-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday, 2010-03-14 at 21:57 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
0On 2010/03/15 02:27 (GMT+0100) Carlos E. R. composed:
I'm now very wary of doing tests. :-/
What I suggested wouldn't be a very involved "test". Just copy two files to a stick that you've installed Grub onto, and capture some log files that result from using AHCI instead of IDE BIOS settings, to see if others' recommendation to use AHCI has any real payoff.
I don't have any stick with grub on it, nor any free (ie, available) one.
USB is far slower than the HD.
Far slower in this case maybe amounts to 10 seconds at most increase in boot time. Kernel and initrd only need to be read once per boot. Nothing but those two, and Grub, need to load from the slower source. After that, all reads and writes depend on what's been mounted and what if anything you choose to do.
Look, tomorrow (now it is past 2 AM, and I get up at 6) I'll set the external sata drives to AHCI, and try to boot from the remaining internal disks, on IDE mode. I'll try to see if the external disks can be found.
Is that good enough for you?
I'm just putting some thoughts to words that might be useful. Nothing I need to do depends on what you choose to do with your system. :-) That said, I expect you'll be pleased with what results from your plan for the morning.
Ok, I tested. In the bios setup screen, in the "standard cmos features" I get the list of disks found (ide mode, the default mode for this board): sata 1 \ sata 2 | sata 3 | (C) sata 4 | sata 5 | sata 6 / ide primary master ide primary slave sata 7 \ (B) sata 8 / e-sata 1 \ e-sata 2 / (A) The "integrated peripheral" section, contains these options: On board E-sata controller enabled raid mode ide (options: ide, raid, ahci) (A) Extra raid/ide controller enabled raid mode ide (options: ide, raid, ahci) (B) on-chip ata devices pci ide bus master disabled on chip sata controller enabled raid mode ide (options: ide, raid, ahci) (C) If in this last one I set "ahci" I get a new line: AHCI devices group Pressing enter on this one I see AHCI settings (not enterable) AHCI CD/DVD boot time out 35 (options: 0, 5, 10,..,35) AHCI Port 1 [Not detected] AHCI Port 2 [Not detected] ... AHCI Port 6 [Not detected] If I enter any of these ports, I see: AHCI port 1 Auto (options: auto/not installed) hard disk smart enabled (options: enabled/disabled) Now, if I set the group (C) to "ahci", the system does not boot. I get a black screen with a blinking cursor. If, instead, I set group (A) (two identical 500GB external disks) to ahci, and group (B) to ahci (one 320GB refurbished HD), the system boots, but not normally. After the bios post test, I get: http://picpaste.com/Imagen0192.jpg and after I press the key, I get: http://picpaste.com/Imagen0194.jpg My guess is that it is scanning for a raid setup. This is slow, about 20". After this the system boots. All disks are accesable. The one on "sata 1" is /dev/sdd, and the one on "e-sata 2" is now "/dev/sda". Notice that if the external disks are not powered on during boot, sda is sata1 (as it should be). This is why we can no longer use the classical device names in fstab, except on a few lucky systems. /dev/disk/by-label/Jazz_2 -> ../../sda1 I do a speed test on it (hdparm -tT /dev/sda), and I get: /dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 13528 MB in 2.00 seconds = 6772.15 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 340 MB in 3.00 seconds = 113.19 MB/sec Now I reboot, and change back the settings to "IDE". I redo the speed test: /dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 14162 MB in 2.00 seconds = 7089.54 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 340 MB in 3.00 seconds = 113.17 MB/sec Thus, your claims that I would get a speed advantage using AHCI is not valid on my system. And I actually can plug/unplug it "hot". The log is quite verbose: hd power off event: Mar 15 22:13:42 Elessar kernel: [ 4958.121689] ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x990000 action 0xe frozen Mar 15 22:13:42 Elessar kernel: [ 4958.121700] ata1: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed Mar 15 22:13:42 Elessar kernel: [ 4958.121707] ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg 10B8B Dispar LinkSeq } Mar 15 22:13:42 Elessar kernel: [ 4958.121716] ata1: hard resetting link Mar 15 22:13:43 Elessar kernel: [ 4958.844030] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) Mar 15 22:13:48 Elessar kernel: [ 4963.844011] ata1: hard resetting link Mar 15 22:13:48 Elessar kernel: [ 4964.149026] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) Mar 15 22:13:48 Elessar kernel: [ 4964.149042] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps Mar 15 22:13:53 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.149010] ata1: hard resetting link Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455025] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310) Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455039] ata1.00: disabled Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455052] ata1: EH complete Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455060] ata1.00: detaching (SCSI 0:0:0:0) Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455824] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455879] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455889] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Stopping disk Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455903] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] START_STOP FAILED Mar 15 22:13:54 Elessar kernel: [ 4969.455910] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK hd power on event: Mar 15 22:17:47 Elessar kernel: [ 5202.656925] ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x4000000 action 0xe frozen Mar 15 22:17:47 Elessar kernel: [ 5202.656937] ata1: irq_stat 0x00000040, connection status changed Mar 15 22:17:47 Elessar kernel: [ 5202.656944] ata1: SError: { DevExch } Mar 15 22:17:47 Elessar kernel: [ 5202.656953] ata1: hard resetting link Mar 15 22:17:53 Elessar kernel: [ 5208.582023] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Mar 15 22:17:53 Elessar kernel: [ 5208.582039] ata1.00: link online but device misclassifed Mar 15 22:17:53 Elessar kernel: [ 5208.582042] ata1: link online but 1 devices misclassified, retrying Mar 15 22:17:53 Elessar kernel: [ 5208.582049] ata1: reset failed (errno=-11), retrying in 5 secs Mar 15 22:17:57 Elessar kernel: [ 5212.656012] ata1: hard resetting link Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.584020] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.587938] ata1.00: ATA-8: ST3500418AS, CC38, max UDMA/133 Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.587947] ata1.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32) Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589250] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589262] ata1: EH complete Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589358] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3500418AS CC38 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589548] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0 Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589565] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465 GiB) Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589631] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589639] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589666] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.589856] sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 > Mar 15 22:17:58 Elessar kernel: [ 5213.652364] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk Notice the "SATA link up 3.0 Gbps" above, and the partitions found correctly, so hotpluging works as it should. What could I gain by setting ahci mode in the bios? A failed boot, perhaps having to boot from a usb stick, no speed advantage... All sort of problems. My guess is that it is some type of RAID configuration, not really AHCI setup. And if it is AHCI, the bios can not find the disks, specially the group (C), the internal main disks. Perhaps it needs sometype of special disk for it to work on this system. And as far as I can see, I got the latest bios. I don't know if it came that way, or the chaps than assembled my computer did it for me. They took their time... - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkueqCMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9Vb/ACcDENuFHKOGTf9u7gWw57m2q8j 8jsAnjWgt9tPc8tt0Ss2sSY6ucnhfWqS =VupK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org