M1015 (flashed to IT mode) weird hotswap behavior.

[Z300M]

I have a total of nine 2TB Seagate drives (two different models) in two iStarUSA BPU-350SATA drive cages.

One drive is connected to a motherboard SATA port. The other eight are connected to an M1015 that has been flashed to IT mode with Phase 16 firmware.

FreeNAS version is 8.3.1-RELEASE-p2-x64.

I have just discovered that if I power down a drive connected to the M1015, FreeNAS detects that the drive has been disconnected but does not "find" it again when I power it up again. But it does find it if I plug it into a different slot -- or if I first plug a different drive into that first slot and then replace that by the original drive.

Is this how it is supposed to work? What if I did not have an empty slot or a spare drive? Is this a bug?

 

[cyberjock]

I've never tested hotswap on my M1015. When I was experimenting I found that alot of hardware that supports hotswap doesn't work quite right. Not sure if it was a driver or hardware issue, but it just wasn't quite right. I'd say you've probably found another case of hardware that just doesn't work "quite right".

My guess is that the controller remember the "failed" disk when it is unplugged and doesn't "reattach" the disk automatically. The last thing you wanting is a failed disk to detach, then reattach, then detach again forever. That could wreck some major problems for a drive that is detaching and reataching every few seconds all weekend long. So it's probably trying to be smart and just dropping that drive permanently. When you put in another disk, then remove it its only seeing a drive change so its allowing the remount with the old "failed" disk.

 

[Z300M]

Yes, that makes a lot of sense.