From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 26 15:24:20 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCB021065674 for ; Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:24:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from prvs=01172986d7=johnl@taugh.com) Received: from gal.iecc.com (gal.iecc.com [208.31.42.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 735678FC0A for ; Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:24:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from prvs=01172986d7=johnl@taugh.com) Received: (qmail 26993 invoked from network); 26 Aug 2008 15:18:59 -0000 Received: from simone.iecc.com (208.31.42.140) by mail1.iecc.com with QMQP; 26 Aug 2008 15:18:59 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 26 Aug 2008 15:24:18 -0000 Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:24:17 -0400 (EDT) From: John R Levine To: David Adam In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (BSF 962 2008-03-14) Cleverness: None detected MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Update to section 19.4 on disk mirroring X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:24:20 -0000 >> setting up bootable gmirror disks isn't wrong, it's seriously suboptimal since >> it involves a needless full copy of a disk, which takes hours rather than five >> minutes if you do it the easy way. > > In my case I found it to be an almost perfect procedure, because it > doesn't require bootable CD media. The disk copy in occurs while > the system is multiuser, and if you ignore the instruction to drop to > single user to start the resync, it'll still take Not That Long. It doesn't strike me as a good idea to do the first disk copy as multiuser unless you don't care about losing files that change during the copy. I agree that you can do the insert and resync in multiuser. > I don't suppose many people are in the position of not being able to boot > a fixit CD though. They're pretty easy to download and burn, and if you care enough about your system to do disk mirrors, I expect you'll probably keep a set of CDs around in case of non-hardware disasters. Regards, John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.