dd Input/output error (DL380G5/RHEL3U8)

[Michael BUTOW]

Hello,

We are unable to copy with dd(1) one logical disk to another on our DL380G5 running RHEL3U8.
We reproducibly get an I/O error message:

[root@DSS1 root]# dd if=/dev/cciss/c0d0 of=/dev/cciss/c0d1
dd: reading `/dev/cciss/c0d0': Input/output error
71065440+0 records in
71065440+0 records out

Here some infos on the RAID:

[root@DSS1 root]# hpacucli ctrl all show config

Smart Array P400 in Slot 1 (sn: PA2240J9STJ31B)

array A (SAS, Unused Space: 0 MB)

logicaldrive 1 (33.9 GB, RAID 1+0, OK)

physicaldrive 2I:1:1 (port 2I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 36 GB, OK)
physicaldrive 2I:1:2 (port 2I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 36 GB, OK)

array B (SAS, Unused Space: 0 MB)

logicaldrive 2 (33.9 GB, RAID 0, OK)

physicaldrive 1I:1:7 (port 1I:box 1:bay 7, SAS, 36 GB, OK)

The following error messages were found in /var/log/messages:

Apr 27 12:16:51 DSS1 kernel: cciss: cmd f7c20000 is reported invalid Apr 27 12:16:51 DSS1 kernel: cciss: cmd f7c2024c is reported invalid Apr 27 12:16:51 DSS1 kernel: cciss: cmd f7c2024c is reported invalid Apr 27 12:16:51 DSS1 kernel: cciss: cmd f7c20498 is reported invalid Apr 27 12:16:51 DSS1 kernel: cciss: cmd f7c20000 is reported invalid


dd does not show the same problem on another system DL380G4 running RHEL3U4.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Michael

[Ivan Ferreira]

I know that the command worked in another server, but I'm not used to use dd to copy disks to disks. dd will do a raw copy and will try to copy all data and metadata, including partition types, logical volume information, duplicating some unique identifiers. Also the dd command will parse the whole disk, even if no data is in there.

Worst yet, you did not specified a block size, that operation will be the slowest possible.

To avoid these kinds of problems, I suggest you that if you are copying file system data/information, create a new file system in the other disk, mount the source and destination file systems, and use a command like cp -Rp, tar, star, cpio, to transfer the data from file system to file system. This will speed up your operation.