From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753446AbZAaNgh (ORCPT ); Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:36:37 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751896AbZAaNg3 (ORCPT ); Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:36:29 -0500 Received: from mail-ew0-f31.google.com ([209.85.219.31]:39940 "EHLO mail-ew0-f31.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750953AbZAaNg2 (ORCPT ); Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:36:28 -0500 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=MPteO/Mn7pz4OhE+eF4qpBFa+cS3TXBcR2tShocdC6F39FiQRfpQjeTYSENkS3Ol0S vnQ2VZ4vxYsja96A263h9eTwGql+hOTzVckXCFhEpDOmff8/jz7MG/8FJJQ7y9VAo6cH 4q2w13oGO1CPeJhzLMtrqGz3xHX2L3GF4DJT4= MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:36:26 +0100 Message-ID: <6bd94bae0901310536l2cd42fa1off60ee066fa0096b@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Spurious Filesystem corruption with ext3 + large (<400GB) hw RAID partition + SMP From: Manfred Wassmann To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hello, I'm experiencing spurious filesystem corruption problems with ext3 on a partition larger than 400 GB on a hardware SATA RAID. The problems first occured on an Intel dual core system with a custom installation DVD which uses a 32 bit 2.6.26 kernel with SMP enabled and a 4GB memory limit. The problems occured only randomly but it was possible to reproduce them reliably with a standard Ubunu installation disk using a 2.6.27-7 kernel (apparently also 32bit SMP kernel w 4GB limit). When installing Ubuntu a message appears in the kernel log stating: "EXT3-fs error (device sda6): ext3_vlid_block_bitmap: Invalid block bitmap - block_group = 3076, block = " This message is the first indication of any problem, the filesystem is then remounted readonly and the installation stops understandably. The problem does only occur with an ext3 filesystem, installation using an xfs filesystem completes without error. Furthermore with the installation from my custom installation DVD succeeded, which installs a prebuild Debian etch system featuring a 64 bit monolithic 2.6.26 kernel, i was able to stress the system to its limits using the stress and dbench programs without any sign of filesystem corruption. As XFS does substantially outperform ext3 under the given circumstances I'm going to use that but if someone wants to investigate the problem and needs further details I'll do my very best ;-) regards Manfred Wassmann