flash apps

internet technology

Gracenote Music Maps displays the top 10 artists and albums for countries around the world.

Faxto launches as splashup. Web based Photoshop like app.

I have some computer with that

Apple internet M$ technology

Learning Javascript. Different story all together. Internet Explorer does things differently than the rest. Bascially you have to branch in your code all the time. That’s why people use frameworks. I am OK with frameworks, after I understood the underlying methods. And I only understand things that I did. So I need Internet Explorer. I could find some hard drive space (tricky, it’s 99% full) and install VMware as well as Windows XP or Vista on my MacBook Pro. Or I could buy a laptop with some Microsoft OS on it. Which is probably what I will end up doing. Not that I have use for a windows laptop. Or would ever use it in public. I rather publish my browsing history – if you know what I mean.

When I looked around Windows was 300 US$. VMware is not free either. I have a real problem giving Microsoft 300US$ for their operating system, just because they tried to reinvent standards during those browser wars. At Walmart they sell an Acer Laptop for 348. Details are sketchy, I just assume it runs some Redmond OS, and I take a wild guess in that 1GB of ram should be enough – for a web browser.

It’s kind of crazy that it’s cost effective to get a whole computer instead of just some software.