On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 03:38:35PM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> > > "Don't know whether I understand you correctly, but RAID1 array sync is
> > > started with firstboot after the installation finished."
> > >
> > > Err....no it doesn't.... it syncs the array as it installs, do a
> > > cntrl-alt-f3 when installing to bring a shell up then do a "watch cat
> > > /proc/mdstat"
> >
> > I've observed this too. Really irritating.
>
> RAID1 has to sync as you create it -
no it doesn't. It could delay the sync until after the first boot
or until later in the install process.
> and if it doesn't complete and
> shut down cleanly it will do it again on the first boot. With
Fine.
> hardware that is reasonable to run as RAID1 it shouldn't be
> noticeable.
guess you haven't been paying attention to your installs.
> Why is it irritating?
Because it's trying to do the sync at the same time that the installer
is trying to install packages, so the disk heads have to seek all over
the place to try to service the competing I/O requests.
A much better approach would be to delay the sync until after the first
boot, or to have the installer give you the option to do the sync after
the packages have been written to disk but before the reboot.
danno
--
dan pritts - systems administrator - internet2
734/352-4953 office 734/834-7224 mobile
