[3063] in SIPB-AFS-requests
Re: FY98 budgeting and AFS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mhpower@MIT.EDU)
Wed Jul 15 19:09:41 1998
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 19:09:37 -0400
From: mhpower@MIT.EDU
To: ghudson@MIT.EDU
Cc: sipb-machine-room@MIT.EDU, sipb-afsreq@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: "[3061] in SIPB-AFS-requests",
"[0022] in SIPB machine room issues"
>I don't understand this argument at all. Why does a Box Hill RAID
>unit require "Box Hill RAID familiarity" but a Seagate disk does not
>require "Seagate disk familiarity?"
A Seagate disk does require "Seagate disk familiarity", but lots of
people who might be interested in maintaining the sipb afs cell will
have already been responsible for a Seagate disk in the past (and thus
may know about the issues of jumper settings, types of cables used,
cooling requirements, etc.). Also, I believe there's a significant
increase in the complexity and obscurity of what one needs to know to
maintain file service using a RAID unit, relative to using an isolated
SCSI disk. I don't know exactly how the Box Hill unit signals
problems, but if one sees a message saying "Disk 5 has transitioned to
status BOBO", one may need some significant background to understand
what to do next. Is that a normal condition that can be ignored? Does
it require an immediate shutdown? Is it straightforward to figure out
what data storage, if any, relies on disk 5, so one can determine if
it's critical enough that there should be an immediate tape backup
before the disk transitions to a status even worse than "BOBO"?
Matt
