X-Original-To: pgsql-general-postgresql.org@localhost.postgresql.org Received: from localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A8FE9FA29C for ; Fri, 12 May 2006 04:18:42 -0300 (ADT) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 94001-07 for ; Fri, 12 May 2006 04:18:37 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey- Received: from wolff.to (wolff.to [66.93.197.194]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0A7EC9F946D for ; Fri, 12 May 2006 04:18:36 -0300 (ADT) Received: (qmail 13364 invoked by uid 500); 12 May 2006 07:19:57 -0000 Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 02:19:57 -0500 From: Bruno Wolff III To: "Jim C. Nasby" Cc: Bruce Momjian , "Joshua D. Drake" , Vivek Khera , "Pgsql-Performance \(\(E-mail\)\)" , PostgreSQL General Subject: Re: Arguments Pro/Contra Software Raid Message-ID: <20060512071957.GD9151@wolff.to> Mail-Followup-To: Bruno Wolff III , "Jim C. Nasby" , Bruce Momjian , "Joshua D. Drake" , Vivek Khera , "Pgsql-Performance ((E-mail))" , PostgreSQL General References: <4463BCE7.6090202@commandprompt.com> <200605112320.k4BNKR221040@candle.pha.pa.us> <20060511234124.GC4268@pervasive.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060511234124.GC4268@pervasive.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200605/531 X-Sequence-Number: 95323 On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 18:41:25 -0500, "Jim C. Nasby" wrote: > On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 07:20:27PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > My damn powerbook drive recently failed with very little warning, other > than I did notice that disk activity seemed to be getting a bit slower. > IIRC it didn't log any errors or anything. Even if it did, if the OS was > catching them I'd hope it would pop up a warning or something. But from > what I've heard, some drives now-a-days will silently remap dead sectors > without telling the OS anything, which is great until you've used up all > of the spare sectors and there's nowhere to remap to. :( You might look into smartmontools. One part of this is a daemon that runs selftests on the disks on a regular basis. You can have warnings mailed to you on various conditions. Drives will fail the self test before they run out of spare sectors. There are other drive characteristics that can be used to tell if drive failure is imminent and give you a chance to replace a drive before it fails.