Re: Large Partition Disks Freezing

[christos%astron.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas)]

In article 
<AANLkTikOnqhxZLSTzkf995KitcDb_qBQr_7dU=H37-gu%mail.gmail.com@localhost>,
Nathan Staley  <njstaley%iastate.edu@localhost> wrote:
>I'm setting up a server to hold a postgresql database.  The database
>is to be stored on external disks.  Some times, the system runs as
>expected, but often, it the disks seem to lock up.
>
>About half of the lock ups simply freeze the disks, and any terminal
>sessions that try to use them (postgres, df, etc), while other times,
>the entire system crashes.  In either case, when the system locks up,
>I am forced to run fsck on the disks before being able to mount them
>again.
>
>The disks have been partitioned with gpt (to bypass the 2TB limit)
>from netBSD 5.1_RC4, and the system is currently running netBSD 5.1.
>
>The external disks are a Dell PowerVault MD1120.
>
>Is there anything I should check to determine what is causing the
>disks to fail, or any steps that I could take to prevent the disks
>from failing as often?
>
>Thank you for your time,
>
>Nathan Staley

I would try to run a current kernel with COMPAT_50 on it and see if
the problem has been fixed. I vaguely recall something broken with > 2TB
filesystems.

christos