Ubuntu 9.04 LVM/RAID problems [SOLVED]

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studioeng
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Ubuntu 9.04 LVM/RAID problems [SOLVED]

Post by studioeng » Mon May 11, 2009 3:30 pm

Hi guys, I'm in need of some Linux help :D

I've been having some serious problems since day one with a new Linux server which I have built over a year ago. I started with Ubuntu Server 7.xx, then 8.10, and now I am testing it with 9.04.

I have two 1TB Samsung hard drives which I am trying to split/span into one big storage. I have successfully installed Ubuntu across the two drives, either using LVM or SoftwareRAID and everything initially works okay, but once I start to copy files, music and videos over to the server it starts to get flaky and quite often I get a Kernel Panic.

Since I've started working on the server I've practically changed everything, even the case and power supply. The only thing I haven't changed is the hard drives.

I have run the Samsung Hutils testing program and tested the two drives extensively for a few days, one had some errors which the low level format fixed the other had no errors.

TBH I'm just completely stumped. With no real idea of where to start to find out what's going on. I've searched Google a far bit for general ideas, but as I don't really know where I'm starting it's hard to get an answer.

Some possibles which could be the cause:
* Bad batch/dodgy Samsung hard drives
* LVM/SoftwareRAID issue
* Network issue (changed motherboard and cards)
* Memory problems (Ran memtest for 24hrs and changed memory)
* Something motherboard related (tried two different makes of board Intel & nVidia)
* Overheating (from memory Core2 CPU sits at 50*C)

I've got an old Dell server with four 18GB SCSI drives in a RAID, which I think is hardware, and it's been working great since the day I started it.

I'm strongly considering buying two more 1TB drives possibly not Samsung and see if that makes any difference, any suggestions on reliable drives to try?

I think I shall try installing onto one drive and add more fans, if anyone has any general ideas please give me a shout.

Thanks guys.
Last edited by studioeng on Tue May 26, 2009 11:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mstombs » Mon May 11, 2009 10:11 pm

Gosh sounds like a Linux software issue, since you have changed all the hardware!

In my motherboard bios I have the option to set the sata ata disk drives as Parallel ATA (IDE) or AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface).
The AHCI allows the onboard storage driver to enable advanced SATA features that increases storage performance on random workloads by allowing the drive to internally optimize the order of commands
If you have such a feature might be worth toggling it - I happen to use IDE mode although Ubuntu seems happy with either. I'd need to re-install Win XP on my second hard0disk dual boot to use AHCI (needs special drivers at install apparently).
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Post by studioeng » Tue May 12, 2009 10:07 am

Thanks for your reply mstombs. I can see where your coming from, although it would seem very strange that across 4-5 versions of Ubuntu, they would result in exactly the same problem :/

Yeah, I did notice the IDE, AHCI and RAID settings on the motherboard (the newer nVidia one I have installed). I have tried all three in various setups.

When the RAID is set up with the 2TB array, Ubuntu doesn't see the RAID array only the individual drives; which I have read is exactly what it does as it's Software or Fake as they call it and not true hardware RAID.
(although 9.04 DOES see and use the array; the same flakiness occurs)

It makes no difference at all whether I set it to IDE or AHCI.

Last night I installed Ubuntu 9.04 onto just one drive; did dist-upgrade, created one folder and set up Samba to share it. I then started a copy of loads of files (approx. 450GB) to the share on the server and waited... It Kernel Panic'd after some time. Approx. 45mins-1hr. I did the same thing exactly on the second drive, same thing happened...

After all this I added another fan to the case next to the hard drives, but it was at 23:40 and I had work in the morning so I've not been able to test it fully. I will do more testing this evening.

I'm not sure if this will be of any use but the spec of the server is:
Motherboard: XFX 630I+VGA MG-63MI-7109
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4600
Memory: Corsair 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 CL5
Storage: 2x Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB
Power Supply: Arctic Power 500W

Original Motherboard: Foxconn 946GZ7MA-8KRS2H
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Post by mstombs » Tue May 12, 2009 8:42 pm

Random suggestions:

More likely to be an issue with device driver than kernel on its own - if you are using a motherboard Ethernet port do you have a standalone card you can try? What version Ubuntu are you using? I'm sure your processor would support the 64 bit version. Finally try more ram, I imagine things could go wrong if ram runs out due to buffering high speed transfer (Network faster than disk?) and the OS tries to use virtual ram - on disk.
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Post by studioeng » Wed May 13, 2009 9:52 am

mstombs wrote:More likely to be an issue with device driver than kernel on its own - if you are using a motherboard Ethernet port do you have a standalone card you can try?
Yeah, there is also an Intel gigabit ethernet card in the server; which I WAS using before I switched to 9.04 as the earlier versions didn't register the nVidia ethernet properly.
mstombs wrote:What version Ubuntu are you using? I'm sure your processor would support the 64 bit version.
By version you mean 32 or 64bit? I'm using the 32bit version, only as I've read that currently the 64bit version holds no substantial benefits. Plus I'm a little unsure to dive into 64bit servers just yet. But I shall try the 64bit version this evening, it's worth a shot.
mstombs wrote:Finally try more ram, I imagine things could go wrong if ram runs out due to buffering high speed transfer (Network faster than disk?) and the OS tries to use virtual ram - on disk.
Yesterday I installed 9.04 to just one of the drives and ignored the second one, set up Samba and copied approx. 250GB of files to it. Later I copied that folder to another folder using SSH on the server, and once that completed I copied to yet another folder, again using SSH. Again the same thing happened, it kernel panic'd. Only difference is it was copying internally with no network traffic, apart from the SSH session.

While it was copying files I ran top and watched the memory usage, it pretty much sat at 1.5GB usage the entire time.

Would it Kernel panic if a storage device was reaching its capacity limit, or a certain percentage of it? Even though it would of been no where near at this point.

A side issue, I discovered that the processor was only running at 1.2GHz due to cpufreq not being set, so I changed that to 'performance' which made it full speed 2.4GHz, but alas it made no difference :(
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Post by studioeng » Thu May 14, 2009 9:45 am

I ran memtest test again all night and to my surprise when I checked it this morning the whole screen was red... I used the later version 2.11, so maybe the previous version missed something :/

Weird. I'm pretty sure I changed the memory once already.
I must of missed something ... :/
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