On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:35:06PM +1100, Anthony Hogan wrote:
I have my system (Gigabyte P55A-UD4 r1 F15 firmware) configured in AHCI mode with a 1+3 TB HDDs, and a DVD drive.
ata5 = 1TB SATA (msdos partition scheme) ata9 = DVD SATA ata10 = 3TB SATA (GPT scheme to use 3TB as one, but not a boot drive) ata16 = Appears to be virtual "Marvell" device
(I am not using hardware or fake RAID, and have disabled eSATA port)
I have two 6Gbps SATA ports, and the rest are 3 I think. One of the 6GB ports goes to the 3TB drive, the other goes to a docking bay in the case that I use to do occasional offline backups.
The kernel seems to be bitching about the DVD drive all the time (and sometimes my 1TB drive), and I'm not quite sure why. Buggy AHCI? Crappy SATA cables? Something else? Used AHCI mode for ages, but only with upgrade to Ubuntu version that I've noticed more bitching.
The other day, my 1TB drive got pushed into read only mode on boot - I did several SMART tests and an fsck from a live environment and nothing out of the ordinary came up (I have recently installed Windows 10 in dual boot, but prior to that had Windows 7 - Windows didn't touch grub at all).
some things to try: 0. stating the obvious, but maybe try a different kernel. you don't mention what version of ubuntu you're running (the latest?) but you could see if there's an updated kernel for it. if there isn't one, you could use the liquorix kernel (latest liquorix version which runs on both debian and ubuntu is linux-image-4.3-3.dmz.6-liquorix-amd64. i've installed that but haven't got around to rebooting yet, so am still running linux-image-4.3-3.dmz.2-liquorix-amd64). http://liquorix.net/ 1. disable AHCI in the BIOS. 2. disable AHCI in the BIOS and move both SATA drives onto the Marvell 6Gbps ports and use the sata_mv driver (which is in the mainline kernel, has been for years). The driver has a few parms that might be worth reading about and experimenting with. $ modinfo sata_mv | grep -v alias filename: /lib/modules/4.3-3.dmz.2-liquorix-amd64/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_mv.ko version: 1.28 license: GPL description: SCSI low-level driver for Marvell SATA controllers author: Brett Russ srcversion: DD7FD903CFF2406E08B557D depends: libata intree: Y vermagic: 4.3-3.dmz.2-liquorix-amd64 SMP preempt mod_unload modversions parm: msi:Enable use of PCI MSI (0=off, 1=on) (int) parm: irq_coalescing_io_count:IRQ coalescing I/O count threshold (0..255) (int) parm: irq_coalescing_usecs:IRQ coalescing time threshold in usecs (int) According to http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3436#sp the marvell ports should be labelled GSATA3_6 and GSATA3_7 NOTE: I'm not a fan of marvell sata (i had problems with them in the distant past but the bugs have probably been fixed long ago, and they're not exactly high-performance controllers, they're decidedly low-budget stuff), but it's worth a try. the DVD can stay where it is on one of the 3Gbps SATA ports. 3. Check all other settings in the BIOS and make sure they're reasonably sane. Since BIOS features and options tend to be extremely badly documented (if at all) this isn't as easy as it sounds. unless you have another computer with internet access nearby you be able to google any of the more obscure settings from the BIOS. and the "helpful descriptions" of the options in the bios screen are generally neither helpful nor descriptive. 5. Buy a 2 or 4 port PCI-e SATA 3 6Gbps card using a known good chipset. The trouble is that it's difficult to know what you're getting - many of the cheaper cards use marvell chips anyway (and probably older versions than what's on your m/b). if you want to be certain you're getting something good and don't mind a bit of overkill for the task at hand, look for one of the LSI 2008 SAS controllers. there are many brands with re-badged versions, including the IBM M1015 which typically sell for around $100 on ebay for an 8-port card - I have three of these and they're great. OTOH, $100-ish is not too far off what the cheapest new Haswell CPU + m/b would cost. 5. which brings us to the final option: replace the m/b and cpu. The cheapest possible replacement would be a G1840 CPU for around $57 and an Asrock H81M-DGS motherboard (with 2xSata 6Gbps and 2xSata 3Gbps ports) for $69. the LGA1150 and LGA1156 both use DDR3 so no need to get new ram. total would be around $126. for $20 more you could get the Asrock B85M Pro3 which has 4 x Sata 6Gbps and 2 x Sata 3Gbps. dunno what CPU you've got in your current board or how it compares to the G1840....but swapping the m/b should not only fix your current problem by getting rid of the problematic hardware, it would also give you a viable upgrade path for more RAM and better CPUs (all the way up to Xeon CPUs like the E3-1241V3)...whereas LGA1156 is dead and buried by now. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>